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The Missing Link: How Chainlink’s Pallet Aims to Deliver Greater Informational Access

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The Missing Link: How Chainlink’s Pallet Aims to Deliver Greater Informational Access

As demand for smart contracts climbs, Chainlink’s modular oracle for the Substrate framework aims to power developers and defi applications with trusted off-chain information and pricing data needed to attract projects to Polkadot and Kusama.

Blistering Growth in Defi and Smart Contracts Beckon New Layer of Trust

As the smart contract revolution continues to gain traction, the fissures and flaws in existing infrastructure that supports these transactional protocols are becoming more apparent. Among the chief issues facing smart contracts, costs and security are the main factors in the spotlight.

To continue growing and scaling these unique protocols while not only addressing the accompanying shortcomings, smart contracts will effectively need to be “smarter.” Yet, given blockchains’ validation constraints, which are intended to preserve stability and security, there is a barrier to off-chain information by design.

Concerning smart contracts, satisfying contractual conditions may depend on external data (like pricing for instance), which may not be available on the corresponding blockchain hosting the contract itself. Besides creating a unique headache for developers, it corresponding restricts the use cases of smart contracts.

Chainlink stepped in with one answer among the pioneering solutions after introducing “oracles” to the blockchain universe. The main idea behind oracles involves connecting trusted external data sources to smart contracts, providing the missing link between the onchain and offchain worlds.

Smart Contract Adoption Depends on Data Access & Availability

Just like an API can connect two separate systems and share information, Chainlink can connect smart contracts to external data sources in the same manner. Akin to the premise that centralized sources of information can have a slant or bias, the idea behind Chainlink is to decentralize information inputs and outputs. This helps maintain a commitment to building open-source resources for developers that a single, controlling entity can’t compromise.

One of the main applications of Chainlink is pricing information, especially in the realm of decentralized finance (defi) applications. Borrowing and lending protocols like Aave already pull their rate pricing information from Chainlink, helping inform decisions and smart contract conditions. The architecture of oracles is such that they effectively provide another layer on top of existing blockchains, meaning they don’t compromise the integrity or security of the first layer.

Still, the oracle has many more applications besides defi. It can pull all manner of information, including weather conditions, sports results, and economic data changes, to name a few. To power these protocols and ensure greater adoption, smart contract access to off-chain data resources will be paramount.

Since Chainlink’s oracle was launched on Ethereum in 2019, it has been a mainstay among popular defi projects. Now the oracle is being adapted for other blockchains as the project attempts to maintain its agnostic stance. The latest iteration, designed for Polkadot and Kusama’s Substrate development framework, will act slightly differently from earlier versions.

The Pallet Module

Unlike the Ethereum version of Chainlink, which has nodes that report price information, Kusama and Polkadot parachains can individually determine whether they want to embrace Chainlink pricing data. By including their specific module, termed a “pallet,” developers can effectively bridge the Chainlink data into their respective smart contract applications.

For Polkadot Defi projects like Acala, this means that their parachain can choose to incorporate the oracle in a modular fashion. Yet, parachain projects that don’t need access to the data won’t be required to integrate the module. By extension, this means they won’t need to allocate any blockchain resources to Chainlink.

As defi projects seek greener pastures for more affordable cost structures and scalability, Polkadot and Kusama’s Chainlink integration will make it even easier for smart contract developers to make the leap. Meanwhile, a great number of alternative oracle-centric projects like Band, DIA, API3 are competing with Chainlink to offer similar services.

How do you see the oracles’ off-chain information impacting smart contracts usage? Let us know in the comments section below.

Polkadot’s Potential Gathers Momentum as Tether Joins the Ecosystem

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The largest stablecoin by market capitalization will be the first to enter the ecosystem as the Kusama canary network adds support for tether before the eventual deployments to parachains.

Tether Inclusion Complements Polkadot’s Efforts to Attract More Defi Applications

With cryptocurrency once again on the ascent and the aggregated market capitalization nearing $2 trillion, tether (USDT) is increasingly playing an outsized role in many of the ecosystem’s activities.

Since emerging as the stablecoin of choice for many participants and applications alike, Tether’s market capitalization has eclipsed $40 billion, underscoring its large footprint, which outstrips any competing stablecoins by a large margin.

Now, as decentralized finance (defi) applications expand new horizons while hunting for more cost-effective and scalable platforms, support for USDT in the Polkadot ecosystem will grant the stablecoin new avenues for growth.

A Partnership to Catalyze Adoption

Polkadot, which is in the process of rolling out its multi-chain network, has developed a reputation as a potent alternative for Ethereum due to its inherent security and scalability delivered through its unique parachains.

USDT compatibility will ensure that the many new and existing defi applications endeavoring to become parachains will have access to a stablecoin needed to facilitate borrowing and lending protocols, yield farming, and more.

At the outset, USDT will join Kusama, Polkadot’s canary network, which serves as a more flexible testing ground and sandbox for new projects to test features with looser governance. Given Tether’s widespread use, this network’s interoperability will help transfer value across the blockchain universe.

While Polkadot does not seek to displace competing blockchains, the inclusion of USDT will make it possible for users and projects to transition between networks smoothly. Above all, tether will ensure greater stability in planned Polkadot defi projects given its low volatility and ability to preserve value. Moreover, its properties make it an excellent liquidity source, which is paramount for running successful defi protocols.

This new development adds value for both Polkadot and tether by fusing stability with scalability and affordability. Together, these two projects are forging a promising relationship that can overcome many pain points currently hamstringing other networks’ growth.

Will we see a rise in tether’s value as a result of this? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

First Brick & Mortar NFT Art Exhibition Debuts In Beijing

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In an industry first, a physical exhibition for digital art in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFT) is set to launch in China, showcasing notable works from leading artists in the NFT space and the winning entries from a global digital artwork competition.

Initiative Designed to Forge Greater Connections Between the Physical and Digital Art Realms

As greater mainstream attention turns to the NFT collectible and art mania that delivers new auction records every passing month, one group of industry leaders is bringing digital art to the physical realm. With its inaugural event titled, “Virtual Niche – Have you ever seen memes in the mirror?” a group of leading NFT evangelists and platforms are attempting to bring the Bitcoin and Polkadot communities together alongside the more traditional art world.

On March 26th, the 14-day event will begin in the UCCA Lab in Beijing before transitioning to Shanghai’s JinArt Center. The exhibition, which features hosts and sponsorship from both the art world and digital ecosystem, is designed to highlight the expanding potential for digital art while fostering greater connections between the two communities.

Besides hosting works from high-profile NFT artists, including 20 works from Beeple and Robert Alice’s “Portraits of a mind,” the exhibition will showcase the six winners of a digital art competition run by BlockCreateArt (BCA). The competition, which received 200 entries, asked participants to use Kusama’s canary logo as the inspiration for their submissions.

Christie’s, which recently auctioned Beeple’s “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” for a record-breaking $69.3 million, will be serving as an education support partner for the event. Their session, “Valuing Art in the Digital Age,” will be run by Christie’s Sara Mao. Additionally, Kusama will also be holding NFT workshops over the weekends for aspiring Chinese artists.

Growing Competition in the NFT Ecosystem

Beyond the big-name organizations orchestrating and hosting the event, the initiative is also supported by the Kusama Treasury. Kusama has come into greater focus in the NFT space as it vies to provide an alternative to Ethereum-based applications that currently dominate the space.

Kusama, which behaves as Polkadot’s “canary” network, effectively allows developers to build projects in an ecosystem expressly designed for experimentation. The idea behind this parallel network is to give developers a proving ground for their applications before moving into a Polkadot parachain if the proof of concept manages to attract adoption and awareness.

The canary network is already home to many organic NFT projects. Among them is BCA, which oversaw the aforementioned digital art competition. Other prominent projects also working off the network include Moonbeam and Unique Network.

These initiatives aim to list on a Polkadot parachain and form the go-to ecosystem for NFTs through a range of connected services like the open-source components needed to mint digital collectibles. Ultimately, these projects aim to bring together the communities, all while facilitating ease of use for artists and other creators seeking to join this transformative trend.

When NFTs are shown in the physical world, doesn’t it simply misses the whole point? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Zeitgeist Brings a Prediction Markets Ecosystem to Polkadot’s Kusama

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Zeitgeist Brings a Prediction Markets Ecosystem to Polkadot’s Kusama

To capitalize on the growing popularity of blockchain trends like decentralized finance (defi), Zeitgeist will be rolling out a new native prediction platform for Polkadot to expand the scope of opportunities available for retail crypto investors.

New Network to Build on Substrate and Launch Exclusively on Kusama

Long before Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled the Bitcoin whitepaper that led to a flood of blockchain innovation, prediction markets were available in the form of organized betting, often on political outcomes. For centuries these markets existed, helping corral crowd-based wisdom in the form of betting odds, which remain popular to this day.

The blockchain iteration of these prediction markets promotes the same idea: determining the probability of informational outcomes based on speculation. Unlike cryptocurrency trading, these markets are binary, meaning either a positive or negative outcome results from a contract between two parties.

Predictions made using these systems are considered relatively accurate, either matching or outpacing alternative results from focus groups, experts, and opinion polls. As prediction markets intersect with the latest defi craze, one company is probing new uses for blockchain’s architecture in another significant expansion of decentralized finance’s horizons.

Zeitgeist, a startup that recently exited stealth mode, is pioneering a new base layer blockchain prediction market based on Substrate, the development framework pioneered by Polkadot.

A Base Layer Approach

After revealing the project and raising a $1.5 million seed round from a consortium of investors, Zeitgeist has unveiled its road map. The project, which will be exclusively governed by users holding its native ZTG token, expects to launch its testnet titled “Battery Park” and a Kusama parachain by the end of 2021.

Unlike other prediction markets that operate as decentralized applications running on top of blockchains, Zeitgeist is building its chain, or base layer, which will be launched exclusively on Kusama. Although related to Polkadot, Kusama is designed to host experimental protocols while providing a testing ground that reflects real-world conditions. This will enable the prediction market to operate at scale while minimizing transaction costs, opening access to parachain assets, and enabling for forkless upgrades.

Cryptocurrency exchanges ordinarily handle a limited number of cryptocurrency pairs and derivatives. By contrast, Zeitgeist plans to host thousands of different markets. Zeitgeist will initially support markets in cryptocurrency, sports and esports, politics, startups, and insurance. Together, these will open up immense potential opportunities to retail traders seeking to speculate on all manner of outcomes while also reviewing sentiment across informational areas.

Over time the platform intends to aggregate the information and data collected on the network to improve decision-making, envisioning itself as a future hub for Web3 predictions. Interestingly, it is also rolling out a feature called Futarchy, which will use insights from its own prediction markets to help gradually evolve the platform’s governance. Moreover, its construction on Substrate will help Zeitgeist be compatible with Polkadot if it intends to build on a network parachain in the future.

With the rise of blockchain prediction markets, what’s next for defi – sports betting? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Polkadot Lays Out Its Plans for Parachain Rollout as the Token’s Price Climbs

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Polkadot Lays Out Its Plans for Parachain Rollout as the Token's Price Climbs

The price of Polkadot’s native token hit an all-time high (ATH) this week, soaring above $30, as the company laid out the next steps of its plans and the systems to finalize the network launch.

Polkadot Roadmap Outlines Layer 0 Deployment Initiatives

Polkadot released a roadmap highlighting that it is currently in its Rococo phase, the first of three major phases until the network goes live.

Here is a breakdown of the roadmap.

Rococo Testnet Rollout

Polkadot (DOT) plans to continue with its launch of parachains, also referred to as application-specific data structures. These parachains, just like with parathreads, are what will allow Polkadot to pair with other more established networks, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin, through a mechanism called Cross-Chain Message Passing-lite.

Polkadot is still in the Rococo phase of testing its parachains. Once the code is evaluated and approved, we can expect to see Polkadot submit its vote via onchain governance to power the parachains and slot auctions on Kusama.

Kusama Rollout

The scalable multi-chain network, Kusama, is what Polkadot says will serve as an “additional proving ground” for parachains. It’s effectively a sandbox designed to support further testing and network effects before launching on Polkadot. Its looser parameters allow developers to test new ideas while also helping gain visibility amongst community members.

Enabling parachain functionality will ultimately fall down to a vote by Kusama governance. Should the rollout be approved, non-permissioned candle auctions will be used to allocate 100 parachain slot leases. Polkadot emphasizes that users can expect a new auction “roughly every two weeks,” with more set to come available as each lease expires.

Polkadot Slot Bidding

The slot bidding involved in parachain offerings plays a significant role. Rather than using the initial coin offering (ICO) model, which can be (and was) easily exploited due to the limited terms of proof needed, its parachain offerings incorporate candle auctions alongside a heavy focus on governance.

But these aren’t traditional candle auctions. Rather than taking the typical route of using a random number to determine the duration of its opening phase in bids, Polkadot’s will be retroactively determined, meaning that the bids that have been placed earliest stand the highest probability of success.

Once an auction has ended, Polkadot will deploy the winning parachain to the network at the beginning of its lease period. Parachain slots can be leased in six-month increments for a maximum of two years, after which they’ll go back up for auction.

Although difficult to estimate the costs of running these parachains, given the price, is “purely a function of market supply and demand,” as Polkadot is aiming for a safer and more secure way of bidding with its parachain auctions.

Next Steps

Once auctions have ended and these parachains are live, Polkadot says the network’s launch will be fully complete. While it’s possible to see future upgrades to the network, this scalability will ultimately be in the hands of its community.

What do you think about the Polkadot network and the project’s roadmap? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.