A new Cardano-based project is handling oracles a lot differently than Chainlink

Published at: Aug. 28, 2020

Cardano (ADA) is getting into data oracles ahead of the Goguen era that will add smart contract functionality, taking a different approach than Chainlink. The first oracles are being built in partnership with EMURGO, one of the companies in the Cardano ecosystem, and Ergo (ERG). The first two oracles are deployed on Ergo and provide price feeds for the two trading pairs: ADA/USD and ERG/USD.

The new model introduces Oracle Pools, which are capable of incentivizing good and disincentivizing bad behavior. Ergo's core developer Alexander Chepurnoy told Cointelegraph that the idea involves major players in the DeFi ecosystem donating funds to the oracle pools that they find useful. Then, the data providers get compensated with the funds from the pool. 

The model also envisions data providers staking funds as collateral. If a data provider feeds low-quality data, his stake can get "slashed". Unlike Chainlink, which introduced a LINK token as gas-like payment mechanism, the new model is cryptocurrency agnostic.

Rumors started peculating when Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson tweeted about talking to Chainalink's co-founder Sergey Nazarov. Some were expecting an announcement to be made soon about Cardano integrating Chainlink's oracles. However, thus far, these rumors have not materialized. Likely, Cardano is in no hurry as there is little use in oracles before the Goguen era. At the same, it allows it time to test oracle infrastructure developed in-house.

Tags
Related Posts
Growing list of billion-dollar crypto ‘unicorns’ suggest the best is yet to come
In the traditional investing world ‘unicorn’ is a term used by venture capitalists to describe a privately held startup valued at more than $1 billion. Typically these startups have strong fundamentals and oftentimes a first-mover advantage that helps them rapidly rise in value to become prized investment opportunities for yield-seeking funds. Some of the best-known unicorns include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a private rocket and spacecraft manufacturer with a valuation of $46 billion, and Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange with a current valuation of $8 billion. While the world's attention has been focused on the Coronavirus pandemic, the outcome of …
Technology / Feb. 6, 2021
Cardano projects SundaeSwap and CardStarter squabble over failed promises to investors
The ongoing drama between two projects built on the Cardano (ADA) blockchain escalated across multiple social media platforms Monday, much to the dismay of the ADA community. The issues began in April when accelerator program CardStarter announced it would launch its own decentralized exchange or DEX. Shortly thereafter, its founders incentivized investors to provide liquidity for the project on Uniswap in exchange for native CSWAP tokens. The platform's developers landed an agreement with a third-party DEX called SundaeSwap sometime later, marketing the deal as a "merger" last June. As per the agreement, CardStarter would no longer develop its promised DEX, …
Adoption / Jan. 24, 2022
Cardano network at record capacity due to SundaeSwap launch, but not all users hail it as a success
According to both Cardano Blockchain Insight and pool.pm, the Cardano (ADA) network has maintained record capacity for nearly two weeks due to the launch of decentralized exchange, or DEX, SundaeSwap; the first of its kind to go live on Cardano. At the same time, the total value locked for the ADA blockchain reached a record of approximately $80 million, despite the recent fall in the token's price from the ongoing down market. The current average blockchain load of the network hovers at 93.19%, which means that 93.19% of its blocks are being filled. In context, the metric amounted to only …
Adoption / Jan. 27, 2022
Band Protocol CEO says that a single Chainlink data request costs $450
Band is one of Chianlink’s main competitors in the oracle space that is based on Cosmos technology. In a recent Cointelegraph interview, Soravis Srinawakoon, the CEO of Band Protocol, said: “If you look at Chainlink, one data request right now can take almost $450 because someone needs to submit the request data to ask for the data. Let's say 20 data providers need to receive that, respond to that with 20 transactions, and then the aggregation contract to do all the computation before returning the final result, all of these require a lot of gas.” Srinawakoon also provided a link …
Technology / Sept. 1, 2020
Chainlink Verifiable Random Function v2 goes live on mainnet
On Wednesday, blockchain oracle solution Chainlink (LINK) announced the release of Chainlink Verifiable Random Function, or VRF, v2. As told by its developers, the new, improved version of the random number generator can reduce transaction fees by 60% compared to v1. Randomness is a core component of making nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and gaming applications fair and secure. On their own, blockchains and smart contracts cannot guarantee randomness, but rather require an oracle network to deliver such solutions on-chain. Since its launch, Chainlink VRF (v1) has become the most widely adopted random number generator solution in the blockchain industry, fulfilling …
Technology / Feb. 16, 2022