What is Chainlink? Oracles, the LINK token and why banks use the network

Chainlink is a decentralised oracle network: it hands smart contracts on a blockchain exactly the data they cannot see for themselves. Prices, interest rates, reserve balances, weather data, results from other blockchain networks. The LINK token pays the machines that fetch and certify that data. To understand what Chainlink is in economic terms, the price is the wrong place to start. Begin with the question of what anyone is paying for. The project publishes the figure that shows it: $36.4 trillion in transaction value has passed through Chainlink oracles by its own count up to the start of October.