Updated September 29, 2022

SmartCon 2022’s flagship conference officially wrapped up today with a continued burst of news that is reverberating across the Web3 ecosystem. Featuring 150+ speakers and 100+ presentations, SmartCon 2022 is the connection point for Web2 and Web3 industry leaders, founders, developers, researchers, and community members to showcase and explore the latest advancements accelerating Web3 innovation. 

This blog recaps key Chainlink presentations, initiatives, announcements, and product updates that took place at SmartCon 2022 in New York City.

Building a Web3 World: Keynotes, Presentations, and Panels

SmartCon brings together luminaries from across Web2 and Web3 to discuss what’s needed to realize the widespread adoption of trust-minimized applications. 

Sergey Nazarov Keynote

Chainlink Co-Founder Sergey Nazarov kicked off the flagship SmartCon 2022 conference with a keynote, “Building a Web3 World Powered by Cryptographic Truth,” which expanded on the drivers behind the success of the Chainlink Network and key advancements in Chainlink economics and services that are poised to accelerate future growth.

“All of these services fundamentally create an infrastructure, an environment, for the world’s value to transition into the blockchain format, to be refactored into the reliable format—into the ‘we-can’t-screw-you’ format.” –Sergey Nazarov, Co-founder of Chainlink

Watch the full keynote speech.

Capital Markets Panel Discussion With SWIFT,  DTCC, and BNY Mellon

SWIFT’s Strategy Director Jonathan Ehrenfeld Solé, DTCC’s Head of Product Management Stephen Prosperi, and BNY Mellon’s Head of Enterprise Tokenization Victor O’Laughlen sat down with Sergey Nazarov to discuss how cross-chain interoperability is set to drive the success of digital assets in capital markets. 

Solé and Nazarov announced that SWIFT is using the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) in an initial proof of concept. CCIP will enable SWIFT messages to instruct on-chain token transfers, helping the SWIFT network become interoperable across nearly all blockchain environments.

Eric Schmidt and Sergey Nazarov Fireside Chat

Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Steel Perlot and former Google CEO, joined Sergey Nazarov for a fireside chat. They discussed the increasing importance of trust-minimization and the core value of Web3 infrastructure for Web2 companies.

“Congratulations to you all for ending up in the right spot in the Web3 space, working with Chainlink.” –Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Steel Perlot and former Google CEO

Watch the livestream recording of Eric and Sergey’s fireside chat.

Chainlink Economics 2.0 

Chainlink Economics 2.0 consists of an array of programs focused on improving data security and utility while also reducing the operating costs of oracle services, increasing user fees paid to Chainlink service providers, and enabling a broader scope of service providers, such as stakers, to participate in the Chainlink ecosystem.

Chainlink SCALE 

SCALE (Sustainable Chainlink Access for Layer 1 and 2 Enablement) is a Chainlink Labs initiative where blockchain projects commit to offsetting operating costs of oracle networks to accelerate their ecosystem’s growth and support the long-term sustainability of Chainlink oracle services.

Participating blockchains and layer-2 networks in the initial launch include Avalanche, Metis, Moonbeam, and Moonriver.

Chainlink BUILD

The Chainlink BUILD Program is a Chainlink Labs initiative that aims to accelerate the growth of early-stage and established projects within the Chainlink ecosystem by providing enhanced access to Chainlink services and technical support in exchange for fees and other incentives for Chainlink service providers, such as stakers.

Participating projects in the initial launch include: 

• Space and Time—A decentralized data warehouse aiming to power low-latency queries and tamper-proof analytics across the Web3 ecosystem.
• Truflation—A provider of independent and censorship-resistant inflation data based on census-level price information and more than 30 real-time data sources. 
• bitsCrunch—An AI-based NFT data analytics service that filters out wash trading within NFT marketplaces, delivers more accurate NFT pricing, and scans for digital art forgery. 

Chainlink Integrations and Product Updates

Chainlink Labs Chief Product Officer Kemal El Moujahid announced several product updates during his Chainlink Product Keynote and invited an array of top projects to the stage to share how they’re using Chainlink oracles to unlock new Web3 applications and markets.

“We’ve invented a decentralized, oracle-based consensus method that solves the connection problem while preserving trust-minimization for your apps. This is a decentralized, community-based approach which gets better the more developers use it.” –Kemal El Moujahid, Chief Product Officer at Chainlink Labs

Bitcoin Interest Rate Curve

Chainlink and CF Benchmarks are collaborating to launch the CF Bitcoin Interest Rate Curve (CF BIRC)—a replicable and manipulation-resistant benchmark for current and forecasted Bitcoin interest rates over a set of maturities. 

Coinbase Cloud x Chainlink NFT Floor Pricing Feeds

Coinbase Cloud, a standalone suite of blockchain development services by Coinbase, is collaborating with Chainlink Labs to launch NFT Floor Pricing Feeds—a collection of Chainlink Data Feeds tracking the floor prices of the top 10 NFT collections.  

Chainlink Automation

Kemal also announced that Chainlink Keepers has been renamed to Chainlink Automation to reflect its broadening scope in automating more advanced smart contract applications. 

Chainlink Badging Program

Secured With Chainlink badges let your users know that your Web3 app is powered by Chainlink’s industry-standard secure infrastructure. Enroll in the program to claim your badge and make clear to users that your app is powered by Chainlink’s industry-leading products.

Enterprises and Web3 

Leading enterprises powering global technological infrastructure gathered at SmartCon 2022 to discuss how the Web3 space is transforming existing industries.

Unlocking Universal Interoperability for Financial Institutions

Whether by enhancing clearing and settlement or streamlining cross-border payments, global financial institutions can use Web3 technologies to streamline their existing operations. 

SWIFT

Jonathan Ehrenfeld Solé, SWIFT strategy director, envisioned how SWIFT’s global messaging network could leverage the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to instruct on-chain token transfers, helping the SWIFT network become interoperable across different blockchain environments.

DTCC

The DTCC sits at the center of global finance as core financial market infrastructure, settling quadrillions of dollars worth of transactions annually. At SmartCon, Stephen Prosperi, the DTCC’s Head of Product Management, Digital Securities Management, provided insight into why a reliable interoperability solution is necessary for financial institutions to interact with the blockchain space at scale.

BNY Mellon

Victor O’Laughlen, head of enterprise tokenization at BNY Mellon—one of the oldest and largest US banks—explained why interoperability and tokenization are key tools that not only connect banks to each other but also provide a central hub for the many separate lines of business inside large financial institutions.

Cathay Financial Holdings Co., Ltd. 

Cathay Financial Holdings is a publicly traded holding company with subsidiaries that provide banking services, life insurance, properties and casualty insurance, and more. Nicholas Yang, head of blockchain at Cathay ​​Financial Holdings Co., Ltd., explained how Chainlink is a seamless solution that could expand the company’s blockchain consortium to include external industry operations and decentralize the control over shared data. 

Monetizing Data and IT Services 

Web3 markets have an increasing need for high-quality, real-world data and off-chain computation. SmartCon 2022 showcased how Web2 data and IT providers are spearheading the transition to Web3 infrastructure to capitalize on this increasing market demand.

From monetizing existing data assets to supporting novel staking products and becoming validators for blockchain environments, the interconnection between the once-separate Web2 and Web3 ecosystems is only deepening.

LexisNexis

LexisNexis is a corporation that provides legal, regulatory, and business data and analytics to its clients and customers. The company currently operates a Chainlink node to provide real-world flight status data to smart contracts. At SmartCon 2022, LexisNexis expanded on its plan to become a domain expert that helps firms with existing data repositories surrounding compliance, patents, and other products to monetize their data through Chainlink.

Deutsche Telekom MMS

Deutsche Telekom MMS, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, is a service provider for information technologies and digital transformation. Currently a Chainlink node operator, Deutsche Telekom MMS helps facilitate the secure flow of real-world data to smart contract applications. At SmartCon 2022, Deutsche Telekom MMS reaffirmed its commitment to exploring novel opportunities and staying at the forefront of IT innovation by providing secure node infrastructure services for the Web3 ecosystem. 

The Key to SmartCon Contest

Three lucky individuals found the missing Key to SmartCon, with the grand prize winner receiving a lifetime ticket to SmartCon with lodging, second place receiving a lifetime ticket, and third place a ticket to SmartCon 2023.

The Key to SmartCon contest began online in the weeks leading up to the in-person conference. After deciphering a series of codes hidden in various Chainlink content channels, participants were given a clue that indicated they had to find a blue bow chair at the in-person conference. Keen participants who spotted the blue bow chair near the Aristotle stage found a map underneath it, which led to a live mural painted by artist Vizie. On the mural, a plaid-wearing Statue of Liberty was holding a key, with a caption that read “Tell Lynn to win.” The three savvy contestants who found Chainlink Labs team member Lynn and spoke the words “plaid shirt” to her were handed their Keys to SmartCon.

Stay Tuned for More

SmartCon 2022 gave attendees an expansive look at what’s next for Chainlink, from new product updates and key Economics 2.0 initiatives to the long-term vision for building a world where the majority of the world’s economy is underpinned by cryptographic truth. 

Visit the official SmartCon 2022 YouTube playlist to access the Day 1 livestream, a limited collection of Day 2 presentations, and the complete list of all presentations as they are uploaded. To learn more about Chainlink and keep up-to-date with the Chainlink ecosystem, subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter and follow the official Chainlink Twitter.