The Chainlink Community Grant Program provides financial resources to the many development teams and researchers building a more functional, accessible, and socially impactful Chainlink Network. We encourage talented individual developers and development teams to apply to the grant program here, or if you are a researcher and want to collaborate, contact us.

We’re excited to announce that the blockchain development studio block42 has been selected as a recipient of a community grant to perform a native integration of Chainlink oracles into the high-performance and EVM-compatible smart contract platform OKExChain. The result of this grant will allow smart contract developers to build externally-connected, decentralized applications across numerous industries and use cases, such as DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and more. Additionally, this grant will support the launch of Chainlink Price Feeds—ready-made decentralized oracle networks that provide precise, tamper-proof financial market data—to enable a vast array of on-chain DeFi applications, such as lending, derivatives, stablecoins, collateralized loans, and more.

As part of the grant, block42 will provide several key components to the integration, including:

• Validate and adapt Chainlink contracts to ensure native compatibility with OKExChain
• Test and deploy all Chainlink components to OKExChain mainnet, with continual maintenance and upgrades
• Provide an automated test to verify the integration of OKExChain and Chainlink using test node instances

block42 is a venture-driven tech company that provides research and development services for Blockchain networks, DeFi projects, and VC funds, as well as developing its own blockchain projects like Fortify. Their team has extensive experience with blockchain technology, having developed tooling and infrastructure for leading blockchain projects, such as Ethereum, Icon, IOTA, Terra, Thorchain, Fantom, and more. Through an agile development process, block42 provides high-quality contributions that can match the fast-moving pace of the blockchain space.

Supported by cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, OKExChain is a high-performance and EVM-compatible smart contract platform that aims to provide public infrastructure which developers can use to launch a variety of decentralized applications and trading services. OKExChain also offers a cross-chain gateway to support transfers of tokenized assets across various public blockchain networks, along with future support for the Cosmos IBC cross-chain solution.

Previously receiving a grant for the integration of Chainlink into the Fantom network, block42 has demonstrated their deep knowledge of the Chainlink technology stack, enabling the blockchain ecosystem to securely access external data in new computing environments. block42’s in-depth experience in building secure infrastructure for the blockchain economy is a major reason why their team is receiving a community grant to integrate Chainlink into the OKExChain ecosystem. Through a native integration, Chainlink oracles will be able to operate at the native speed of the OKExChain without any external dependencies on other blockchain networks.

“We’re honored to be awarded with another community grant to integrate the industry-leading oracle solution Chainlink, this time into the OKExChain ecosystem,” stated Lukas Goetz, CEO of block42. “We’re glad to have gained trust to develop more projects and expand the Chainlink ecosystem. We will leverage our extensive experience in blockchain to ensure this integration is a long-term success, enabling developers to create externally-connected smart contract applications.”

Through the Chainlink Community Grants program, we look forward to continuing to empower more and more Chainlink ecosystem teams, researchers, and social impact projects that are both researching and building key tools and infrastructure that accelerate the development of universally connected smart contracts, secure oracle networks, and impactful technology that improves the world. We will continue supporting the community as a key driver of Chainlink’s rapid growth, because only together can we make universally connected smart contracts into the dominant form of digital agreement.

About the Chainlink Grant Program

If you want to learn more about the Grant Program, check out our recent blog post that further expands upon its goals and the criteria for submission. If you would like to participate in the Chainlink Grant Program, please apply here. Chainlink Community Grants are provided in cash and/or LINK.