Input Output (IOHK), the technology firm developing Cardano’s open-source blockchain protocol, has announced that it has partnered with Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network powering hybrid smart contracts. The strategic partnership was announced during the recent weekend’s Cardano Summit 2021, which also saw a slew of other announcements, including the debut of Cardano’s first ever stablecoin codenamed “Djed” which was made in partnership with COTI Group. The partnership with Chainlink brings in an integration with the oracle network’s towards a preparatory phase for the building out and hastened development of hybrid smart contracts for the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Recently, IOHK’s Cardano project has also announced that they are launching a dAppStore for certified DeFi projects. "Oracles are essential to making real-world data accessible on Cardano and they support advanced smart contracts, such as DeFi applications. IOHK is committed to providing developers with the most secure and robust tooling for building useful solutions on Cardano, making it an easy choice to integrate Chainlink’s market-leading oracle solution.” shared IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson. Cardano has recently become compatible with smart contracts thanks to the Alonzo network upgrade which implemented several smart contract functionalities into the protocol. Chainlink has a “tremendous amount of respect for the Cardano ecosystem,” its highly collaborative community, and its team’s cutting edge technical proficiencies, shares Niki Ariyasinghe, Head of Blockchain Partnerships at Chainlink Labs. Announcement: we partnered with @chainlink to help Cardano developers build smart contracts for secure DeFi applications. For press release, DM us or email [email protected] #CardanoSummit2021 pic.twitter.com/1qOs0WdLtq — Input Output Media (@IOHKMedia) September 25, 2021 “A lot of this comes down to timing. Cardano obviously has had an extended period where it had different drops of upgrades and the most recent is Alonzo – really about enabling smart contracts. So for us this is really like the right time to engage with the Cardano ecosystem,” Ariyasinghe opined. Chainlink will help facilitate secure and reliable transference of tamper-proof data from off-chain sources to Cardano’s on-chain smart contracts. The strategic partnership comes at a crucial period given how Cardano’s smart contract functionality is now live for experimentation and development, inviting developers and interested projects to come up with next-gen solutions for the blockchain. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.