ChainLink

I'm not a very technical guy, but it seems like they haven't started working on the important parts of the project, consensus, aggregation etc.

Would like to know what some more knowledgable people think the release time will be for mainnet or complete testnet.

Been thinking about the value of decentralized oracles and was curious as to what the market currently uses to verify prices etc to settle derivative products.

Also, what is the cost comparison between what the market currently uses and what Chainlink or other decentralized oracles offer?

I'm looking for clarification on how exactly the two work together. I know Towncrier was the creation of IC3 and Ari Juels and is basically an oracle network that takes advantage of SGX to provide more secure and confidential data. However Chainlink is also a network of oracles that would like to take advantage of SGX and are working with IC3 and Ari Juels.

Will Towncrier just become a selection of secure oracles within the Chainlink ecosystem? Or is Towncrier just kind of a beta to Chainlink to research SGX specifically?

Ari Juels is head of the IC3 who is the adviser or Chainlink... IC3 is an initiative of faculty members at Cornell University, Cornell Tech, UC Berkeley, UIUC and the Technion. It's based at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in NYC. http://www.initc3.org/about.html

Which means we have many smart people trying to create a solution for smart contracts tied to Chainlink.

http://www.initc3.org/partners.html These are all companies enrolled as partners or donors.