Author: Harmony, the latest IEO project held on Binance Launchpad, is now partnering up with Chainlink. The latter is the leading oracle service provider. Chainlink’s network delivers reliable, as well as secure input and output data. Blockchain-based smart contracts require this to function properly. Chainlink has already been recognized by some of the leading independent research firms and top blockchain projects because of its high-end and cutting edge technology.
What is an Oracle?
Certain applications need smart contracts to access off-chain information, but they are unable to access that data on their own. For instance, a smart contract which automatically deposits insurance amounts to travelers’ accounts in the case of a flight delay would need to know the flight schedule at the particular airport, as well as the current time.
An oracle represents a third party information source which can interact and exchange information with smart contracts. They trigger the execution of said smart contracts when there is a satisfying predefined condition. These oracles enable smart contracts to interact with real-world information and, as such, they expand the scope, as well as the impact of blockchain applications.
What Is the Role of Chainlink?
In order to function, oracles need a certain amount of both trust and authentication, which is contrary to the trustless nature of blockchain technology. Chainlink takes advantage of a highly decentralized network of oracle nodes to guarantee the end-to-end security of the data.
By allowing numerous data-pathways, also referred to as Chainlinks, to evaluate the same information before it is allowed to become a trigger, the network guarantees that the failure of one oracle node won’t compromise the integrity of the data or the smart contract functionality.
This information includes, but is not restricted to off-chain data feeds, traditional banking payments, web-based APIs. Chainlink is used to provide secure, as well as reliable oracle services to large-scale enterprises such as SWIFT and to smart contract developer teams.
Harmony and Chainlink
As developers of dApps expand their vision, their smart contracts end up requiring information from multiple real-world sources. The complexity of blockchain design increases over time as a single blockchain needs to support several oracle networks. The oracles, on their part, require blockchain networks which are extremely secure and scalable in order to support the high volume of information and to ensure that the information itself remains unadulterated.
Harmony designs a high throughput, fully secure, and low latency blockchain network. It takes advantage of an innovative sharding technique which is known as Deep Sharding. With it, the layer on which consensus happens is also sharded alongside the transaction layer to magnify the throughput of the network.
The beacon chain, along with the shard chains, improves the scalability and the security of the network. Additionally, a host of other features together guarantee that Harmony is going to be a reliable blockchain, providing connectivity for billions of people throughout the world.
One of the primary objectives of Harmony is to support innovations in the field of smart contracts. By choosing Chainlink as an oracle service provider, Harmony ensures that developers of DApps will be able to access real-world information efficiently and securely.
Oracles are a key piece of the smart contract ecosystem that Harmony wants to build. Chainlink will provide a key piece of that infrastructure. – Said Nick White, Co-Founder of Harmony.
Adding to the point was Daniel Kochis, the Global Head of Business Development at Chainlink, who said:
Securely accessing off-chain data and payment systems is a necessary capability to build out blockchain ecosystems, and Chainlink is excited to collaborate with Harmony to provide their developer community with reliable oracles.
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