Chainlink Labs, the company behind Chainlink, the world’s most extensive decentralized oracle system, declared today that Christian Catalini, co-creator and chief economist of Diem, and popular Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh have joined as strategic advisors. Catalini and Boneh will be concentrating on building the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), a new global standard for decentralized inter-blockchain messaging, data sharing, and token transfers. With CCIP in place users can utilize the Chainlink Network to move tokens and deploy smart contracts across different blockchains which allows for constructing cross-chain applications.
“Since announcing our approach to blockchain interoperability via CCIP in 2021, multiple projects with several billion dollars in smart contract value have already publicly committed to using the protocol at launch. To ensure that CCIP launches as the most secure cross-chain protocol in the world, we’re bringing on some of the greatest minds in crypto-economics and cryptography to work with us. Dan and Christian are two of the most accomplished academics in this entire industry and we are honored to have their guidance as we build this foundational architecture for a multi-blockchain world.”
– Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov
Catalini is renowned for his research in the areas of cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, early stage capital formation, and the economics of scientific collaboration. He is one of the co-creators of Diem and serves as its chief economist. He also established the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab and initiated the MIT Digital Currency Research Study which offered all MIT undergraduates access to cryptocurrency. His work has been presented at esteemed institutions such as Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, Stanford, The Federal Reserve Bank, Council on Foreign Relations and more.
“While the blockchain industry is rapidly entering a world where multiple chains will thrive, they remain largely disconnected ecosystems. The Chainlink oracle network can serve as a neutral and open layer that connects the world’s blockchains and I look forward to contributing to this vital piece of interoperability infrastructure.”
– Dr. Catalini
Boneh, the author of more than a hundred papers in cryptography boasting an h-index of 123 and 87,000+ citations, is the head of Stanford’s Applied Cryptography Group as well as being a co-director for Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research and its Computer Security Lab. Recognized for his work on cryptosystems with novel properties, cryptanalysis, web security and cryptography for blockchains by having been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, he was also one of the founders of Voltage Security – a cryptography start-up which was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2015.
“For a cryptographic system to secure meaningful amounts across multiple blockchains, security is absolutely paramount. I am impressed by the Chainlink Network’s ability to scale to service smart contracts in DeFi, and I look forward to working with the team to harden CCIP’s security as it prepares to launch.”
– Dr. Boneh
Catalini and Boneh are offering their knowledge of crypto-economics and cryptography to help the Chainlink Labs team extend the economics section of the 2.0 whitepaper as part of their work on CCIP.
At launch, the CCIP will be backed up by another system, called the Anti-Fraud Network. This is the first anti-fraud system to be used to secure a blockchain bridge. Acting as a risk management tool, it will be managed by an autonomous network of Chainlink oracles. These nodes keep watch on numerous blockchains and look out for any fraudulent activity, preventing financial loss in a reliable manner.
