The smart contract ecosystem is becoming increasingly multi-chain, encompassing a growing number of decentralized ledgers, each with its own unique attributes and technical capabilities. The Chainlink Network continues to serve developers across various chains by providing a growing collection of decentralized services that work across chains, as well as starting to enable cross chain interactions between smart contracts on different chains. Alongside natively integrating Chainlink into additional blockchains and layer-2 networks, we are also actively supporting the development of the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), a global standard for reliably and securely transferring assets and commands across various blockchain networks. To help in the development of this standard, we are collaborating closely with talented development teams who can help work on key CCIP functionalities and increase the tamper-resistance of the protocol.

The developers behind the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) are one such team. They have built ENS into the most widely integrated and decentralized naming standard for mapping human-readable names to cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata on the Ethereum blockchain. ENS and Chainlink have an extensive history of collaboration, having previously collaborated on the Chainlink On-Chain Data Directory data.eth, an easily identifiable on-chain index of Chainlink Price Feed addresses that makes it easier to discover and connect to Chainlink oracle networks. We have been longtime supporters of the ENS project and always look forward to building solutions that have a meaningful impact on the smart contract ecosystem.

As a continuation of our collaboration, we are excited to announce that the ENS team has been awarded a Chainlink Community Grant for their contribution to and continued collaboration around the CCIP standard. The ENS team will use this grant to help build the CCIP read functionality, leveraging their deep expertise to further improve CCIP’s ability to efficiently and securely read on-chain data and transmit it across blockchain networks.

In addition to supporting the development of CCIP, this grant will help fund ENS development. ENS will integrate CCIP into their project to support the issuance of on-chain domains on layer-2 networks. Supported by CCIP’s generalized cross-chain message-passing capability and Chainlink’s broad support for a large number of widely used layer-2 networks, ENS will be able to expand support for more scalable on-chain environments. This will enable ENS users to create and manage domain names on layer-2 networks at a much lower cost compared to the same activity on Ethereum, all while staying in sync with core ENS smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

This grant recognizes the ENS team for their help on development of CCIP functionalities and supports their continued work in helping ensure that CCIP becomes the most secure and reliable cross-chain interoperability solution for the greater smart contract economy. We look forward to our continued collaboration, both on further improving CCIP and on future initiatives. 

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with the ENS team and Nick Johnson on furthering the development and adoption of the CCIP standard,” stated Chainlink Co-founder Sergey Nazarov. “After working with the ENS team for many years, we’re excited they are adopting CCIP to solve their cross-chain needs, as well as helping build CCIP alongside many other leading teams across the blockchain ecosystem.” 

Through the Chainlink Community Grants program, we look forward to continuing to empower Chainlink ecosystem teams, researchers, and social impact projects who are both researching and building key tools and infrastructure that accelerate the development of hybrid smart contracts, secure oracle networks, and other 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

The Chainlink Community Grant Program provides 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. Chainlink Community Grants are provided in cash and/or LINK. 

This grant will be provided to True Names Ltd, the organization helping build ENS.