{"id":159,"date":"2023-06-23T14:44:31","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T18:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.tiingo.com\/blog\/?p=159"},"modified":"2023-06-23T14:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T18:44:32","slug":"what-is-chainlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tiingo.com\/blog\/what-is-chainlink\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Chainlink? Your Questions Answered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"What<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the past couple of years, blockchain technologies, such as those that underlie Bitcoin and Ethereum, have exploded into the public conversation. Driven partly by the staggering heights achieved by Bitcoin\u2019s price, as well as interest from governments, investment firms, and private individuals, more attention than ever is being paid to the promise of solutions based on decentralization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are now blockchain networks aimed at a wide variety of different use cases<\/a>, from basic money transfers to the Internet of Things to logistics to healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One consequence of this proliferation in blockchain-based apps is that interoperability can suffer. Different blockchains work on different protocols, serve different markets, and host different distributed applications (dApps). Data sharing between different projects \u2014 as well as between blockchains and the outside world \u2014 is incredibly difficult. This has hampered the pace at which blockchain is adopted and put to work solving real problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network that allows smart contracts to leverage external data sources, is one proposed solution. But that still leaves the question, \u201cWhat is Chainlink?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this piece, we\u2019ll cover Chainlink\u2019s overall mission, how its technology stack works, and how it\u2019s changing the broader blockchain ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Chainlink<\/strong>?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The chainlink network is a decentralized, open-source system of oracles that makes it possible for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain to interact with external data sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth unpacking a few definitions here before we proceed. In ancient Greek mythology, an oracle was a human being that had a connection to the gods and was thereby able to provide prophecy or information to those who sought their wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their own, blockchains generally don\u2019t have a native ability to access data from the outside world over an application programming interface (API). This is known as the oracle problem<\/a>, and it is exactly what is being solved by blockchain oracles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through an oracle, data transfers can occur between smart contracts and banking information or other kinds of real-world data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What oracles allow, in other words, is a bridging of the gap between on-chain applications and off-chain computation. Just as their mythological counterparts stood at the intersection between the secular and the divine, blockchain oracles stand at the intersection between the distributed ledger and all the rest of the world\u2019s data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our part, bridging data gaps is something of a Tiingo specialty. We provide Chainlink Node Operators a variety of different data feeds: from equity data, crypto data, low latency price feeds<\/a>, and new feeds<\/a> on yield and volatility that are launching soon.And not only do we provide data, Tiingo runs its own Chainlink Node<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n