Swell is officially joining the Chainlink BUILD program.
We were joined by Johann from Chainlink for a discussion on CCIP, Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol and Chainlink BUILD.
In case you missed it, here are the top questions from the event.
Can you give some background on Swell's relationship with Chainlink?
“One thing that Chainlink has tried to do in this space is find really bright technical teams and work with them on serving all of their infra needs in a long term capacity. We met with Swell a few months ago and were very impressed by the technical knowledge of the team and their ability to build. Currently we are working on CCIP, Proof of Reserve, and price feeds and we are continuing to try to build as many use cases together so we can pioneer new things for the space.”
– Johann, Chainlink
“The collaboration with Chainlink has been deeply strategic and also an alignment of principles of protocol design and the importance of security, decentralization, reliability and verifiability on the LST and LRT front.”
– Daniel, Swell
What is Chainlink BUILD?
“BUILD’s main mission is to work with technical chains that are building the space of tomorrow. Over the past few years we have noticed that there are a lot of brilliant technical teams that are building the next generation of products for this industry, however it can be hard for them to pierce through the noise and build up an ecosystem or community to support it.
We go through the many projects out there and collaborate with the teams that we think are going to be winners, helping them boost their ecosystem and provide them with easy access to services, infrastructure and anything else that is important to them.”
– Johann, Chainlink
Why did Swell decide to join Chainlink BUILD?
“From Swell’s vantage point, we consider Chainlink to be a very important partner in the fundamental development of our protocol architecture, as we are trying to build out one of the best possible liquid restaking experiences in crypto. The Chainlink BUILD program was built to try and accelerate growth for both early and established projects and I think Swell has gone through that cycle with them by having collaborated for a fairly long time. We are also joining legitimate projects that are similarly leveraging Chainlink’s services and expertise.
One of the unique things about Liquid Restaking Protocols is this interfacing with services such as oracles, price feeds and that cross chain interoperability piece which is all really fundamental to delivering that liquid restaking experience.
BUILD is just another commitment from the Swell DAO to harden that relationship with Chainlink, as well promote convergence on the community side. Ultimately it reinforces the long-standing collaboration that we've had with Chainlink these past several months.”
– Daniel, Swell
“One thing I really like about our collaboration and why I find these partnerships so unique is we are building standouts for LRTs/LSTs. There are very few projects that are using Proof of Reserve today for their LST token, and to me this is such an important component as it is the guarantee that you cannot over mint an asset, which is very important in DeFi. Swell is the main LST/LRT protocol that has it today.”
– Johann, Chainlink
What is CCIP and why has Swell decided to integrate with it?
“CCIP is our attempt at cross chain security. The cross chain solutions that have existed in the space up until now were mainly centralized and insecure. We have basically leveraged the same Node Operator networks that have been securing feeds and automation for the last four years and used them to build CCIP. The big difference with CCIP is its level of decentralization. Chainlink has 2 node networks in the CCIP model, one is used to commit and execute messages and the other is used to detect hacks and prevent them from happening.
– Johann, Chainlink
“Security was one of the primary reasons why we elected to go with CCIP as our crosschain interoperability solution. Being able to leverage Chainlink’s decentralized operator network has already proven itself in securing major value flows in crypto. The decision around CCIP integration was really about the confidence we had both functionally and technically for the movement of our LST and LRT across chains, and being able to create the best possible experience which includes the seamless crosschain transfer is really critical to what we are building as a protocol.”
– Daniel, Swell
What is in store for Swell and Chainlink?
“In order for an LST to be successful, they need three things:
- Proof of Reserve to prove that the LST is safe.
- Cross chain interoperability to allow the protocol to securely deploy on all chains.
- Price feeds that will enable the LSTs issued to deploy on DeFi protocols.
Swell will be one of the first LSTs which has this bundle of products that make an LST useful and I’m very excited to see Swell integrate with our CCIP soon.”
– Johann, Chainlink
“In terms of Swell and Chainlink, we will continue our existing long term collaboration with a commitment around the BUILD program while also continuing to innovate and build on this suite of products. Having Chainlink as our primary interface partner for this helps us to move quickly and securely.”
– Daniel, Swell
Thanks to everyone who attended the event!
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