Swisscom, Switzerland’s largest telecommunications provider, is to launch a Chainlink oracle node to provide data for decentralized finance (DeFi).
- Oracle service provider Chainlink said Swisscom is the second telecom company to enter DeFi. Deutsche Telekom, Germany’s largest phone company, is already one of the main data providers to Chainlink.
- Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov told CoinDesk, Swisscom "has very high security standards, which is important for being a high-quality node operator. But what is even more important is that you now have a trend of multiple enterprises beginning to see the value in running nodes.”
- Headquartered in Ittigen near Bern, Swisscom is 51% owned by the Swiss government and has around 19,000 employees.
- The Swiss firm’s digital asset division will head up the program and make sure the oracle node is continuously feeding digital asset price data into the Chainlink network.
- Blockchain applications, or smart contracts, require off-chain data such as price data for financial contracts or information for an insurance policy. Oracle nodes continuously send data from the outside world into the Chainlink network, where it is then merged and made available in aggregated form for blockchain applications.
- “We believe that making reliable off-chain data available on decentralized networks is a critical success factor for the future development of digital assets,” said Dominic Vincenz, fintech innovation manager at Swisscom’s digital business.
Read more: An Interview With Chainlink’s Sergey Nazarov
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