Chainlink co-founder unveils blockchain payments for TradFi

As a researcher with years of experience in the blockchain and cryptocurrency field, I find this latest development between Chainlink and Swift incredibly intriguing. The potential for seamless integration of traditional finance institutions into decentralized networks like DeFi is a significant step forward in the industry.


The decentralized oracle service, Chainlink, plans to roll out a fresh blockchain-based payment system tailored for financial organizations.

Working together with Swift, a worldwide messaging system utilized by financial institutions, Chainlink has announced a fresh integration that allows these institutions to employ Swift messages when engaging with blockchain technology.

By implementing this integration, we can facilitate the swift transfer of digital assets using only minor modifications to our current systems. This connection serves as a link, uniting the worlds of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Traditional Finance (TradFi), fostering a seamless interaction between these two financial ecosystems.

Chainlink co-founder unveils blockchain payments for TradFi

Swift-er blockchain payments

Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, highlighted the practical benefits of the integration in a speech given at the Swift-organized Sibos conference in Beijing, China:

“We are in a pre-production stage where we can start offering you something that you can actually start using with your existing institutional systems.”

He said the solution will enable pre-settlement and transaction confirmation through Swift’s established messaging standards, which are already widely used in TradFi.

Following validation, Chainlink’s system will transform these messages into blockchain transactions, making it possible for institutions to secure their assets and perform transactions directly on the blockchain.

Chainlink co-founder unveils blockchain payments for TradFi

Institutional privacy implications

Nasarov likewise delved into the latest Blockchain Privacy Manager (BPM), an innovative tool designed for privacy protection, which allows for seamless connection of private blockchains to the public Chainlink network.

He said privacy has been “deeply lacking quality in the blockchain industry” and that it has “kept the capital markets from adopting digital assets and blockchains.”

“The Blockchain Privacy Manager […] can allow you to manage the privacy assumptions of everything related to your chain […] allows the data from your bank to be selectively placed into certain chains, but not others, and allows you to authoritatively manage what information can and can’t reach chains from your bank.”

BPM targets financial institutions that want end-to-end privacy when using blockchain applications and is encrypted by Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) Private Transactions.

With the addition of the latest Swift integration, this feature enables institutions to carry out delicate operations such as private trading of tokenized assets or international money transfers.

Chainlink co-founder unveils blockchain payments for TradFi

Regulatory and centralization concerns

Although it offers robust security features akin to institutions, it simultaneously raises issues regarding regulation and potential centralization aspects.

Regulators may raise concerns regarding Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations due to the increased privacy and potential lack of transparency.

In the Chainlink ecosystem, concentrating privacy controls might go against the philosophy of decentralization.

Through centralizing power within institutions, there’s a possibility that their private deals might not undergo public examination or review.

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2024-10-23 14:40