Flare, an EVM smart contract platform known for its focus on blockchain data utility, has announced a major step in its development. The platform has onboarded leading infrastructure providers, including Ankr, Figment, Restake, and NorthStake.
These entities will serve dual roles as both validators and data providers for Flare’s native oracles, making Flare the first smart contract platform to integrate institutional validators with decentralized data feeds.
The Flare Network is a sophisticated blockchain technology that aims to increase the functionality of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The project essentially wants to bring DeFi capabilities to other protocols like Ripple and Litecoin.
In addition, the Flare Token adds value to both the network and the currency, providing functionality related to protocol governance, collateralization, and data via an on-chain oracle.
This integration of validation and data provision is a strategic move for Flare. It aims to provide developers with fully decentralized access to a wide array of data, offering scalability and cost-effectiveness. This setup helps broaden the blockchain’s potential, allowing for new use cases by supplying a diverse range of decentralized data.
Currently, Flare boasts 91 network validators globally. All these validators also contribute as data providers for the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO).
Hugo Philion, Flare CEO & Co-founder, said, “The fact that institutional validators of the quality and scale of Ankr, Restake and Luga Nodes are willing to extend their business model to also provide decentralized data specifically on Flare gives proof positive to Flare’s vision for a fully decentralized network for data.”
Anuj Shankar, CEO of Luga Nodes, added, “Luganodes has always been committed to offering institutional-grade services in the blockchain infrastructure space and we find Flare’s new model of decentralized data provision very interesting. It’s not something we’ve done before, but being part of the Flare ecosystem as both a validator and a data provider to their native oracle aligns perfectly with our mission to provide reliable and secure blockchain infrastructure solutions – and we are keen to see how it improves decentralized data access for developers.”
Flare positions itself as the blockchain dedicated to data. As an EVM-compatible smart contract platform, it extends the utility of blockchain technology. Its unique feature is the incorporation of decentralized oracles directly into the network’s architecture. This design makes Flare the only smart contract platform specifically optimized for decentralized data acquisition. It focuses on diverse data types, including price and time series data, blockchain event and state data, and web2 API data.
Flare’s State Connector protocols enable information, both from other blockchains and the internet to be used securely, scalably and trustlessly with EVM-based smart contracts on Flare chains.
