By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
The hybrid applications use oracles to bridge the gap between blockchain-based smart contracts and internet cloud services thereby making automated business processes more efficient and robust.
While blockchain is making its advancements every passing day, some companies are also working on integrating blockchain protocols with public cloud services and modern internet resources. On Thursday, June 13, in a milestone achievement, tech giant Google has unveiled the possibility of developing hybrid blockchain-cloud applications using the Ethereum smart contracts technology and its native cloud service BigQuery.
In the official blog post, Google Cloud’s developer advocate Allen Dey talks about applications wherein internet-hosted cloud data is made available inside an immutable public blockchain network using the Chainlink (LINK) oracle. An oracle is basically a gateway between the real world and a blockchain.
Learn how to use Chainlink services to provide data from #BigQuery crypto public datasets on-chain, which helps reduce inefficiencies & enables new on-chain business models to emerge by adding entirely new capabilities to Ethereum smart contracts ↓ https://t.co/yVekclgafQ
— Google Cloud Tech (@GoogleCloudTech) June 13, 2019
Some of the key tech areas Google plans to target through these hybrid applications are transaction privacy, futures contracts, and prediction marketplaces.
Addressing The Loopholes of Smart Contracts Execution
Smart contracts as well know are embedded within the public blockchain network thereby making them effectively immutable and tamper-proof. As a result, the participants of the smart contracts commit their resources based on a certain agreement while trusting these contracts shall be executed automatically without any third-party intervention.
But the most fundamental issue that lies here is from where to get the variables which can evaluate the contract. If the data for the smart contracts are not derived from any on-chain activity, a trusted source of external data will be required in that case, which is nothing but an oracle.
Moreover, Google’s cryptocurrency public blockchain datasets act as a resource for several off-chain business processes like SaaS profit sharing or using static analysis techniques to detect malware and software vulnerabilities. However, in contrast, businesses processes that need to be implemented in the form of blockchain smart contracts need access to the off-chain data.
Google plans to close this loop using oracles which provide bidirectional interoperation between on-chain smart contracts and its cloud services. The tech giant demonstrates this by establishing interoperation between an Ethereum-based smart contract and Google BigQuery Cloud services through the Chainlink oracles. In the official blog post, Google notes:
“This assembly of components allows a smart contract to take action based on data retrieved from an on-chain query to the internet-hosted data warehouse. At a high level, Ethereum Dapps (i.e. smart contract applications) request data from Chainlink, which in turn retrieves data from a web service built with Google App Engine and BigQuery”.
In the blog post, Google also presents three different technical implementations of these solutions. The three major use cases present by Google include:
- Prediction Marketplaces
- Hedging Against Blockchain Platform Risk
- Improving transaction privacy on Ethereum through late placements using oracles
Stating the important of Oracles, Google concludes that “The use of Chainlink services can help reduce the manifestations of inefficiency, and in certain cases add completely new features to Ethereum smart contracts, thanks to which various commercial models on the blockchain can be implemented”.
Google encourages more developers to build hybrid applications while making the most of blockchain’s smart contracts and cloud-based services.
ChainLink (LINK) Cryptocurrency Hits All-Time High
The euphoria among the Chainlink supporters was soon reflected after the blockchain project shared this news.
We're thrilled to share that Google is one of the great companies integrating #Chainlink into their approach to smart contract adoption. Here's how @GCPcloud users can use Chainlink to connect to BigQuery, one of Google's most popular cloud services. https://t.co/TfaGPP5TlS
— Chainlink (@chainlink) June 13, 2019
The price of the LINK tokens jumped by over 70% to its all-time high of $1.94 with its market cap touching $680 million, burst into the top-25 or Coinmarketcap rating. Chainlink’s association with Google can serve as a game-changer for this blockchain project.