Last month, Google made a low key announcement on its partnership with Chainlink, a blockchain startup (previously called SmartContract – see Cool Vendors in Blockchain Applications 2017) that specializes in bidirectional integration of off chain data with smart contracts.
To understand Google’s direction with blockchain, please refer to this Google blog relating to their Chainlink partnership announcement:
Building hybrid blockchain/cloud applications with Ethereum and Google Cloud
Currently Google seems to be focusing its blockchain efforts on the enterprise rather than direct to consumer but I believe it will initially develop functionality for enterprises and then once it matures, extend it directly to consumers.
To more deeply understand Google’s strategy refer to the example in the blog that discusses:
“Below, we’ll demonstrate how a specific smart contract platform (Ethereum) can interoperate with our enterprise cloud data warehouse (BigQuery) via oracle middleware (Chainlink). This assembly of components allows a smart contract to take action based on data retrieved from an on-chain query to the internet-hosted data warehouse. Our examples generalize to a pattern of hybrid cloud-blockchain applications in which smart contracts can efficiently delegate to cloud resources to perform complex operations. We will explore other examples of this pattern in future blog posts.”
Bottom Line
In sum Google’s partnership with Chainlink enables Ethereum app builders using Google software to integrate data from and to sources outside the blockchain and Google hopes this data will be stored in their cloud-based data warehouse, i.e. Big Query.
You can easily envision a future where Google provides a platform for smart contract and decentralized applications with access to its own vast data stores, along with other public data stores, that both enterprises and consumers can access directly to build their own componentized applications and intelligent content libraries.
Somehow, the words “Blockchain” “Google” and “Facebook” don’t easily go together but I guess the old adage rings true – if you can’t beat em, join em. Blockchain skeptics should take note that innovators – big and small – clearly see its value and the need to understand and embrace it in order to stay current with technological change.
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57 Comments
One can see the potential in blockchain tech if they look deep enough, thanks for the interesting article.
Thousand of people already know about this space and hundreds more are to come.
End times are coming for those who fall behind technologically just like blockbuster.
Of course it depends how much the space develops past scams like witnet.
Year upon year I read articles like this and am overjoyed about the potential here.
– Fond A. Mentle, lead blockchain developer at Blockbuster
Great article! Looking forward for bright future
Interesting, looking forward to learn more about this technology.
Lots of good insight, thanks!
stunning and brave
Great to see so much progress in such a short time. Decentralized oracles will dominate the smart contract space and few people see it coming!
The banking landscape in Europe will change radically in a short period as Europeans begin to take advantage of the latest technology offered by Fintechs to meet their banking needs in today’s world. Blockchain technology has come along at precisely the right time, and DLT has become almost as big of a buzz-word as Fintech itself. Also, in extraordinarily good timing comes ChainLink, a service that bridges the gap between Fintechs using DLT and Financial Institution APIs.
Behind the shiny new APIs lies the prize that Chainlink have evidently positioned themselves on – legacy payment systems that will accept nothing but the payment formats they were originally designed for. This format is likely to be the new (actually >15 years old) ISO 20022 XML format. Any Fintechs wishing to make use of the new APIs can bet for sure that the Banks will not be converting formats on their behalf and instead will need to submit instructions in ISO 20022 format. Through their PoC with SWIFT, ChainLink has proven themselves as being capable of not just bridging the gap, but supporting the very formats that will run the post-PSD2 banking world