Chainlink Launches ACE Tool to Unlock $100 Trillion in Institutional Crypto Capital

Chainlink, a decentralized blockchain oracle network for crosschain communication, has launched a compliance tool designed to unlock over $100 trillion worth of institutional investor capital for the cryptocurrency space. The tool, known as the Automated Compliance Engine (ACE), was announced on Monday and provides a modular and standardized framework for managing regulatory compliance across both traditional and decentralized finance (DeFi) systems.

The ACE system is built on the Chainlink Runtime Environment and is launching in collaboration with key market participants, including financial solutions provider Apex Group, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), and the ERC-3643 Association. This tool aims to create compliance-focused digital assets and services across public and private blockchain networks, including reusable digital identities, automated policy enforcement, crosschain compliant digital asset settlement, and regulated asset usage in DeFi.

Existing compliance processes in traditional finance are often fragmented and expensive, resulting in billions of dollars in costs for institutions. Financial crime compliance for institutions in the US and Canada cost upward of $60 billion in 2023. Chainlink's privacy-preserving compliance framework integrates existing digital identity solutions and supports both onchain and offchain policy enforcements, enabling institutional digital asset deployment in a compliant manner.

ACE aims to make digital asset compliance faster, cheaper, and more accurate. Sergey Nazarov, the co-founder of Chainlink, stated, “If you make a digital asset and use the Chainlink standard for compliance in that digital asset, it will be better, cheaper, and faster than its traditional alternative.” He added, “Chainlink ACE is the compliance and identity standard the tokenized asset economy has been waiting for, with today’s launch providing a final critical building block for over $100 trillion in institutional capital to move onchain.”

Previous solutions often relied on manual processes for risk monitoring and identity verification, which often resulted in duplicated efforts across counterparties due to a lack of transparency. In contrast, Chainlink’s architecture allows compliance logic to be reusable, upgradeable, and enforceable across any combination of token standards, which it claims will result in smaller onboarding costs and operational complexities.

Alexandre Kech, CEO of GLEIF, described Chainlink’s compliance engine as a “powerful example of how verifiable organizational identity can enhance compliance across blockchain ecosystems.” He encouraged all financial institutions to explore with their solution providers how adopting the vLEI can strengthen trust, interoperability, and auditability in their compliance frameworks.