Christian Catalini and Dan Boneh will contribute to the design and oversight of the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol’s development (CCIP)
Chainlink Labs, the group responsible for constructing Chainlink, the world’s biggest decentralized oracle network, today announced the addition of Christian Catalini, co-creator and chief economist of Diem, and Dan Boneh, a prominent Stanford cryptographer, as strategic advisers. Catalini and Boneh will collaborate on the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), a new worldwide standard for decentralized inter-blockchain communications, data exchange, and token transfer. Through the usage of the Chainlink Network, users will be able to transport tokens and execute smart contracts across many blockchains, allowing the development of cross-chain apps.
“Since announcing our approach to blockchain interoperability via CCIP in 2021, multiple projects with several billion dollars in smart contract value have already publicly committed to using the protocol at launch,” said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. “To ensure that CCIP launches as the most secure cross-chain protocol in the world, we’re bringing on some of the greatest minds in crypto-economics and cryptography to work with us. Dan and Christian are two of the most accomplished academics in this entire industry and we are honored to have their guidance as we build this foundational architecture for a multi-blockchain world.”
Apart from being one of the Diem project’s co-founders and acting as the Diem Association’s chief economist, Catalini is the founder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab and a research scientist at the MIT Sloan School. Catalini founded the MIT Digital Currency Research Study in 2013, which provided cryptocurrency access to all MIT students. He is well renowned for his pioneering work in the economics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, early stage capital development, and scientific cooperation. Catalini has spoken at prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and the International Monetary Fund, among others.
“While the blockchain industry is rapidly entering a world where multiple chains will thrive, they remain largely disconnected ecosystems,” said Dr. Catalini. “The Chainlink oracle network can serve as a neutral and open layer that connects the world’s blockchains and I look forward to contributing to this vital piece of interoperability infrastructure.”
Boneh is the author of over a hundred articles in the area of cryptography and co-director of Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research and Computer Security Lab. He has an h-index of 123 and over 87,000 citations. Boneh was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his contributions to cryptography. His research focuses on innovative cryptosystems, cryptanalysis, online security, and blockchain cryptography. Professor Boneh co-founded Voltage Security, a cryptography business bought in 2015 by Hewlett Packard.
“For a cryptographic system to secure meaningful amounts across multiple blockchains, security is absolutely paramount,” said Dr. Boneh. “I am impressed by the Chainlink Network’s ability to scale to service smart contracts in DeFi, and I look forward to working with the team to harden CCIP’s security as it prepares to launch.”
Apart from their work on CCIP, Catalini and Boneh will use their experience in cryptoeconomics and cryptography to assist the Chainlink Labs team with research that extends on the 2.0 whitepaper’s economics section.
At launch, the CCIP will be protected in parallel by another piece of infrastructure called the Anti-Fraud Network, the world’s first anti-fraud system to safeguard a blockchain bridge. At its core, the Anti-Fraud Network will be a risk management tool that will be operated by an independent network of Chainlink oracle nodes that will proactively monitor multiple blockchains in order to detect fraudulent activity and take preventative action to mitigate financial loss in a trust-minimizing manner.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains.
Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.
