In a significant move aimed at enhancing transparency and security in the digital asset space, Harris & Trotter LLP, a renowned top-tier accountancy firm, has announced its partnership with Chainlink to provide independent, third-party attestations to Chainlink Proof of Reserve. This collaboration marks a milestone in the evolution of onchain finance, as it promises to offer advanced assurances to stakeholders within the digital asset community and catalyze the mass adoption of tokenized real-world assets.
Harris & Trotter LLP, a venerable accounting firm with an impressive 85-year history, has rapidly emerged as a leader in the digital asset space since its foray in 2017. With over 135 professionals, the firm serves a prestigious global clientele and boasts a strong presence in central London. Its portfolio includes more than 400 crypto-native organizations, including industry giants like 1inch, The Sandbox, and Blockchain.com. The firm’s expertise is further underlined by its development of proprietary tools, such as a signature matching tool for wallet ownership/control tests and an NFT royalties audit script.
Revolutionizing Transparency in the Digital Asset Space
Chainlink Proof of Reserve is an innovative solution designed to verify and validate the reserves held by various assets, including both off-chain and cross-chain assets. This service is offered through offchain reserves feeds, and the critical data is provided by third-party experts, in this case, Harris & Trotter LLP. The accounting firm is responsible for calculating the combined value of fiat and investment assets stored offchain and subsequently attests to the total value of reserves. This data is then sourced through APIs via an external adapter and reported onchain.
Harris & Trotter LLP has developed a streamlined automated solution that seamlessly integrates with Chainlink Proof of Reserve, allowing it to fetch independent attestation data onchain. These attestations encompass a wide range of critical metrics, including wallet balances and collateral backing onchain assets. The versatility of these attestations makes them invaluable for purposes ranging from investor due diligence to the automatic triggering of onchain circuit breakers.
One of the key features that make Chainlink Proof of Reserve stand out is its ability to provide automated on-chain attestations. By maintaining an up-to-date reference contract, smart contracts can access real-time verification of an asset’s collateralization, eliminating the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual attestations.
Additionally, Chainlink Proof of Reserve Feeds are fully decentralized at the oracle node level. This decentralization ensures that there are no central points of failure in the process of sourcing and delivering external data onchain. Moreover, the transparency of these feeds allows anyone to monitor them in real-time, enabling independent verification of asset collateralization.
Setting New Standards in Digital Asset Verification
Chainlink, often referred to as the industry-standard Web3 services platform, has played a pivotal role in enabling trillions of dollars in transaction volume across various sectors, including DeFi, onchain finance, gaming, NFTs, and more. As the leading decentralized oracle network, Chainlink empowers developers to create feature-rich Web3 applications with seamless access to real-world data, offchain computation, and cross-chain interoperability, offering a universal gateway to all blockchains for global enterprises.
Nicholas Newman, Partner at Harris & Trotter LLP and Head of Digital Assets, expressed excitement about the partnership, stating, “We’re excited to be providing independent attestations to Chainlink Proof of Reserve. Chainlink Proof of Reserve is core infrastructure that provides the transparency needed to scale onchain finance to mass adoption.”
Max Melcher, Product Manager at Chainlink Labs, commented on the collaboration, saying, “We’re pleased that Harris & Trotter will be delivering third-party attestation to Chainlink Proof of Reserve. Proof of Reserve provides the onchain finance ecosystem with hyper-reliable, high-quality, and transparent data needed to provide users with stronger assurances about the collateral backing onchain assets.”
Harris & Trotter LLP, as an international leader in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web 3.0 services, brings its extensive experience dating back to 2017 to the partnership. The firm offers a comprehensive suite of services, including audit, advisory, bookkeeping, accounting, compliance, off-ramp assistance, and taxation support, catering to a diverse range of clients worldwide, including cryptocurrency exchanges, market makers, decentralized gaming platforms, entities in the metaverse, ICO participants, NFT creators, miners, DeFi protocols/interfaces, investors, and more.
With Harris & Trotter LLP’s commitment to transparency and Chainlink’s cutting-edge technology, this partnership promises to further solidify the foundations of onchain finance and boost confidence in the digital asset ecosystem, ultimately paving the way for broader adoption of tokenized real-world assets.
