Swiss Crypto Bank Amina Partners Pyth Network to Provide Accurate Price Feeds

July 9, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Pyth Network boosts Morph DeFi ecosystem with real-time price feeds

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Chainlink leads the market with 61% weekly gain — What’s driving LINK price?

October 27, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

LINK price pulled off a shocking double-digit rally over the past week, but exactly what is behind the move?

The Chainlink’s (LINK) token surged by a substantial 61.3% from Oct. 20 to Oct. 25, reaching a peak of $11.78 and marking its highest point since May 2022. LINK price then stabilized around $10.50, prompting investors to question the sustainability of this new price level.

*Chainlink (LINK) token price, 12-hour, USD. Source: TradingView*

It's worth noting that this surge coincided with Bitcoin's (BTC) 23% gain during the same period. However, LINK's performance stands out in comparison to Ether's (ETH) 14% increase and Solana's (SOL) 28% rally, suggesting increased bullish sentiment toward Chainlink's leading oracle and decentralized computing solutions.

Chainlink partnerships and integrations back the rally

Several recent developments have contributed to LINK's outperformance of its peers. Notably, the announcement of Chainlink's upcoming native staking upgrade set for release in the next couple of months garnered significant attention. The initial staking pool was a resounding success, filling up in less than three hours, and the planned expansion promises greater flexibility through staking withdrawals, improved security guarantees, and dynamic rewards.

Additionally, Chainlink's integration into various blockchain networks has fueled optimism among LINK investors. For instance, on Oct. 15, Chainlink revealed its provision of services to Advanced Crypto Strategies DAO, a multi-chain yield optimizer and automated liquidity manager, and Equilibria, a yield booster for Pendle Finance.

By Oct. 22, Chainlink services had been integrated into Cobo Global, an institutional-grade digital custody solution, StaFi Protocol's liquid staking solution for Proof-of-Stake chains, Ethereum's on-chain derivatives platform Thales Market, and Xena Finance, which offers 50x perpetual futures on Coinbase's Base chain.

On Oct. 24, telecom giant Vodafone made a significant announcement, revealing its digital asset arm's involvement in the Chainlink network as a node operator. This came after completing a proof-of-concept with the Japanese trading and investment company Sumitomo for the exchange of trade documents across platforms.

FTX and Alameda Research bankruptcy liquidation fear dissipates

The price of LINK came under pressure following the Delaware Bankruptcy Court's approval of the sale of FTX and Alameda Research cryptocurrencies on September 13. Initially, there were concerns about the potential liquidation of $3.4 billion worth of digital assets, including LINK, which raised fears of a market crash. However, recent transfers from wallets associated with the bankruptcy estate have been gradual and had little impact on prices.

As the concerns related to the FTX and Alameda Research bankruptcy subsided and renewed interest in mid-capitalization altcoins emerged with Bitcoin's rise above $32,000 on Oct. 23, investor interest in LINK grew. Consequently, the demand for leveraged long positions in LINK reached a three-month high, as indicated by the funding rate.

A positive funding rate indicates that longs (buyers) are seeking increased leverage, while the opposite scenario arises when shorts (sellers) require additional leverage, leading to a negative funding rate.

*LINK average perpetual contracts 8-hour funding rate. Source: Coinglass*

It's worth noting that the current 0.014% 8-hour rate translates to a 0.3% cost over a seven-day period, which is not significant for traders building futures positions. Typically, when there is an imbalance driven by excessive optimism, the rate can easily exceed 1.0% per week.

In addition, the number of active addresses in the Chainlink network has reached an 11-month high, as reported by Messari and Coinmetrics data.

*Chainlink 1-day unique active addresses. Source: Messari/Coinmetrics*

Interestingly, the previous peak occurred on Nov. 7, 2022, when FTX exchange issues led to a six-month high in LINK's price at $38.32. This coincides with concerns surrounding FTX exchange's withdrawals and apprehensions about the impact of its native token FTT following Changpeng "CZ" Zhao's decision to liquidate Binance's holdings of FTT the previous day.

The subsequent 30 days proved to be extremely negative for LINK's price, with the token plummeting by 51.7% to $18.50. Nevertheless, LINK enthusiasts need not be concerned this time, given the substantial developments in its ecosystem and the promising advancements in Chainlink's native staking solution.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

More Than $892,000,000 Lost in Exploits Involving Oracle Networks, According to New Binance Research

October 2, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Decentralized exchange GMX votes to use Chainlink low-latency oracles

April 25, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Arbitrum

A Chainlink exec said the oracles will improve GMX’s security by providing a more “strong degree of tamper-resistance when settling user trades.”

Chainlink’s (LINK) low-latency oracles will integrate with the decentralized exchange (DEX) GMX following a successful governance proposal that sought to provide more “granular” real-time market data to GMX v2.

Voting ended on April 25 at 12:00 am UTC, with over 96% of participating GMX tokenholders voting in favor of the proposal.

The new Chainlink oracles — which were built with the input of GMX core contributors — were brought in to improve upon the functionality of perpetual DEXs and price-sensitive trading on GMX, the author of the proposal explained.

The @GMX_IO community has officially approved a proposal to integrate Chainlink's new low-latency oracles as the launch partner in an on-chain vote with 96.28% approval.

This integration will enhance both the security and UX of GMX's derivatives protocol.https://t.co/sh1tLDLtps
— Chainlink (@chainlink) April 25, 2023

In addition, the low-latency oracles are said to strengthen security, further decentralize the protocol and improve upon the user experience, Johann Eid, the head of integration at Chainlink Labs, said.

While these new oracles utilize the same oracle node operators and data aggregation mechanisms used in existing Chainlink reference feeds, Eid explained that the new oracles extract data at a “higher frequency.”

“The new Chainlink low-latency oracles will utilize the same set of oracle node operators and multi-layered data aggregation mechanism currently deployed in existing Chainlink reference feeds, but operate via a pull-based mechanism to meet the speed requirements of DeFi derivatives.”

Eid explained the strengthened security will come from the low-latency oracles providing a “strong degree of tamper-resistance when settling user trades.”

Another Twitter commentator, Aylo, explained to their 62,600 followers on April 8 that the integration would “reduce exposure to stale price execution and value extraction” for GMX derivative traders.

So how does this help GMX?

In a nutshell:

This solution helps GMX reduce trading fees and increase efficiency and user experience.

It's also a huge security upgrade for the protocol. pic.twitter.com/SYLlM3gtvX
— Aylo (@alpha_pls) April 8, 2023

A beta version of the GMX-tailored, low-latency oracle feeds — which have been in the works since 2022 — are now available on the Arbitrum testnet.

In return for the service, Chainlink will receive 1.2% of protocol fees generated by the low-latency oracles from the GMX protocol.

Protocol fees include the fees paid by users from margin trading in addition to standard borrow fees and swap fees.

Eid stated that Chainlink would continue to refine its oracle services to GMX as the protocol continues to “expand” and “evolve.”

It appears as though GMX isn’t the first perpetual DEX to get on board with the new type of oracle though.

Matt Losquadro, a former ambassador of on-chain derivatives platform Synthetix, said it integrated a similar solution first, which was observed by a member of the GMX community prior to the proposal being put forward:

Synthetix hoodie spotted on the GMX forums.

Even GMX community members recognize that Synthetix Perps has had off-chain oracles for 4 MONTHS.

Anyway, who wants a hoodie? pic.twitter.com/GROlR2m4jH
— MattLosquadro.eth ⚔️ (@MattLosquadro) April 9, 2023

The Aribitrum-native GMX also launched on Avalanche (AVAX) in January 2022. It currently has a combined total value locked (TVL) of $669 million on the two networks, according to data from DeFiLlama.

It is currently the largest protocol on Arbitrum, which itself is the largest Ethereum layer 2 network by TVL.

Chainlink oracles were launched on Arbitrum in August 2021.

USD Coin (USDC), wrapped Ether (wETH) and wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) are the three largest tokens held on GMX, with shares of 43.6%, 23.2% and 16% respectively.

Magazine: Crypto Twitter Hall of Flame: Lark Davis on fighting social media storms, and why he’s an ETH bull: Hall of Flame

Blockchains need an interoperable standard to evolve, say crypto execs

April 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Blockchains without interoperability are like computers without an internet connection — incapable of transferring data and value, a Chainlink Labs executive says.

Blockchain technology needs a benchmark communications standard that can be easily integrated by every network in order for a complete transition from Web2 to Web3 to occur, industry commentators say.

Many expect there will be multiple blockchains and such an ecosystem requires communication protocols similar to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) used on the internet.

Ryan Lovell, director of capital markets at crypto price oracle solutions firm Chainlink Labs, told Cointelegraph that blockchains without interoperability are like what computers are without the internet — isolated machines thacannot transfer data and value across networks.

“To realize a fully interoperable blockchain ecosystem at scale, there needs to be an open communication standard analogous to the TCP/IP, which currently serves as the internet’s de facto connection protocol.”

Lovell believed a similar standard for blockchain networks would “pave the way for a seamless, internet-like experience” for the platform and their applications.

This is particularly important given that the last bull market saw a host of new layer-1 blockchains make their mark. However, nearly all of them operate in isolation from one another.

Lovell stressed that blockchain interoperability is “crucial” for financial institutions looking to tokenize real-world assets because that would ensure that liquidity isn’t “stifled” by only existing in a “siloed ecosystem.”

Brent Xu, the founder and chief executive of Umee — a lending platform backed by Cosmos’ Inter-blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) — tolCointelegraph that before real-world assets are brought on-chain, proper risk management systems need to be put in place to facilitate this interoperability.

Xu explained that financial institutions would need to tick off Know Your Client (KYC) credentials to ensure the authenticity of the real-world assets before being tokenized on-chain and then make sure that they can be identified by an on-chain proof-of-reserve audit.

In order to avoid an on-chain catastrophe, he stressed the risk of cutting corners simply isn’t worth it:

“Think of the ‘08 mortgage crisis. Tremendous financial value was lost due to a broken legacy system. Imagine if this value was ported into the blockchain ecosystem, we would see tremendous value loss due to the contagion.”

Cross-chain bridges, independent layer-2 sidechains and oracles are three of the most commonly used blockchain interoperability solutions to date. The first two operate solely on-chain, while the latter feeds off-chain data on-chain.

There have been issues with some of these solutions, however, most notably cross-chain bridges.

An October report highlighted that half of all exploits in decentralized finance (DeFi) took place on a cross-chain bridge, the most notable example being the $600 million Ronin bridge hack in March 2022.

Xu noted that many of these hacks have come from multi-signature security setups or proof-of-authority consensus mechanisms, which are considered to be centralized and much more vulnerable to attack.

He added that many of these interoperability solutions favored “speed of development” over security early on, which backfired.

The key, Xu said, is to incorporate interoperability within the platform, as that will result in a more secure end-to-end transaction than through the use of third-party bridges:

“Bridges are particularly susceptible because they provide two ends at which hackers can potentially infiltrate any vulnerabilities.”

Among the most commonly used blockchain interoperability protocols are Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP); the IBC, which leverages the Cosmos ecosystem; Quant Network’s Overledger and Polkadot.

Magazine: ZK-rollups are ‘the endgame’ for scaling blockchains, Polygon Miden founder

Solana-Based Defi Protocol Mango Markets Loses $117 Million in Hack, Exploit Allegedly Revealed in Project’s Discord in March

October 12, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Oracles