What Are Oracles?

Oracles are third-party services that provide external data to blockchains. Since smart contracts cannot fetch data outside their own networks, oracles act as bridges between on-chain and off-chain environments. For instance, they can deliver price feeds, weather reports, or any external event data necessary to execute smart contracts correctly.

Why DEXs Need Oracles

DEXs, especially those supporting automated market makers (AMMs), need accurate and real-time price data to ensure fair trading. Without oracles, a smart contract cannot determine the correct exchange rate between tokens. This can lead to mispricing, arbitrage attacks, and ultimately a loss of user trust.

Additionally, oracles help in managing decentralized finance (DeFi) services like lending, derivatives, and stablecoins within DEX platforms. Because these services require up-to-date information, oracles play an indispensable role in ensuring data reliability.

Types of Oracles

There are several types of oracles, such as:

• Inbound Oracles: Provide data from the real world to the blockchain.

• Outbound Oracles: Send data from the blockchain to external systems.

• Software Oracles: Gather data from digital sources like APIs.

• Hardware Oracles: Use physical devices to transmit data.

• Consensus-Based Oracles: Aggregate information from multiple sources to ensure accuracy.

Challenges and the Future

Despite their importance, oracles can be a point of centralization and vulnerability. Therefore, projects are increasingly moving toward decentralized oracle networks (like Chainlink) to maintain trustlessness. As the DeFi sector continues to grow, so too will the demand for secure, fast, and reliable oracle services.

In conclusion, oracles serve as a vital component in the DEX ecosystem. By enabling smart contracts to interact with the real world, they ensure that decentralized platforms remain functional, accurate, and trustworthy.

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

Disclaimer:

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions

The post The Role of Oracles in Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

Empowering Oracle Accessibility

Chainlink’s core mission revolves around providing reliable and secure data to blockchain applications through decentralized oracles. Recognizing the importance of accessibility in the blockchain ecosystem, Chainlink is taking a bold stance by actively working to enhance access to its Oracle services.

The Token Transfer Initiative

In a demonstration of its commitment, Chainlink has executed a substantial transfer of millions of LINK tokens. This strategic move aims to strengthen the accessibility of Chainlink’s Oracle network, ensuring wider participation and engagement from developers, data providers, and users alike.

Fostering Decentralization and Innovation

By increasing Oracle accessibility, Chainlink fosters decentralization and promotes innovation in the blockchain industry. The transfer of LINK tokens aligns with Chainlink’s vision of creating a robust, open ecosystem where developers can seamlessly leverage high-quality data for their smart contracts and dApps.

Collaboration and Community Support

Chainlink’s endeavor to improve Oracle accessibility is not a solitary pursuit. The platform actively seeks collaboration and support from its community and stakeholders, recognizing the collective effort required to drive positive change and advance the accessibility of decentralized Oracle networks.

Positive Impact on the Blockchain Ecosystem

Enhancing Oracle accessibility has far-reaching benefits for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Access to reliable and secure data sources empowers developers to build innovative applications, while users gain trust and confidence in the accuracy and integrity of blockchain-based systems.

Conclusion

Chainlink’s proactive steps to enhance Oracle accessibility through the significant transfer of millions of LINK tokens demonstrate its commitment to driving positive change in the blockchain industry. By strengthening access to its oracle services, Chainlink paves the way for greater innovation, decentralization, and reliability in blockchain applications. As the community continues to rally behind Chainlink’s mission, the future of Oracle accessibility looks promising, enabling a new wave of transformative blockchain solutions.

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post Empowering Oracle Accessibility appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

However, smart contracts limit to executing code on the blockchain, and they cannot access external data or systems. This is where Chainlink comes in. Chainlink provides a decentralized network of oracles and nodes that retrieve and verify data from external sources and send it to the smart contract for execution. This allows smart contracts to interact with off-chain data and systems, expanding their use cases and potential applications.

Chainlink’s decentralized architecture ensures that the data being fed to the smart contract is accurate and tamper-proof, which is essential for the secure and reliable execution of the contract. It also allows the creation of complex smart contracts that interact with a wide variety of data and systems, making them more versatile and useful for real-world applications.

What Are The Products of Chainlink

Chainlink offers a range of products and services designed to provide reliable, secure, and decentralized oracle solutions for smart contracts.

Here are some of Chainlink’s key products:

1. Chainlink Price Feeds:
   Chainlink provides decentralized price feeds that smart contracts can use to get accurate and up-to-date pricing data from a variety of sources. This data can be used to settle financial contracts, execute trades, and provide market insights.
2. Chainlink VRF (Verifiable Random Function):
   This product enables smart contracts to access secure and verifiable random numbers, which are essential for various applications, such as gaming and lotteries.
3. Chainlink Keepers:
   This product provides a decentralized way to automate smart contract functions based on external events or data. For example, it can trigger a contract to execute when a specific price threshold is reached.
4. Chainlink OCR (Off-Chain Reporting):
   OCR is a decentralized oracle network that allows smart contracts to securely and reliably access off-chain data. This product is designed to provide fast and accurate data delivery, even during times of high network congestion.
5. Chainlink Node Operators:
   Chainlink’s network relies on a decentralized group of node operators who run the software that provides oracle services. Node operators are rewarded with LINK tokens for providing accurate and reliable data to smart contracts.

Overall, Chainlink’s products and services designs provide a highly reliable, secure, and decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to interact with the real world in a variety of ways.

Features of Chainlink

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that offers a range of features that make it a reliable and secure solution for smart contracts.

Here are some of its key features:

1. Decentralization:
   Chainlink’s decentralized network of node operators ensures that no single point of failure exists and that the data being fed to smart contracts is tamper-proof and accurate.
2. Security:
   Chainlink’s tamper-proof, cryptographic protocols ensure that the data being fed to smart contracts is secure and reliable. This is essential for executing financial contracts and other mission-critical applications.
3. Flexibility:
   Chainlink provides a range of products and services that enable smart contracts to interact with a variety of data sources and systems, making them more versatile and useful for real-world applications.
4. Scalability:
   Chainlink’s decentralized network can handle large volumes of data and transactions, making it a highly scalable solution for smart contracts.
5. Reliability:
   Chainlink’s network of node operators is incentivizes to provide accurate and reliable data, which ensures that smart contracts can execute as expected.
6. Transparency:
   Chainlink’s network provides transparency into the data sources being used and how they are being used. This ensures that the data being fed to smart contracts is trustworthy and verifiable.

Overall, Chainlink’s features make it a highly reliable, secure, and versatile solution for smart contracts, with the potential to unlock a wide range of new use cases for blockchain technology.

How Does Chainlink Oracle Work?

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that connects smart contracts on blockchain platforms with off-chain data, events, and systems.

Here’s how the Chainlink oracle works:

1. Request for Data:
   When a smart contract needs to access off-chain data, it sends a request to the Chainlink network. This request includes the type of data needed, the format of the data, and the specific data source to use.
2. Selection of Nodes:
   The Chainlink network selects a set of node operators to fulfill the data request. The selection is based on a number of factors, including the quality of the nodes’ data, their reliability, and their reputation.
3. Data Retrieval:
   The selected nodes retrieve the data from the specified data sources and verify the accuracy and authenticity of the data. They then send the data back to the smart contract in the format requested.
4. Data Delivery:
   The Chainlink oracle aggregates the data from the selected nodes and delivers it to the smart contract in a secure and reliable manner. The smart contract can then use the data to execute its function or transaction.
5. Verification and Payment:
   The smart contract verifies the data received from the Chainlink oracle to ensure that it is accurate and tamper-proof. Once verified, the smart contract sends a payment to the node operators as a reward for providing accurate and reliable data.

Overall, the Chainlink oracle provides a secure, decentralized, and reliable way for smart contracts to access off-chain data and systems. Its decentralized architecture ensures that the data being fed to the smart contract is accurate and tamper-proof, which is essential for the secure and reliable execution of the contract.

FOLLOW CHAINLINK FOR MORE UPDATES

Website | Twitter | Discord | Youtube

REQUEST FOR ARTICLE

The post How Does Chainlink Oracle Work? appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

DIA has entered into a new collaboration with Epics to provide an off-chain / on-chain automation solution via oracle on Solana to power the decentralized development platform.

Introducing Epics

Epics are a decentralized crowdsourcing platform that encourages the development of open-source software. Clients can create a Quest from a GitHub problem (Smart Contract). By resolving GitHub issues, developers can earn token awards (Quests). This ecosystem forces developers to concentrate on challenges in their areas of expertise. Clients will also be able to solve more complex challenges.

The more token awards there are, the more attention there will be paid to issues that need to be resolved. As a result, the quality of open-source software is increasing faster. Epics help software developers solve resource imbalances.

Oracle-based off-chain/on-chain automation

Epics have built a platform on top of Solana that uses GitHub pull requests to track project progress and fund developers. Tracking of specific work has been submitted or the PR has been closed because it was accepted and completed are two examples.

Epics requires real-time data about the state changes of pull requests, supplied on-chain on the Solana network, to run the protocol in a trustless and transparent manner. DIA are delighted to announce a new collaboration with Epics to deliver an off-chain/on-chain automation solution via a smart contract oracle to the decentralized development platform.

Shota Kishi, Co-Founder of Epics comments:

“We are very excited about this collaborative development with DIA. DIA’s customisable and transparent oracle infrastructure enables our Epics platform to operate as a decentralized application by using off-chain / on-chain data in a secure and smooth fashion.

We believe that using off-chain / on-chain data automation correctly can make blockchain technology more useful to society.”

How Does It Work?

To successfully fulfil Epics’ needs, DIA built a 2-step automation system:

• Off-chain: DIA has created an API endpoint that provides real-time information on the status of the selected pull request. As soon as there is a change in the status of the pull request, the DIA API will trigger an update to the oracle.
• On-chain: DIA has deployed a dedicated oracle smart contract on Solana. The oracle is triggered by the API and updates the on-chain status of the pull request with the new information.

The oracle provides the automatic connection between the status of the pull requests (off-chain data). And Epic’s protocol on Solana (on-chain) enabling the smooth operation of the decentralized crowdsourcing development platform.

Michael Weber, DIA Association President comments:

“We are excited to expand the capabilities of DIA’s customisable and transparent oracle infrastructure, to provide off-chain/on-chain automaton capabilities for Epics. We are excited to see the development of the Epics platform, incentivizing open source software development.”

About DIA

DIA is a multi-chain, end-to-end, open-source data and oracle platform for Web3. The DIA platform enables the sourcing, validation and sharing of transparent and verified data feeds for traditional and digital financial applications. DIA’s institutional-grade data feeds cover digital asset prices, NFT floor prices, lending rates, FX rates and more.

Website | Twitter

About Epics

Epics is a decentralized crowdsourcing platform for incentivizing open source software development.

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post DIA Collaboration with Epics appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

Binance is officially launching its oracle service in October 2022. As oracles – data bridges between distributed ledgers and the outside world – are becoming increasingly central to the blockchain ecosystem, there couldn’t be a better time for Binance to unveil its reliable and secure blockchain data service. Keep reading to learn more about the structure and functions of Binance Oracle.
(Courtesy of Binance)

To understand Binance Oracle, one must first understand what a blockchain oracle is. Blockchain oracles are services that allow smart contracts to access data from sources that can be found outside their native networks. In other words, an oracle is a bridge between the blockchain and the real world. These services can help smart contracts access outside data and execute based on off-chain inputs.

Why Has Binance Entered the Oracle Field?

Binance sees tremendous opportunities within the field of blockchain oracles and believes that contributing to this sector will allow the BNB Chain ecosystem and the larger digital asset space to flourish for the benefit of users. Oracles can serve as the foundation of Web3, reliably providing smart contracts that power a vast array of use cases with the necessary real-world data.

Binance Oracle will support multiple blockchain partners within the BNB Chain ecosystem, becoming yet another stepping stone on Binance’s path to the role of the leading infrastructure services provider for the digital asset industry.

What Exactly Is Binance Oracle?

Binance Oracle is designed to help smart contracts that require off-chain data inputs to execute. Purpose-built specifically for the needs of DeFi applications, Binance Oracle will feed data to the blockchain reliably and securely.

Binance Oracle components

Initially, Binance Oracle will support index prices for the most popular digital assets.

To do that, it will rely on a combination of 5 robust components: 

1. Sourcing price data from numerous CEXs and aggregating them using a proprietary formula.

2. Utilizing in-house TSS (Threshold Signature Scheme) to sign on individual data feeds.

3. Feeding the latest index price to on-chain oracle using a flexible time window and price deviation.
4. Providing easy-to-use interfaces to on-chain DApps

5. Providing perpetual monitoring and instant reaction on a 24/7 basis. 

Robust Security 

One of Binance Oracle’s strengths is its Threshold Signature Scheme, which is applied to each data feed in a distributed signing process, ensuring that there is no single point of failure in the system’s data security. The authenticity of the data is also continuously verified using the Binance public key, thus ensuring that data is not tampered with during the feeding process.

High Availability 

Another benefit that Binance Oracle offers is its high availability. First, multiple top exchanges are handpicking, with smart algorithms ensuring the index price’s accuracy. This means that you will be able to access the best sources in real-time. The architecture of Binance Oracle’s components ensures that the system can continuously provide data in any extreme scenario. The complete infrastructure of Binance Oracle will deploy in each region, aiming for immunity from region-wide outages and disasters.

Binance Oracle has already onboarded 10 BNB Chain projects, including Venus, Alpaca, SpaceID, Unilend, Deri, Ankr, Corite, Ultiverse, and Beefy to its early-bird program. The blockchain data service is looking to serve more Web3 teams and users with the addition of flexible customization.

STAY IN THE LOOP WITH BINANCE TO GET UPDATES

Website | Twitter | Discord

RESOURCES

BINANCE BLOG

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post Introducing Binance Oracle appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

Synchrony is integrating Chainlink Price Feeds to support calculations in their Wallet Trust Factor (WTF) and API, but they have big plans to utilize other fantastic Chainlink services as they continue to grow Synchrony.

The platform needs data fidelity and source diversity to support its indexes, copy-trading, and analytics.

Chainlink is a decentralized network of oracles that enables smart contracts to securely interact with real-world data and services that exist outside of blockchains. One of the main reasons they decided to use Chainlink Price Feeds is because they are proven to be the most time-tested market data solution available in the entire blockchain industry.

In fact, Chainlink Price Feeds already help secure 75B+ for leading dApps. More than that, the ApeSwap team has already had a positive experience using Chainlink VRF, which helps ensure their weekly BANANA rewards distributions to NFA holders are verifiably fair.

What Is Synchrony?

Synchrony is a state-of-the-art decentralized asset management platform utilizing a sophisticated suite of analytics and machine learning algorithms that evaluate and optimize sets of on-chain instruments to produce single-click solutions for diversified exposure to an ecosystem’s primitives. The core features powered by the platform are copy-trading and composable indices, both facilitated by a friendly DeFi Farmer’s market — a place to interact with the whole Solana blockchain from one location. It may sound complicated, but Synchrony Simplifies DeFi with AI.

Synchrony is one of the early Solana-native projects to integrate with Chainlink, but certainly won’t be the last, as the Solana network’s high throughput and cheaper gas fees continue to drive builders from other ecosystems. While Synchrony is starting with price and data feeds, we have plans to incorporate other Chainlink services — like Keepers for decentralized smart contract automation — as we build our DeFi metaverse.

Why Chainlink?

They picked the Chainlink Network for a number of reasons; its security, the decentralized and highly-reliable nature of its nodes, and the fact that Chainlink is the top oracle provider on leading blockchain networks. Helping secure more than $75B in smart contract value. As the security and reliability of the price data on their platform is paramount to their success, they needed to integrate with a battle-tested oracle solution that has already proven to be reliable even during times of extreme market volatility and network congestion.

Chainlink Price Feeds Use Cases in Synchrony

They will primarily use Chainlink Price Feeds for Synchrony’s Wallet Trust Factor (WTF) and Token Integrity metrics. Having accurate price data helps us provide our community with razor-sharp insights into the wallets they are researching. The WTF relies on tons of data to provide the end-user with a simple ranking system on the wallet they are viewing. A big portion of this relies on historical price data of tokens. As well as real-time market data based on global price discovery.

In the mid-term, they plan on incorporating Chainlink’s high-quality data into an entirely new set of metrics base on platform. On-chain and off-chain data to be access by their users and other projects utilizing their API.

Quote from Andy Keh, Co-Founder @ Synchrony

“When I first read about smart contracts I felt their application was fairly limited because of the lack of interaction with the ‘outside world’. Because of my background in supply chain and operations. My initial alternative value proposition for the blockchain, outside of a store of value — was in the application of the ledger to logistics. The problem with this potential application was the insular nature of the immutable ledger. Chainlink helps resolve this through a decentralized network of oracles that provide that link to the outside world. Oracles are the sensory organs of smart contracts. I’ve been an avid supporter since I learned about Chainlink in early 2020!

About Chainlink

Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain.

Website | Twitter

About Synchrony

Synchrony is the first on-chain copy trading and composable indexing protocol facilitated by a friendly Solana Marketplace explorer.

Website | Twitter

SOURCE

https://medium.com/@synchrony/synchrony-is-integrating-chainlink-price-feeds-to-support-ai-powered-decentralized-asset-management-49fa16c9d00

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post Synchrony Is Integrating Chainlink Price Feeds appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

X-margin announced it has rebranded to Credora. X-Margin was founded to help disintermediate capital flows and create more efficient markets for cryptocurrencies. Since 2019, X-Margin has evolved and now offers real-time privacy-preserving credit evaluations that facilitate transparent, competitive and efficient crypto credit markets.

Credora: The Credit Oracle

The name, Credora, the credit oracle, aligns more with the underlying technology and vision for the company’s future. The criticality of understanding counterparty credit risk has been illuminated by recent market events, highlighting the need for Credora’s privacy-preserving credit evaluation and real-time risk monitoring solutions.

Credora’s integrations with DeFi and CeFi partners will continue to power data-driven lending and facilitate efficient credit markets for borrowers and lenders. In addition, Credora’s technology will help lay the foundation for standardized and secure credit evaluation methods, helping guide the future of credit and regulation in crypto.

About Credora

Credora enables data-driven and transparent lending across CeFi and DeFi. The team has developed private credit infrastructure that evaluates the real-time creditworthiness of borrowers while protecting sensitive data. To date, Credora has facilitated $750m+ in uncollateralized loans across 70+ borrowers & lenders with clients and can help well-capitalized, risk-managed borrowers borrow transparently and securely. Credora currently monitors over $4 billion of borrower assets with a coverage of 85% of CeFi volumes. While covering DeFi and staking activity from 14 EVM compatible chains and Solana. Credora (X-Margin) raised $8 million in a Series A funding round backed by leading digital asset investors.

Website | Twitter 

SOURCE

https://medium.com/xmargin/announcing-credora-the-credit-oracle-formerly-x-margin-32911dc5d3b4

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post X-Margin Rebranded to Credora appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.

About the Raised Capital

Empiric Network $7M Seed Round is to build the oracle for the zk-future of blockchain.

Variant is joined by an amazing group of founding data partners including Alameda, CMT Digital, Flow Traders, FTX and Gemini, as well as ecosystem partners such as StarkWare and Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon), ROAD Capital, and a stellar group of angels such as Marc Bhagarva (Tagomi), Luke Pearson (Polychain), Max Kleiman-Weiner (Sequoia), Tekin Salimi (DAO5), Tarun Chitra (Gauntlet) and Robert Leshner (Compound).

Indeed, Empiric is reinventing the data infrastructure for DeFi.

But their mission is much broader: They are building the crucial decentralized infrastructure for all data, from the weather (parametric insurance) to sports (betting and fantasy sports) to news (prediction markets) and beyond.

They have assembled an exceptional team from places such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. Who built data infrastructure at Palantir. Created tokenized real estate with DLA Piper and have been building on zk-rollups since day one.

Empiric Network believes in a world where society’s crucial applications are accessible to anyone. Where transparency replaces backroom dealings and trustless software has made middlemen obsolete. With their deep knowledge of zk-technology and the ecosystem. They are here to build the decentralized data infrastructure our industry needs to make this vision a reality.

About Empiric Network

Empiric Network is the first decentralized, transparent and composable oracle network, leveraging state-of-the-art zero knowledge cryptography. Hence, they have partner with the biggest market makers and the most liquid exchanges who sign and timestamp their own high quality, robust data and send it directly on-chain. Their feeds are already live in public alpha on Starknet, where they are powering the next generation of ambitious protocols such as ZKLend, CurveZero, Magnety, Canvas, FujiDAO, and more.

Website | Twitter

SOURCE

https://medium.com/@EmpiricNetwork/empiric-network-the-zk-native-oracle-dcff3c36658a

REQUEST AN ARTICLE

The post Empiric Network $7M Seed Round appeared first on Smart Liquidity Research.