Chainlink is a decentralised oracle network: it hands smart contracts on a blockchain exactly the data they cannot see for themselves. Prices, interest rates, reserve balances, weather data, results from other blockchain networks. The LINK token pays the machines that fetch and certify that data. To understand what Chainlink is in economic terms, the price is the wrong place to start. Begin with the question of what anyone is paying for.
The project publishes the figure that shows it: $36.4 trillion in transaction value has passed through Chainlink oracles by its own count up to the start of October. This article explains what sits behind that, which services exist, what role the token plays and what an investor in Germany needs to know about buying, custody and the tax office.
Chainlink is an oracle network, not a blockchain of its own
An oracle in crypto is a bridge: a facility that carries information from outside a blockchain inside, in a form a smart contract can work with. Chainlink runs no main network of its own that holds balances. The Chainlink software runs on inde...
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