ChainLayer

A Chainlink oracle node fetches data such as asset prices from sources outside the blockchain, signs it and reports it to a decentralized oracle network, which combines the reports of many operators into one value. In September 2019 ChainLayer ran its own highly available Ethereum nodes for this work and planned adapters for paid data APIs, so that smart contracts could query such sources without exposing an API key.

Today ChainLayer runs infrastructure for Chainlink as well as for Lido, Wormhole, Lava, Axelar and SSV Network. In December 2022 ChainLayer joined stake.link as one of the first 14 node operators, a delegation protocol that LinkPool built so that holders of LINK can stake with Chainlink operators.

ChainLayer has run validators on proof-of-stake networks since 2019, when it added Wanchain to its existing Cosmos and Tezos validators. In February 2020 ChainLayer won the Celo Stake Off, a three-month validator competition on the Celo testnet, with 8 of the 120 validators in the race.

ChainLayer validates networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, NEAR, Sui, Polygon and Avalanche, and token holders can delegate to ChainLayer validators where a network supports delegation. An on-call team watches the nodes around the clock, and the company follows a zero-trust model with granular access control and network micro-segmentation.

A new node normally downloads the history of a blockchain block by block from its peers, which takes a long time on a large network. QuickSync offers compressed daily, weekly and archive snapshots for networks such as Axelar, Kava, Lava and Wormchain, so that an operator can start a new node or restore a damaged one from a recent state. ChainLayer is the official snapshot provider for several blockchains, and anyone can download the snapshots.

ChainLayer also invests at an early stage in fintech and blockchain projects and adds technical support and infrastructure to the money. The portfolio includes Akash Network, Cosmos, Flow, Kava, Solana, SSV Network and Wormhole, and ChainLayer runs nodes for several of these networks as well.

ChainLayer was officially founded in the Netherlands in November 2019, after its team had already run validators and a Chainlink node for several months. The company runs its own servers in several tier-3 data centers in Western Europe, connected with 200 Gbps of redundant network capacity.

A Chainlink oracle node watches for data requests, fetches the requested values from outside sources and signs its answer with its own key. The network then combines the signed answers of many nodes into one value, so that a smart contract does not depend on a single operator.

Chainlink price feeds, also called Data Feeds, publish asset prices onchain as contracts that lending protocols, exchanges and tokenized funds read. A feed updates when the price moves past a set deviation threshold or when a fixed time interval has passed, whichever comes first.