Interview: Former NBA player Kris Humphries explains why he’s excited about Chainlink ๐จ This article is 4 years old...
Interview: Former NBA player Kris Humphries explains why he’s excited about Chainlink
2 min read
Updated: Aug. 17, 2020 at 10:24 pm UTC
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It’s fair to say that Chainlink (LINK) has been a driving narrative in the cryptocurrency market over recent months.
The Ethereum-based asset’s price performance alone has been impressive: per data from CryptoSlate, LINK has gained 74.34 percent in the past month alone and approximately 600 percent from the March capitulation lows.
Behind this surge is an influx of positive fundamentals regarding Chainlink’s core technology, decentralized oracles, which have been adopted by prominent players within and outside of the blockchain space in recent months.
CryptoSlate was lucky enough to recently chat with Kris Humphries, a former NBA player for Utah Jazz, Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, and other teams, about his thoughts on what’s next for Chainlink.
This interview came after he tweeted that LINK’s recent price performance has been “impressive” and that he thinks Chainlink should be thought of as a long-term play or investment.
Since my first tweet about #ChainLink on Apr 7, 45+ additional partnerships have been announced, reference data increased from 29 to 31, and price increased by 145%. This is a long-term play, still these short-term wins are impressive.#Link #BTC #ETH
— Kris Humphries (@KrisHumphries) July 10, 2020
What drew Kris Humphries to Chainlink?
Humphries told CryptoSlate that what drove him to advocate for and invest in Chainlink was a combination of two crucial factors:
- The importance of having access to, using, and analyzing data, which he discovered during his time in the NBA:
“Over the course of my time in the NBA, I witnessed the increasing role that data played in developing plays and overall team strategy. Anyone who follows the NBA has witnessed the evolution toward increased threes and attacking the net. This perspective helped me understand the value of data and shaped the types of projects I like in the blockchain space, including Chainlink.”
- Chainlink’s commitment to focus and hard work:
“Coming into the NBA I told myself I would outwork everyone, then I met Dirk Nowitzki. He shifted my understanding of what it meant to grind and also the payoffs for doing so, especially when the stakes are high. In the early days of Chainlink, it was a small team of talented individuals who kept their heads down focusing on the technical components. Even during the 2017-2018 boom-bust when other projects were making flashy videos and hiring celebrities, I donโt even think Chainlink had a marketing team. That hard work and focus is now paying off.”
What’s next for LINK?
In one of his tweets about Chainlink, Humphries remarked that Chainlink is a “long-term play” despite its extremely strong price action over short time frames.
Acknowledging that comment, CryptoSlate asked him about what he sees in the future of Chainlink.
In short, he sees the project as a long-term play due to the important data is for smart contracts and on-chain applications. “[W]e will see more use cases emerge from smart contracts, and Chainlink holds a unique position in the market,” he explained.
As to what exactly he’s excited to see in the long run is “retail/individual staking,” integration with other blockchains such as Cosmos and Polkadot, more price reference feeds, more partnerships, and overall growth in the decentralized finance space.
