Chainlink product updates for Q2 2024 are here

The fastest growing trend in the blockchain industry is the tokenization of financial assets (e.g., securities, funds) and physical assets (e.g., cash, gold). Tokenized assets are the focus of DeFi and TradFi, with DeFi introducing tokenized assets to increase liquidity and diversify returns, while financial institutions are also adopting tokenization to bring finance into the new digital era. Chainlink is at the forefront of asset tokenization and has partnered with issuers such as Paxos and 21Shares and major financial institutions such as Swift , DTCC , ANZ , and most recently, Fidelity International and Sygnum to study how CCIP and other Chainlink services can be used to unlock use cases for tokenized assets. These use cases demonstrate Chainlink's unique ability to provide data, computing, interoperability, and blockchain abstraction services as part of a single secure platform offering.

In Q2, we doubled down on our commitment to unlocking tokenization at scale through a variety of product innovations. Notable highlights include the launch of the Chainlink Digital Asset Sandbox, the first in a series of turnkey solutions designed by Chainlink Labs to accelerate digital asset innovation within financial institutions; the launch of Chainlink-powered Net Asset Value (NAV) solutions for DTCC , Sygnum, and Fidelity International ; Aave’s integration of CCIP to enable its GHO stablecoin to be cross-chain, and more. These initiatives are just the beginning of our ongoing efforts to transform the way the global financial system works, bringing greater transparency, security, efficiency, and control to businesses and consumers around the world.

The following product update will review progress made since the Q1 2024 update and provide insight into what’s coming next. In an upcoming YouTube video, we’ll discuss some of the product update highlights.

Please note that all future-proof reviews are subject to change based on user feedback, changing consumer needs, strategic resolve, and a variety of other unforeseen challenges and opportunities. This product update is intended to provide insight into previous releases and current thinking based on ongoing research and development, but it is not a final product roadmap; it attempts to balance transparency with the need to remain agile in this dynamic industry that is constantly changing and evolving.

Chainlink platform.

Banking and Capital Market Solutions

Recent deployments

• The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the world’s largest securities clearinghouse, has announced the launch of a Smart NAV pilot to demonstrate how the Chainlink platform can automate and streamline the dissemination of net asset value (NAV) data and enable new use cases in fund tokenization. Participating companies include American Century Investments, Bank of New York Mellon, Edward Jones, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, JPMorgan Chase, MFS Investment Management, Mid Atlantic Trust d/b/a American Trust Custody, State Street, and Bank of America. The Smart NAV pilot validates Chainlink’s abstraction layer capabilities, where DTCC systems are integrated into a single CCIP endpoint that can then relay data to nearly any target blockchain.
• Fidelity International and Sygnum have partnered with Chainlink Labs to bring NAV data for Fidelity International’s $6.9 billion Institutional Liquidity Fund to blockchain. The collaboration provides Sygnum with unparalleled transparency and accessibility to key asset data for Sygnum’s recently launched on-chain representation of the Fidelity International Institutional Liquidity Fund. Sygnum, the global digital asset banking group, tokenizes $50 million of Matter Labs’ financial reserves held in the Fidelity International Money Market Fund and issues it as tokens on the ZKsync blockchain (a Chainlink Scale partner).
• Introducing the Chainlink Digital Asset Sandbox — a blockchain-agnostic business innovation environment that enables financial institutions to rapidly experiment with tokenization and collaborate on PoCs using Chainlink services in days, not months. The Sandbox provides a preconfigured business environment — with pre-built use cases, sample application workflows, and user interfaces — enabling product and digital asset teams to quickly experiment with tokenized assets with full utility and explore or demonstrate the potential of their digital asset visions internally.

What's next

• Continue to add more use cases and workflows to the Digital Asset Sandbox and develop more turnkey environments for financial institutions to test and develop tokenized assets and other financial services use cases involving blockchain technology and Chainlink services.
• Continued progress on the Blockchain Abstraction Layer (BAL) enables financial institutions to leverage blockchain technology and Chainlink services for a variety of use cases and operations without having to directly interact with complex blockchain primitives and infrastructure interoperability challenges.
• Tokenization of physical and financial real-world assets through PoR, NAV, collateral information, and price information.
• Establish a comprehensive certification system designed to train developers in capital markets, with a particular focus on helping banking and capital markets developers improve their use and expertise of blockchain technology. These certifications will serve as a valuable resource for potential banking and capital markets partners, providing them with insights and solutions to explore and integrate Chainlink into their on-chain operations.

Cross-chain

Recent deployments

• Aave, the largest DeFi lending market by TVL, will integrate CCIP into the decentralized stablecoin GHO to enable native cross-chain transfers between Ethereum and Arbitrum. GHO will be available on more blockchains over time, depending on the decision of the Aave community. Users can bridge GHO through CCIP today on transporter.io .
• Integrating support for the Celo and Mode blockchains into CCIP, which serves as their canonical cross-chain infrastructure. These CCIP integrations enable non-native tokens (i.e. tokens issued natively on another blockchain) to connect to these blockchain ecosystems, ultimately accelerating their growth. Learn more in the blog: How Blockchains Use Chainlink CCIP to Power Their Canonical Token Bridges .
• Integrate support for the Gnosis blockchain and expand the blockchains supported by CCIP.
• Added 20 new tokens and 3 blockchains to Transporter . These include the Celo, Gnosis, and Mode blockchains and the following tokens: GHO, BETS, BMX, Bridged mwBETH, DEXTF, DIP, DLCBTC, DPI, dsETH, hyETH, mDLP, MVI, mwBETH, REG, SDY, stTAO, TRUF, WECO, WSDM, and ZUN.
• Launched test.transporter.io for developers and end users to send testnet transactions and demonstrate applications without incurring mainnet gas costs.

What's next

• CCIP v1.5 is launching on mainnet after completing a series of audits and tests, including the recently announced competitive Codehawks audit competition. CCIP v1.5 will enable token issuers to integrate their tokens with CCIP in a fully self-service manner, while also being able to own token pool contracts and customize implementation logic (such as rate limiting). CCIP v1.5 will also enable CCIP to support EVM-compatible zkRollups.
• Launched CCIP Widget UI and SDK, a set of user-friendly front-end components with customizable pre-built UIs that simplify CCIP integration. This makes it easier for developers to quickly integrate CCIP into their dApps.
• Extend the CCIP local simulator to all other Chainlink services, turning it into a general-purpose Chainlink local simulator.
• Expand CCIP to more blockchains, increase the list of supported tokens, and open up new channels between chains.
• Adding new features to the Transporter, including transaction and wallet enhancements that improve the user experience.

data

Recent deployments

• In partnership with GMX, Chainlink’s low-latency data streams were launched on the Avalanche mainnet . Data streams now power Arbitrum and GMX V2 on Avalanche, and have helped its decentralized perps market reach $50 billion in volume.
• Data Feeds were launched on the Starknet mainnet , giving blockchain developers access to industry-standard off-chain data sources to power smart contract applications.
• DLC.Link integrates Chainlink Proof of Reserves to help ensure the minting security of dlcBTC (a non-custodial wrapped Bitcoin) and increase transparency of its reserves. The protocol also integrates CCIP to enable cross-chain transfers of dlcBTC.
• Expanded data streaming support to 24 different token markets , each updated at sub-second intervals and available across multiple blockchains.
• By launching new exchange rate feeds, Chainlink data feeds will be used to further drive adoption of liquidity staking and liquidity re-staking assets and protocols, establishing Chainlink as an important composability layer for LSTfi and LRTFi.

What's next

• Continue to work with the lending community to develop a hybrid rate oracle for LST pricing to optimize security and scalability.
• Rapidly expand the number of markets supported by data streams, including real-world assets and assets primarily traded on DEXs.
• Expand data streaming to other blockchains and continue onboarding more protocols on mainnet, with a focus on economically sustainable revenue-sharing protocols.

calculate

Recent deployments

• Chainlink Functions launched on Base mainnet and testnet. Base developers can now leverage Chainlink Functions in their applications to get on-demand data and computation.
• Introducing Chainlink VRF v2.5 , the next generation of the most widely adopted on-chain random number generator (RNG) across all supported networks in Web3. VRF v2.5 includes low-friction billing, more predictable pricing, and seamless upgrades
• Launched Chainlink Automation on Gnosis mainnet and testnet.
• A technical upgrade to Automation's UX enabled granular control over spending during gas peak periods.
• Improved Functions UX by providing more compute time, more memory, and larger callback gas upon request.
• Chainlink Automation has performed over 1,750,000 maintenance operations.
• Integrating Chainlink automation, functionality, and VRF on the Polygon Amoy testnet.

What's next

• Enhance the automation user experience with simplified billing and gas controls and expand its reach to more chain stores.
• Extend VRF and functionality to other Layer 2 networks.
• Expanding the Functions computing vision by gradually providing more direct customizability to users, adding more developer frameworks (such as Foundry), and adding external libraries and QuickStarts .

Chainlink Platform

We have been rapidly reinventing the foundations and technology of the Chainlink platform to meet the rapidly evolving needs of developers in capital markets, tokenization, and DeFi. Key focus areas for the Chainlink platform include:

• Chainlink Everywhere: Make Chainlink services readily available across dozens or even hundreds of blockchains and application chains.
• Developer First: Enable developers to build custom workflows in a flexible, self-service manner leveraging all Chainlink infrastructure capabilities.
• Improve efficiency: Make the Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Network (DON) more efficient, sustainable, and faster to support new product launches.

Developer Community

Recent highlights

• We launched Faucets 2.0 at EthCC, a new and improved user interface that makes it faster and easier to access testnet funds and more types of testnet funds.
• The Chainlink Block Magic Hackathon was completed , with nearly 400 entries received, covering various use cases such as finance, games, consumer applications, cross-chain and AI. It is worth noting that the number of participants in the Block Magic Hackathon in China doubled compared to the previous session.
• Ten-day Chainlink bootcamps were held in English , Spanish , Portuguese , Chinese , and Turkish . Developers can now access these bootcamps on demand via a hyperlink.
• Participated in various Web3 events and developer conferences, including ETHGlobal Sydney, ETHBelgrade, GMVietnam, ETHDubai and ETHBerlin.
• As part of our Web2 strategy, we attended React Summit and JS Nation in Amsterdam, where we gave talks and held workshops to help Web2 developers learn how to build in Web3.
• CCIP is the most widely used cross-chain protocol on the blockchain ecosystem’s second quarter testnet, with the number of active CCIP developers reaching more than 1,200 in May.

What's next

• Completed the Chinese local blockchain developer course mentioned in the Q1 product update .
• Continue to introduce Chainlink and blockchain to non-crypto developers by attending non-crypto events, conferences, hackathons, and workshops. Some of our upcoming developer events include hosting the first CCIP Bootcamp in English and Mandarin , as well as a Tokenization Bootcamp and a Chainlink Bootcamp.

To learn more about Chainlink, visit chain.link , subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter, and follow Chainlink on Twitter , YouTube , and Reddit .