Who are Chainlink's competitors and what sets everyone apart?

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blockchain-applications-in-finance-defi-tickets-103380072580?aff=rd

What gives him his head start? Soon there will be a flood of new entrants — the technicals do not seem overly difficult to implement so as to pose a barrier to entry. Partnerships are good but superficial and nothing stopping those partners from trading up. Is there a network effect that I don’t know about?

Chainlink Guide

Announcements and Integrations ?

• @futureswapx Integrates with Chainlink: Decentralized futures platform @futureswapx is now live on the Ethereum mainnet powered by Chainlink's Price Reference Feeds. Check out their platform and see how Chainlink oracles provide key data feeds for trading, liquidating & balancing prices. Read Announcement
• @AcalaNetwork Integrates with Chainlink: Decentralized stablecoin and staking liquidity platform Acala Network will use Chainlink to supply the real-time price of collateralized assets such as BTC, ETH and DOT on blockchains connected to the Polkadot Network. Read Announcement
• @Bloom Integrates with Chainlink: Bloom's Verifiable Credential data will be accessible to DeFi applications through Chainlink oracles. This gives Dapps (lending protocols) access to valuable identity data such as credit history & accreditation sourced from traditional credit bureaus. Read Announcement
• @HyperDAO Integrates with Chainlink: DeFi blockchain HyperDAO is integrating Chainlink's trusted oracles and high-quality data. HyperDAO will use #Chainlink to build a collateral-backed stablecoin, add stop-limit order functions, calculate interest rates and more. Read Announcement

Featured Videos ?

• Video AMA with Hudson Jameson of Ethereum Foundation: This livestream chat is with Hudson Jameson of The Ethereum Foundation. He will be discussing Ethereum's current development focus and how to get involved in the community. Check out the description for links to resources spoken about in the talk.
• Kava AMA: DeFi Oracles and Chainlink: This is the video AMA is in Korean and features Kava's Head of Business Development, Aaron Choi and marketer Snake Cha and Chainlink’s global marketer’s Rory and Yeongin. They share more information about the integration.
• Set Protocol and Chainlink AMA: This live-stream Q&A features Anthony Sassano of Set Protocol and Johann Eid of Chainlink. The two discussed the Set Protocol integration of Chainlink, Set Protocol as a native DeFi primitive, and what the Set Protocol team is looking to create in the future.

Mentions in the Press ✅

• <23 April> [PRESS] CoinTelegraph: Coinbase Emerges as a Major DeFi Contender With Price Oracle Launch: Sergey Nazarov told Cointelegraph that he does not see Coinbase’s new venture as competition, but more of a complimentary product: “We have known about it for months. This came out of a hackathon that was won by Compound. Probably, what will end up happening is that we’ll consume their API.” He did not rule out the possibility of partnering in the future with Coinbase on price oracle infrastructure.
• <24 April> [PRESS] CoinDesk: Meet Red Date, the Little-Known Tech Firm Behind China’s Big Blockchain Vision

Upcoming Events ?

• <27 April> [MEETUP] Virtual, China - Contentos and Chainlink Live Q&A
• <28 April> [MEETUP] Virtual, 4:00 PM EDT - Live Video Q&A with Aaron Wright of The LAO
• <29 April> [MEETUP] Virtual, 10 AM EDT - Live Video Q&A with Mounir Benchemled, founder of Paraswap
• <30 April> [MEETUP] Virtual, Spanish - SMART CONTRACT - ORÁCULOS DESCENTRALIZADOS CHAINLINK
• <13 May> [MEETUP] Virtual, Global - Opportunities and Challenges in a World Powered by IoT, AI, and Blockchain with Ian Keane of Oracle

Are you interested in hosting your own meetup? Apply to become a Chainlink Community Advocate today: https://events.chain.link/advocate

Community Content & Celebrations ?

• Fiews.io: A Chainlink Node Operator updated their ChainlinkAdapters.com, which now lists 45 different external adapters for Chainlink nodes! If you're building with Chainlink– have a look!
• Community podcast featuring @ChainLinkGod. Watch here
• Follow @finrekt for their weekly Chainlink hot takes and happenings here
• Chainlink Offical Twitter account hits 50K and counting. Follow us here. You can also follow @Smart_Contract for additional updates from our team that's helping build the Chainlink Network.

Chainlink is hiring: Check out these open roles ?‍?

• Head of Communication, Global
• Integration Engineer, Blockchain, Global
• Technical Documentation Writer, Global

View all open roles at https://careers.chain.link

Are there other community content and celebrations that we missed? Post them in the comments below! ⤵️

New to chainlink! Is there a website or public API where I can check network usage metrics such as average contract value, total contract value, amount of LINK staked by node operators, etc? I think the value of LINK is going to be related to the total value of smart contract served per year since highly valuable contracts would require more LINK as collateral -- correct me if I'm wrong.