A recent research report by Bank of America indicates that Chainlink, the industry standard oracle network across all blockchains, could be the game-changer that generates mainstream adoption of next-gen blockchain use in sectors like finance, insurance, supply chain, gaming and gambling.
Chainlink was the likely catalyst that helped spark the growth of decentralized finance’s (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) to $203 billion as of Feb. 15. Analysts led by Alkesh Shah said the gain was 313% year-on-year, CoinDesk reported on Thursday (Feb 17).
See also: DeFi Could Be Divided Into Regulated and Unregulated Sectors
As of Feb. 15, Chainlink oracles secured more than $60 billion deposits into smart contracts, up from $7 billion at the end of 2020, the bank said.
BofA’s report followed an investor call with Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. The decentralized oracle network (DON) — which enables the creation of hybrid smart contracts — experienced a surge in adoption.
Read more: Alchemy Integrates Chainlink for Enhanced DEX Trading, DeFi Borrowing
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Over 2.5 million verifiably random numbers for non-fungible token (NFT) distribution and gaming came from the blockchain, according to the Bank of America report, up from close to zero at the end of 2020.
“Oracles also enable the next generation of blockchain use cases, which require real-world data and could disrupt mature industries,” the bank’s analysts said.
More than 1,100 projects use Chainlink’s network, including the Associated Press, AccuWeather, Sportmonks and 800 others that have tapped oracle nodes to bring their data up to date, according to the report.
Chainlink’s token, LINK, is the 22nd largest crypto by market value at $8.1 billion, according to the BofA report.
See also: NFT Lending Protocol JPEG’d Teams With Chainlink for CryptoPunks-Backed Loans
NFT lending protocol JPEG’d partnered with Chainlink in October 2021 to enable borrowing using CryptoPunks as collateral. Chainlink price feeds will power DeFi services on JPEG’d and people holding high-value NFT collections can get loans backed by their holdings, PYMNTS reported.
