I did not expect #Maker to add #LINK as collateral, but I'm also not surprised. It makes a whole lot of sense that, after #ETH and #DAI, LINK is the very next coin they want to add as THE collateral for the biggest ETH #stablecoin system. Here is why:
As collateral, you wan't something that is safe in the long run, that is not volatile and based on far fetched / high speculative value. You wan't something with high liquidity and a bit 'cash flow'. Unlike most ERC20, #Chainlink is not fueling new/different blockchains that
compete with Ethereum on the smart contract marketshare (which it has over 95% already). Chainlink does not compete with the Stablecoins where Tether alone has about 90% marketshare. Chainlink is a new 'thing', a new 'category' and serves the purpose of
filling data into all of these smart contract platforms and to help stablecoins to have an accurate peg. It's a tool or infrastructure to make the "crypto-things" we have up and running, "more crypto", more decentralized, more secure.
The value of the LINK network and therfore of the LINK token, directly increases in value with the blockchain and smart contract economy growing. The network is worth more, as more contract platforms and stablecoins are served/secured by decentralized Chainlink oracles and token
The LINK token is used in a mechanism to make attacks on data inputs economically unfeasable. Just as mining makes attacks on Bitcoin unfeasable. They are not impossible, they are easy: Get more hashrate than 51% of total BTC hashrate at a given moment. For LINK it's easy
to attack it too: Get more than 51% Tokens AND Nodes AND Reputation and you will be able to attack it. However, the setup here is as economically unfeasible to attack as the BTC chain. When you have the chance to attack BTC with 51% hashrate, you would be better off
just mining it for profit instead of trying an attack. Same goes for LINK. An attack to exploit a 1mm$ dApp by the data input might costs you 10mm$ BECAUSE of this clever setup. So if you are betting on smart contracts and want to securely use DeFi, what asset is more safe and
stable to bet on as collateral than the very token that growth in value and fuels the smart contract economy with data than Chainlink?
