Hi Professor @allbert, I am @ononiwujoel one of your students in Crypto Academy and a member of the steemit platform and this is my homework submission post from your lecture Blockchain Oracles
Introduction
It is no doubt that the advent of cryptocurrencies and DeFi has brought a lot of possibilities and life to the financial system worldwide and has also solved some issues people have been complaining about the financial systems over the years like the high level of centralization, little or no privacy, high fees, poor records, intermediaries for transactions and many others thereby making the system quite expensive and controlling.
But this doesn't mean the blockchain technology doesn't have setbacks although most are already being worked on. And one of such is the problem of getting data outside the blockchain for smart contracts.
Blockchains are built in such a way that it is impossible to flow with the real world in terms of accessing data and information and this is a setback for smart contracts because most of them need data found outside the blockchain to execute properly and this is where blockchain oracles come into use.
Blockchain oracles just as the name implies are platforms or media through which smart contracts can access data and information outside the blockchain and also send data outside the blockchain Smoothly. So in other words, blockchain oracle is an intermediary between the blockchain and the outside world.
There are different classes of blockchain oracles including software oracles, hardware oracles, inbound oracles, outbound oracles, centralized, decentralized and contract specific oracles although an oracle can fall within more than one of the classes.
So I'll be writing on a blockchain oracle platform called Tellor
1- History and Description. Does it have any token or cryptocurrency associated? Explain.
Tellor was founded by two very experienced blockchain experts named Brenda Loya and Michael Zemrose and was launched in 2019 by these founders and their team.
Brenda Loya have a good record not only in the blockchain industry but also as a civil servant. She worked as a supervisor statistician in an administration of the American department of labor, and she was also a member of the Daxia development team where she was the Vice President and also a Lead Developer. Daxia is a successful smart contracts creation service based on the Ethereum blockchain as well but focuses on tokenized derivatives.
And currently Brenda Loya is the Chief Executive Officer of Tellor decentralized oracle platform.
On the other hand Michael Zemrose is also an expert in the blockchain industry although he also worked outside the blockchain industry before. He worked in a USA based company called Real Elevation as a coach for small business owners and he also worked in Daxia platform as a chief strategy officer. Currently he is a co-founder of Tellor platform with Brenda Loya.
Tellor is one of the most successful blockchain oracles in the blockchain industry by ratings and popularity, it was envisioned by its co-founders to help solve the problems of smart contracts on Ethereum not being able to access high quality data outside the Ethereum blockchain especially prices data but currently Tellor has not only solved most of the smart contracts problem on Ethereum but is now also functioning on several decentralized finance platforms and decentralized applications where smart contracts need a purpose-built oracle system to provide high value data to smart contracts in their platforms.
Tellor (TRB) Token
Tellor blockchain oracle have also developed an ERC-20 (Ethereum based) token called Tellor (TRB) which currently ranks #362 in coinmarketcap with a 24hr volume of $65,425,546 and market capitalization of $92,070,993.
TRB token is worth $48.81 at the time I made this assignment and is currently on an uptrend.
The TRB token powers the Tellor platform and is used as a form of incentives to miners in the platform. It is also staked by tellor users in other to get more incentives from the platform and have better chances of joining in decision making on the platform.
2- Functionalities and real-life applications.
The mode of operation of Tellor oracle is very unique and secure compared to several other blockchain oracles because its a kind of mixture if PoW and Stake oriented platform and it also supports voting just like DPoS. Tellor operates mainly with the Ethereum blockchain smart contracts and dApps because it was initially built based on Ethereum blockchain and it also uses the PoW (Proof-of-Work) consensus protocol where miners with sizeable TRB stakes contest to bring solutions to a proposed challenge.
A User or holder of TRB tokens can request for off-chain data (data that is not within the blockchain) by paying TRB tokens as stakes on the query and other users interested in that particular query can also add more TRB tokens on the query to increase it's stake because the higher the tips on a query the better the chances of it being attended to first before others.
Now every five minutes, the first five queries (arranged according to amount of tips on them) are by Tellor smart contract and a PoW challenge is given to TRB staked miners to solve, to be a miner on Tellor you should have not less than 500 TRB tokens vested in the platform, now the first five miners to come up with the solution and off-chain points are selected and their solution is sorted out after which an average is obtained and the miners rewarded with incentives which are half of the total tips (TRB tokens) staked on the query and the other half deleted from the blockchain entirely.
After the solution to a request/query is solved by the miners, any holder of TRB tokens can also disagree with the solution of he/she thinks it's wrong by paying a dispute fee in form of TRB tokens and then voting begins to determine if the disputer is right or wrong, if the dispute is right then the miners will loose half of their stakes on TRB and the challenge is repeated but if wrong then the dispute fee is given to the miners.
And a miner has to wait for 15minutes after updating a data to the Oracle data feed successfully to participate in another cycle in other to allow other miners also participate and keep the platform inclusive. The entire setup is just awesome
So the PoW system coupled with the voting and selection process for median value and other incentives driven operations gives Tellor blockchain oracle a highly secure and trustless environment where you can sure there is little or no possibility of obtaining a wrong or manipulated data from their sources.
How to use Tellor oracle for your smart contracts
To connect Tellor blockchain oracle to your smart contracts you can simply use the code below or visit the official website https://tellor.io/ for more information
3- Pros and Cons.
Pros
Security:
Tellor Oracle uses the PoW consensus protocol and also staking of TRB tokens by both miners and users to maintain a high level of security. And also the selection process for median value and voting during disputes makes it almost impossible to falsify or manipulate data from the oracle.Decentralization:
Decentralization is one of the original fundamental visions on which the blockchain technology was developed and it makes the blockchain so unique and free.
So in this Oracle, there is decentralization and every user makes decisions based on the amount of stakes, tips or tributes they invest. There is also chance for voting when someone dispute the solution from miners so this adds beauty and social understanding to the platformTransparency:
This is another benefit that comes with decentralized systems, Tellor is not centralized so every query, miner's solutions, disputes, votes and every other activities and transactions are very visible and can be seen by everyone on the platform. Yeah that's a high level of transparency we've got hereRewards:
Tellor rewards miners for solving PoW challenges and providing solutions to queries as well other users for their different inputs on the platform which can be disputes, holding stakes and voting**Source of income/investment **
TRB token is currently worth over $48 and price is still growing which makes it a very good token to invest in because it has lots of potentials. So TRB token holders and users that are also stakeholders can use this as a source of income and continue participating in the blockchain oracle to grow their investment
Cons
Expensive:
Tellor is incentives-driven and this makes almost every activity to be based on amount of incentives available. You need more incentives than others to get attention for your query, you also need higher incentives than others to win voting so this all makes it so expensive to participate.Scalability:
Tellor uses PoW consensus protocol which of course has lower scalability than other consensus algorithms, so its quite slow and take a long time to even get to your request
4- Future developments and new projects
On Tellor list of future developments there are several enticing proposals which I'm trying to believe they'll really achieve which includes
Moving from Admin Key to DAO (Tellor’s Parachute Smart Contract)
Seems like we'll now be having a little touch of more decentralization on Tellor soon.
An Admin Key is usually used when developing a blockchain project and this key can control the entire platform including the stakes and smart contracts in it, but since this is a decentralized project something must be done to make sure few people don't have access to control the entire system making it like a centralized platform.
But another problem is that this Admin Key cannot just be burned because it may be needed in future projects on the platform since it is still developing so there should be a way to keep it out of the reach of the co-founders, development teams and everyone on the platform and should only be accessible to the community through TRB token governance schemes.
So Tellor blockchain oracle will be sending to smart contract called Parachute before tomorrow runs out. And this will make Tellor more decentralized and also prevent the platform from losing it's Admin Key entirely in the process.
Integration and expansion
A well orchestrated drive towards massive integration so as to increase number potential users of the oracle and to also encourage more people to participate.
And also to enhance the platform so as to be capable of deployment to multiple blockchains and DeFi platforms not just Ethereum and few others.
To reduce the requirements (stakes) of becoming a data reporter so as to encourage more people to participate and also to hire more people into the platform to increase the team strength.
Adding of bytes and improvements on the scalability and speed of the oracle
Conclusion
Blockchain oracles is one of the several indispensable platforms on the blockchain industry that is less Spoken about and as such looks as though they're not important but are very useful and full of potentials. Some blockchain oracles are like chainlink are already running on independent blockchains and also creating more projects on their blockchain and this adds to the diversity in the blockchain industry at large.
Thanks for the lecture I really learnt a lot
Cc: Professor @allbert