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. In order to fuel the growth of the Chainlink community and accelerate the adoption of hybrid smart contracts, the Chainlink Grant Program continues to support work that makes it easier, faster, and more efficient to build and test new smart contracts and applications.

We’re excited to announce that HackBG, a software development company specializing in blockchain technology, has been awarded a Chainlink Community Grant to build open-source infrastructure that empowers smart contract developers, specifically open-source templates that help reduce gas costs for NFT mints by queueing transactions and using Chainlink Automation and Chainlink VRF to mint and reveal metadata in batches.

These templates will make it easier for developers to significantly improve the NFT minting experience for users. When NFT projects drop NFTs that have been developed using these templates to end-users, they can signal for them to be revealed, which adds their NFT to a queue in the smart contract. As long as the minting window is still open, Chainlink Automation will then automatically check the queue at a set time period. If there aren’t enough requests in the queue, no smart contract functions will be triggered. However, if there are requests waiting then Chainlink Automation will execute a function that uses Chainlink VRF to generate random characteristics for the NFT metadata and then move the NFT from the queue. Naturally, the queue size, metadata, and time between upkeeps will all be configurable. 

By batching multiple requests and responses into single transactions with Chainlink VRF, NFT projects that need multiple randomized values to generate unique characteristics for each individual NFT can achieve significant gas savings. These cost-efficiency gains are particularly advantageous for larger NFT projects or those with more frequent drops on blockchains with higher transaction fees. Chainlink Automation further increase efficiency by automating smart contract functions, saving teams valuable time that can then be spent growing their project. Ultimately, improved open-source NFT infrastructure empowers developers to launch new projects, experiment with new use cases, and drive innovation across the Web3 space.

HackBG is a blockchain development and consulting firm that provides a diverse set of services ranging from the development of blockchains and smart contracts to in-depth testing, system validation, and technical support. Backed by a team of industry experts, HackBG has previously received multiple Chainlink grants which have facilitated the creation of Chainlink Automation implementation templates and an end-to-end decentralized application demo for Chainlink oracle services, to give just two examples. With its expertise proven through this previous work on open-source tools for the Chainlink ecosystem, we believe HackBG is a suitable candidate to create this set of templates to help reduce gas costs for NFT mints using Chainlink Automation and Chainlink VRF.

“We’re excited to have been awarded a Chainlink Community Grant to support the creation of templates that leverage Chainlink Automation and Chainlink VRF to enable more cost-efficient NFT mints,” said HackBG CEO Milen Radkov. “With our extensive experience using Chainlink trust-minimized services to improve the developer experience and the security of decentralized protocols, we look forward to building even more tools to help power the next wave of growth across the Web3 ecosystem.” 

Through the Community Grants Program, Chainlink continues to empower innovative teams, academics, and social impact projects that research and develop key tools and infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of hybrid smart contracts, secure oracle networks, and cutting-edge technology capable of creating a more economically fair world.

About the Chainlink Grant Program

If you want to learn more about the Chainlink Community Grant Program, check out our blog post that further expands upon its goals and the criteria for submission. We encourage talented individual developers and development teams to apply to the grant program here, or if you’re a researcher and want to collaborate, contact us.