DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

DeFi thrives on smart contracts, automated agreements that run without human intervention. This trustless system, however, faces a crucial hurdle: connecting to real-world information. While operating independently, smart contracts need access to external data like stock prices or weather events to function effectively. This is where oracles come into play, serving as the critical bridge between the blockchain and the outside world. Oracles enable smart contracts to interact with real-time data, making them an indispensable part of DeFi applications. What is an Oracle? An oracle is a third-party service that provides external data to smart contracts, ensuring that they can respond to real-world events. Without oracles, smart contracts would be confined to the information available on the blockchain, which is often insufficient for dynamic, real-time decision-making. For example, a decentralized lending platform might require data on cryptocurrency prices or stock market prices to dete...

Oracles enable value, but they are also susceptible to value manipulation; co-founders of Cosmos-based Seda discuss their benefits and how to prevent pitfalls. The year 2022 was not a very good year for Cosmos and its vision of inter-block chain communications (IBC). The collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem (the biggest protocol on Cosmos at the time), tension between co -founders and a fall in the token’s price all cast a shadow on its future prospects. That said, projects such as dYdX and cross- chain oracle protocol Seda continue to call the network home and are adamant about its IBC vision. Currently, Seda says it enables over 12 million data feeds across 24 networks. In an interview with Cointelegraph at EthCC Paris, Jasper de Gooijer and Peter Mitchell, co-founders of the Seda protocol (formerly known as Flux), discussed the importance of oracles in cross-chain bridges and how they protect the value they enable. Cointelegraph: How do oracles add value to IBC?  Jasper de Goo...