Chainlink sets new industry benchmark for randomness with ‘VRF v2’ upgrade

Market-leading oracle solution Chainlink has unveiled the latest upgrade to its array of blockchain products – Chainlink VRF v2.

The upgrades to its industry-standard ‘VRF’ (Verifiable Random Function) product bring 60% reduced transaction fees for smart contract developers, a ‘subscription management’ app for easier developer access and a number of changes designed to make the solution more gas-efficient.

Used for products like minting NFTs, giveaways and other products that require randomness, Chainlink VRF uses RNG (random number generator) to provide cryptographic proof to show how the number was generated for a project.

“Over the last year, Chainlink VRF has become the industry standard for randomness in the blockchain sector,” said Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink.

“It is only with verifiable, tamper-proof randomness that it becomes possible to securely mint NFTs and their attributes, or ensure fair outcomes in blockchain-based games. I believe the efficiency benefits of v2 will further accelerate its adoption rate across many new ecosystems.” 

Since its launch, Chainlink VRF has become a widely adopted ‘RNG’ solution throughout the blockchain ecosystem and has so far fulfilled more than three million request transactions.

It currently provides verifiable randomness to more than 2,200 smart contracts across multiple blockchain networks including Ethereum, Polygon, and Binance Chain – with popular projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Axie Infinity having used Chainlink VRF for randomness in the past.

Chainlink VRF v2 is now also set to deploy onto additional leading blockchains following its successful initial release on Ethereum.

Chainlink’s VRF function has found most of its joy catering to developers of leading blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity, which used the ‘V1’ version of VRF to help the game determine the distribution of rare traits.

Chirag Dhull, Head of Product Marketing at Chainlink, now believes that the introduction of ‘VRF V2’ could herald a more scalable platform for NFTs and gaming dApps to build out its products.

“We are excited to announce the next leap in on-chain randomness – Chainlink VRF v2,” he said.

“Chainlink VRF v2 puts even more control in the hands of developers to build scalable, yet highly configurable and gas-efficient on-chan RNG solutions for NFT and Gaming dApps while ensuring that the results are truly random, verifiable, and tamper-proof.”

The Chainlink ecosystem remains the world’s most widely adopted oracle network, and now secures more than $60 billion worth of value across hundreds of applications and a dozen different blockchains.