Partnership with LINK Africa
DIA Joins Forces with LINK, a Web3 Cross-Border Payments Infrastructure for Africa, to Launch Nigeria’s First Parallel Market Price Oracle
Introducing LINK Africa
LINK Africa is a cutting-edge Web3 company that revolutionises cross-border payments for the next billion Africans. Offering the tools and the infrastructure for developers and businesses to build scalable cross-border payments use cases as well as leverage LINK’s end-to-end product utilizing complex blockchain technology presented in the simplest form for businesses ranging from on/off ramps looking to scale to the continent, to local savings platforms looking to provide USD and higher foreign currency yields, to every day businesses just looking for ways to pay and get paid globally.
LINK has indeed and is still building the infrastructure in bridging Africa’s Internet of value.
We are delighted to join forces with LINK in their mission, to launch the first market price oracle for the Naira, Nigeria’s local currency. Through this integration, the LINK Africa protocol gains access to real-time price information for the Nigerian Naira (NGN) on-chain. The oracle has been initially deployed on the Polygon network.
“The importance of this partnership can not be overemphasized, the DIA team has helped put part of the building blocks for us to bring global foreign exchange interoperability onchain especially with a heavy remittance and crypto market like Nigeria, indeed as simple as a price feed is to other markets — for us this pushes a nudge further towards our misson, today leveraging the power of infrastructure users both business and individuals alike can perform NGN/USD fx onchain without the need of intermediaries in a decentralized way”Emanuel EvaristCo-Founder
Powering a Cross-Border Payments Infrastructure
Africa faces a significant market problem, characterised by high fees, poor/multiple exchange rates, and slow settlement times for financial transactions. In response, LINK developed a payment infrastructure using blockchain technology. Another important piece of this infrastructure, which was crucial for smart contract transaction execution, required a blockchain oracle to deliver a price feed with the latest exchange rate of the Nigerian Naira.
As no other oracle was capable of providing such a feed, LINK collaborated with DIA to realise the project. DIA promptly deployed a custom feed for LINK, creating the first price oracle for the Nigerian Naira. This price feed is meticulously constructed by fetching trade data from digital asset exchanges and applying cleansing filters and price-determining methodologies.
Adoption and Usage of the Oracle
Excitingly, the oracle has already been integrated into several dApps, including DFX Finance. DFX Finance is a decentralised foreign exchange (FX) protocol optimised for trading fiat-backed foreign stablecoins. The oracle powers an NGN/USD pool, live on the Polygon network. For more details on the pool’s launch, please refer to the thread below:
Happy Monday, Dragons! 🐉
Today we are excited to announce not only our 10th fiat-backed foreign stablecoin to be added to the #DFX protocol but also, the FIRST Nigerian stablecoin (#NGNC) available on #Polygon! 👏 🥹
— DFX Finance (@DFXFinance) July 17, 2023
A Transparent Delivery
The NGN price oracle has been deployed with custom configurations as per LINK’s requests, ensuring seamless integration with the dApps utilising the oracle. LINK has transparently requested and made these configuration settings publicly available in the DIA Forum:
→ CDR #035: Link | NGN Price Feed
In conclusion, the partnership between LINK and DIA marks a transformative moment in the history of cross-border payments in Africa. It paves the way for a future where individuals and businesses can thrive on a level playing field, unrestricted by geographical boundaries or legacy financial systems. As we witness this exciting chapter unfold, let us embrace the potential it holds and work together to build a more prosperous and inclusive Africa.
