Crypto Academy /Season 3 / Week 7 - Homework Post for @allbert || Blockchain Oracles: Band Protocol.
INTRODUCTION
Hello Professor @allbert and friends on Steemit Crypto Academy. I am pleased to have learnt from this course. Thanks for your excellent lecture, professor. I have done a research on Band Protocol and here is my result according to the requirements in the homework task.
Develop in a detailed and extensive way a post explaining some other Blockchain Oracle. (Chainlink will not be allowed)
What are the topics you should cover as a minimum?
1- History and Description. Does it have any token or cryptocurrency associated? Explain.
2- Functionalities and real-life applications.
3- Pros and Cons.
4- Future developments and new projects
BRIEF EXPLANATION OF BLOCKCHAIN ORACLE
.jpeg)
source
The Mariam Webster Dictionary defines an oracle as a person (as a priestess of ancient Greece) through whom a deity is believed to speak. This means that an oracle is the connection between God or gods and the world.
Deviating to the world of cryptocurrency, Blockchain Oracle is the link that exist between the centralized world (a world control by a person or group) and decentralized world (a world of Blockchain technology). Many of the cryptocurrencies that exists today are cryptocurrencies behind projects that were developed to solve a particular problem that exists in the world. That means problems around the world have been turned to projects (powered by blockchain technology) by certain individual who felt concerned and wished to solve such problems. The concerned individuals do this by gathering information about such problems from around the world and with the information gathered, a project is developed. With the help of blockchain oracles this information is received, verified, and passed to smart contract for execution. The oracle does this by screening the information to suit the project and thereafter, it sends it to smart contract for the rest of the work.
A third party service acts as Oracle and provides relevant information needed for the execution of Smart Contracts. Web APIs, market feeds, scrappers, webhooks, hardware sensors, etc. are used as Oracles. source
For the purpose of this task, I am going to write on Band Protocol as one of the blockchain oracles.
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF BAND PROTOCOL
Sorawit Suriyakarn, Paul Chonpimai, and Soavis Shinawakoon collaborated to design the band protocol in 2017.
This protocol was created by three developers: a software developer, a web developer, and a software developer/engineer, all of whom have worked for different software and engineering firms.
Soravis Shinawakoon, the current CEO of band protocol, was a former software engineer at Ericsson and a Boston Consulting Group Management Consultant. Paul Chonpimai is the CPO of band Protocol, and he previously worked at Turfmapp and Tripadvispr as a web developer and engineer, respectively. In addition, Sorawit, the CTO of band protocol, previously worked at Dropbox as a software engineer.
Designers, developers, and engineers make up the band protocol's founders and employees. Sequoia Capital, Dunamu and Partners, Spartan Group, and Binance are among the platform's investors.
Cosmos network was introduced in June of the 2020, replacing Band Protocol 2.0. Today's protocol is based on BandChaim, which employs the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes in this case serve a dual purpose, transporting data as well as producing and validating blocks.
BAND PROTOCOL AND HOW IT WORKS
.jpeg)
source
Band Protocol is a cross-chain oracle platform that accepts data from the real world and distributes it to an on-chain application, as well as connecting APIs to smart contacts to aid in the interchange of information between on-chain and off-chain sources.
Band Protocol’s aims mainly to achieve speed and scalability, cross-chain compatibility, and data flexibility in its relay of information. It seeks to make available reliable and verifiable information to public blockchain as fast as possible (that is in seconds) to meet the data needs of smart contracts that have asked for them.
One big issue with individual blockchain protocols is cross-chain communication. Band protocol through Cosmos network is capable of transferring its information results to other blockchain with the Cosmos network serving as a communication bridge between different blockchain networks.
Band protocol receives many forms of information as it serves as a supplier of information to other blockchains. It has different methods of getting these different information. Some of these information are made accessible to the public, while others are protected, and permissioned. Through Band protocol on-chain payment settlement, the protected info is monetized to avoid middlemen.
BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol which is used as collateral by people who verify the information brought from the real-world sent to various blockchains. It is also the main medium of exchange used on BandChain which is used to pay for private, protected information. The price of Band in the coin market now is $7.517 with a 2hour trading volume of $61,985,195. Its charge is 11.37% in the last 24 hours. Its rank in coinmarketcap is 159 and it has a marketcap of $263.784M, a circulating supply of $35.192M.
Functionalities and Real-life applications
In the cryptocurrency space, band protocol serve as an oracle to other blockchains by serving as a bridge between the real-world and the blockchains with the help of smart contracts. It provides the needed information by these blockchains and also filters the information to make it fitting for the blockchain project for which it is to be used.
The application of Band Protocol in real life is not far fetched. An example where this is applicable in our world of technology is the information provided in internet by with the use of Google, Wikipedia and other sources of information. Different information are provided in the internet for which some are protected. For anyone to get such info, the person would be charge a certain amount. In some of these protected sources of info, a very interesting part of the info is shown and they will tell you that you have to pay to view all.
Pros and Cons of Band Protocol
PROS
It is very fast in operation as it takes seconds to validate information.
One major advantage of band protocol is that once an information is requested, the data becomes freely available on the BandChain for anyone else who may require it.
It can process numerous information at a time.
CONS
It lacks enough nodes to verify the numerous information sent for verification.
It requires a lot of power for the verification of information.
It is costly as a result of the high power required.
New Project
source
Band Protocol, the cross-chain oracle, stated three weeks ago that its Bandchain data oracle is undergoing phase two upgrades. In June of this year, the initiative was first proposed.
According to reports, after the upgrade is finished, the Oracle data network would be the first to allow providers to give information to the decentralized market in this method. The project's goal is to open up more information sources. It also aims to help data providers improve their data coverage and offerings to on-chain developers.
According to the press announcement, BandChain 2 will open up new revenue streams for users who submit tiny amounts of data while also improving the data by streamlining the onboarding process.
The project seeks to provide a wider data coverage which is eight times what is at present and also provide a faster means of transferring the data to its target blockchain.
CONCLUSION
Thank you, Professor @allbert for presenting such an informative lecture. It was direct and to the point, making it easy to comprehend.
I was able to research on, Band Protocol , among several oracles.
Thanks to everyone that read this.