Blockchain Data Provider Chainlink Launches Staking of Its Native Token LINK

Chainlink, a provider of price feeds and other data to blockchains, has introduced staking of its native token LINK to its network to help keep the protocol secure.

Chainlink Staking v0.1 allows people to earn rewards while helping the protocol become more secure. To do this, stakers will have to “commit LINK tokens in smart contracts to back certain performance guarantees around oracle services,” Chainlink said in a blog. This first phase of Chainlink staking will help secure data feeds.

Read more: SWIFT Is Partnering With Chainlink: Here’s the Down-low on the Blockchain Data Provider

“What staking does is it allows us to scale the system by creating incentives that allow the system to grow,” Chainlink co-founder, Sergey Nazarov said in an interview with CoinDesk.

The Chainlink network has enabled more than $6.6 trillion in transaction value this year, Nazarov said. Staking is setting the foundation for what the company calls Economics 2.0, its vision for the protocol to scale and become more efficient by providing the right incentives, Nazarov said, something which is necessary as the network continues to expand.

The company has been busy lately. In September, it announced it was partnering with SWIFT, the interbank messaging system that allows for cross border payments, to allow its network to communicate across all blockchain platforms. In the same month, it also launched Chainlink Build, a program that aims to enable the growth of early-stage projects in the Chainlink ecosystem (stakers can also accrue additional incentives through this) and introduced Chainlink Scale for accelerating the growth of blockchain networks.

Read more: Blockchain Data Provider Chainlink Launches Programs to Reduce Costs Ahead of Staking of Its Token