Swisscom will become a Chainlink node operator

Switzerland-based telecommunications company Swisscom has said it will join Chainlink’s oracle network as a node operator. 

In a Thursday announcement, the telecommunications firm said it would be entering the decentralized finance, or DeFi, space by becoming an oracle node operator as part of a pilot program with the Chainlink network. The node, run by Swisscom’s digital asset division, will “continuously feed digital asset price data” to the network and allow applications on Chainlink to better settle financial contracts.

“Making reliable off-chain data available on decentralized networks is a critical success factor for the future development of digital assets,” said Swisscom Digital Business fintech innovation manager Dominic Vincenz.

Swisscom said the opportunities available in the DeFi space were important given the “increasing shift of transactions, contracts and assets to blockchain-based infrastructures.” Although the company only specified it would be acting as a Chainlink node operator, its digital asset team said it saw “no end in sight to the growth of decentralised financial applications.”

Related: Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems Is Now a Chainlink Node Operator

Cointelegraph reported in July that Chainlink had been onboarding partner integrations at a rate of more than 1.4 daily, with roughly 300 different crypto projects having joined the network this year. These third-party integrations include Coin Metrics as well as several blockchain-powered games which are likely allowing Chainlink to secure billions of dollars through smart contracts.

With 51% of it owned by the Swiss government, Swisscom currently has more than 19,000 employees and more than 6 million mobile subscribers.