Over the last few months, Chainlink Labs embarked on a multi-city trip across China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore to accelerate the adoption of connected smart contracts. We continue to expand and decentralize the Chainlink ecosystem by adding project integrations, data providers, node operators, and developers from around the globe. We not only educated new audiences about the importance of decentralized oracles, but also extended our presence in Asia by onboarding top data providers such as Binance, Tokenview, and CoinGecko, integrating with new projects like Ontology and TomoChain, and incorporating several Asian based node operators. This trip lays the foundation for the deep integration of Chainlink within Asian smart contract infrastructures and serves as the perfect blueprint for global expansion of the Chainlink team and developer community to match the international demand of our product.

Singapore

Our first stop brought us to Singapore, one of the most developed countries in Asia and a hotbed for blockchain interest and adoption. We furthered awareness of our product within their growing DLT and enterprise communities by attending Invest: Asia 2019, a prominent blockchain conference hosted by Coindesk. At the event, we presented on the mainstage about securely connecting smart contracts to off-chain resources, as well as announcing that Chainlink will launch 7 new Price Reference Data Oracle Networks on the Ethereum mainnet, in addition to the already live ETH/USD price reference.

Outside of the mainstage presentation, we expanded upon the many real-world solutions Chainlink is providing to the market through participation in a series of interviews. One such interview conducted by CryptoFinder highlights the advantages of smart contracts over traditional agreements and how to apply them in the real world. We also discussed the ongoing evolution in smart contract development via oracle-enabled off-chain connection at a Singapore Meetup with other blockchain projects including Bitgo, Kyber Network, Digix Global, Marlin Protocol, and RockX.

China

The next stop on the tour was China, the second-largest economy in the world by GDP. While not as visible to Western markets, Chainlink already has a strong presence throughout China with our own Chinese-based team and a growing community that hosts meetups, creates/translates localized content, works with media outlets, connects with top Chinese projects, fosters developer communities, and more.

Over our two-week stay, we attended one of the top blockchain conferences in China and held meetups in three major cities. Our first event was Shanghai International Blockchain Week 2019, where Sergey hosted the prestigious Wanxiang Blockchain Conference panel discussion that included Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, Jae Kwon of Cosmos, and Dawn Song of Oasis Labs.

We also explained the power of DLT applications within enterprise and government environments on the invite-only cryptography stage for government officials, academics, and invited guests. In addition, our CMO, Adelyn Zhou, presented in Chinese at the Wanxiang Blockchain Conference about improving the efficiency of the Chinese economy via data-driven smart contracts.

After the Wanxiang Panel, we hosted a series of three different meetups in China to showcase to new developer communities why and how to build connected smart contracts. Our first meetup in Shanghai featured CEOs from five different blockchain projects including Findora, Iris network, Kava Labs, Origin Protocol, and Solana.

After Shanghai, we traveled to Hangzhou, the Silicon Valley of China, for a meetup with Harmony Protocol, Nervos Network, imToken, and Bytom.

Finally, we concluded our tour in the Chinese capital of Beijing with a meetup that hosted guest speakers from Conflux and Celer Network, as well as a panel discussion that featured HashQuark, Stafi, Wetez, and stake.fish.

While in China, Chainlink participated in its first-ever interview with a Chinese media outlet via 8BTCnews to showcase our product developments in native language publications that are read and understood by local projects and developers.

If you’re interested in joining our Chinese community, read our blog post that outlines how to get involved, check out our ongoing repo of Chinese resource materials, and scan the QR code below to access our Chinese WeChat group.

South Korea

After China, the team proceeded to South Korea, a country recognized for being at the forefront of new technology adoption. In the capital city Seoul, the team gave a speech at D.Fine, the main conference of Korea Blockchain Week, about creating fully data aware and off-chain capable smart contracts. We also hosted a busy booth and gave a multitude of interviews to showcase to local developers how they can build next generation Dapps that are fully connected to popular Korean backend infrastructure.

After D.Fine, we hosted a meetup with Kyber Network, Tezos, and stake.fish to discuss how the blockchain ecosystem can bridge the gap between decentralization, smart contracts, and the real-world. Additionally, Daniel Kochis, spoke at the Enterprise Ethereum and Revolution in Banking Summit 2019 about how to incorporate secure oracles in DeFi applications.

As a result of our hard work, we recently launched an office in South Korea headed by our new Korean Community Manager to create Korean content, organize meetups, and grow both our developer and enthusiast communities in the region. If you would like to join the Korean community, check out our recent blog post outlining how to get involved!

Japan

Our last stop brought us to Devcon 5 in Osaka, Japan, the largest Ethereum developer conference in the world hosted by the Ethereum Foundation. To kickoff Devcon week, we announced a collaboration with Intel, Hyperledger Avalon, and the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance on the Trusted Compute Framework, a new computing design for bringing privacy and scalability to enterprise smart contracts. Johann Eid, Product Manager and Developer Enthusiast, introduced Chainlink’s role in TCF/Hyperledger Avalon at a special workshop held at Devcon 5.

Throughout the conference, we hosted a booth to share with Devcon attendees our ongoing developments. We also threw a Rooftop Happy Hour on top of the Hyatt Regency where people from around the world gathered after a long day to discuss the future of smart contracts while enjoying some refreshing beverages.

Finally, the team revealed on the Devcon mainstage the new Price Reference Data Oracle Networks soon to be live on the Ethereum Mainnet for the following assets: LINK, BTC, ZRX, USDC, REP, and BAT. The new price reference data oracle networks are designed to grow the DeFi ecosystem by giving developers easy access to high-quality pricing data that has been verified by the most decentrally secure oracle networks. These new reference data sets provide high-quality data to DeFi leaders like Compound and Synthetix and are available to all projects.

Throughout our grand Asia tour, it was an honor to meet so many great developers, projects, and enthusiasts deeply excited about building connected smart contracts capable of revolutionizing the backend infrastructure that powers global economies. We are extremely excited about the foundation we are building in China and throughout Asia, and further invigorated to become a truly global product with local infrastructure, project integrations, team members, and communities in all regions of the world. We are currently hiring a Southeast Asia Community Lead, so if interested, click here to apply!

If you are thinking about hosting a meetup in your local area, want to translate content, or you’re a developer and want to learn how to build connected smart contracts, reach out to us in our Discord or Telegram to learn more.