Chainlink Outlined the Ultimate Goal of Integrating Global Finance Onchain

• Chainlink has published a roadmap for moving global finance onchain.
• The network aims to become the standard for the tokenized asset economy.
• It is targeting the RWA market with potential of up to $867 trillion, according to a WEF forecast.

Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network, unveiled its vision for the so-called endgame — the final stage of the platform’s development, in which it is meant to become the foundational standard for integrating the global financial system with the onchain economy of tokenized assets. 

At the core of this approach is enabling the full lifecycle of institutional blockchain applications, including for tokenized real-world assets (RWA), which require complex, regulated, and scalable workflows.

Chainlink noted that as tokenization of financial instruments advances, traditional approaches — building the entire infrastructure in-house or relying on a fragmented set of providers — become too complex, expensive, and risky. Institutions need a universal solution that combines data, cross-chain interoperability, compliance, privacy, orchestration, and integration with legacy IT systems.

Chainlink positions itself as the single, universal oracle platform that meets these requirements. The platform is already used by the largest financial institutions, governments, and DeFi protocols to bring elements of the global financial system onchain to create faster, cheaper, and more transparent services.

At the foundation of the ecosystem is the Chainlink stack, which includes four key standards:

• Data
• Interoperability
• Compliance
• Privacy

Above them sits the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) — an orchestration layer that enables modular oracle services to be assembled into full-fledged, end-to-end solutions that run in a decentralized manner and are cryptographically verifiable. This approach is compared to the role of TCP/IP and the Java Runtime Environment in the evolution of the internet — in Chainlink’s view, the blockchain industry needs its own universal standard.

The company also paid special attention to meeting institutional-grade requirements. Several Chainlink oracle services — including Price Feeds, SmartData (Proof of Reserve and NAV), and the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) — already hold ISO 27001 certification and SOC 2 Type 1 attestation. This confirms the infrastructure’s readiness for use in real financial products with stringent requirements for security, availability, and confidentiality.

The ecosystem’s economic model is supported by the LINK token, which is used to pay for services, reward node operators, and for staking. 

The platform also uses a Payment Abstraction mechanism that allows users to pay for oracle services in both crypto assets and fiat currencies, with subsequent conversion into LINK assets. Part of these proceeds forms the Chainlink Reserve — a strategic onchain reserve of LINK tokens aimed at the network’s long-term resilience.

As a reminder, the network announced the formation of a reserve in LINK tokens in August 2025.

According to estimates by Boston Consulting Group, by 2030 the volume of tokenized illiquid assets could reach $16 trillion, which is about 10% of global GDP. 

The World Economic Forum (WEF), for its part, believes the potential of tokenization covers up to $867 trillion in financial assets. Chainlink views these figures as a key opportunity to scale onchain finance.

The platform already works with a number of global players, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, J.P. Morgan Kinexys, Fidelity International, UBS, ANZ Bank, SBI Digital, and Apex Group, as well as leading DeFi protocols — Aave, Lido, Compound, GMX, Pendle, and others. 

Overall, the Chainlink network has already enabled transactions worth tens of trillions of dollars, delivered more than 18 billion verified messages, and secures over 70% of the DeFi segment.

Chainlink emphasized that it is precisely the combination of data, cross-chain interoperability, compliance, privacy, and orchestration within a single platform that enables complex institutional use cases — from DvP and PvP settlement to the tokenization of funds, stablecoins, central bank digital currency, and real-world assets across different jurisdictions.

Earlier, we wrote that Chainlink became a partner of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the NYSE.