Crypto Academy / Season 3 / Week 7 - Homework Post for @allbert / Blockchain Oracle / Tellor Network
Greetings dear fellows I hope you will be well and enjoying good health by the grace of Almighty Allah who is most merciful and gracious to everyone. I am really very happy to re-join the steemit crypto academy after a long time as I was busy with my exams.
Today I have attended the lecture of professor @allbert about the Blockchain Oracle. And I have learned a lot from this lecture as like about its working, its role and importance, and other useful features so if you want to learn about the Blockchain Oracle then you must join the lecture of the professor.
Now I am going to talk about a blockchain oracle but before moving into the deep I want to define and explain blockchain oracle.
Blockchain Oracle
The word "oracle" has the basic meaning of a bridge between two worlds and it facilitates the communication between these two worlds. Similarly, a blockchain oracle behaves as a bridge between the blockchain world (decentralized web) and the real world and centralized web world.
As we know that decentralized and real-world (centralized) data have different functions and features and both of the worlds cannot communicate each directly. And there should be a need to make communication between them. So now the blockchain oracle technology works and makes a strong and easy way of communication between the decentralized world as well as between the real world.
Basically in the blockchain world, the information is in a sequence and there is no flexibility but in the real world the information is not in the sequence and the data present between them is random and flexibility is always available in the real-world data.
So due to the flexibility and randomness in the information blockchain cannot read and understand the real world's data. Here we have to need a thing that converts the real world's data in the sequence and can make the blockchain eligible to read that data. So it is only a blockchain oracle that can solve this issue.
Different Types Of Oracles
Blockchain oracles are of different types according to their use. some of them are given below:
- Hardware Oracles
- Software Oracles
- Consensus Oracles
- Inbound Oracles
- Outbound Oracles
Examples Of Blockchain Oracles
There are different blockchain oracle projects which are moving and growing fastly in the world. Here are some of them:
- ChainLink
- Band Protocole
- DIA (Decentralized Information Asset)
- Tellor (TRB)
- API3
Now I am going to talk about Tellor (TRB) in detail as required. So let's start learning different things about Tellor (TRB) such as given below:
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
Tellor (TRB)
Tellor is a decentralized oracle which works on the Proof of work (PoW) simply you can say it mining. There are many miners in the blockchain property which are always competing with each other and fetching data and placing that specific data on the chain for the smart contracts Tellor is a simple system that provides an environment where entities publish the off-chain data and the active miners compete with each other to place that data to the on-chain platform.
Tellor is a permissionless community of token holders, data providers, and validators. Together, we cryptographically secure putting real-world data on-chain.
History and Description of Tellor(TRB)
Tellor a blockchain oracle was officially launched in 2019. It was introduced by a team group belonging to the United States. The main reason due to which the team introduced Tellor was to fix the Oracle Problems on the Ethereume Blockchain So we can say that it is an Ethereume based oracle that is highly secure for the DeFi Decentralized Finance Applications. It allows the Defi Apps to receive high-value data for smart contracts.
As mentioned above it uses a strong network of miners who compete with each other and submit their results along with the required and requested data. For the security concerns, it uses the Game-Theory and Crypto-Economic incentives. As tellor is a decentralized platform so it is currently providing price feed every 10 minutes but it is expensive to censor and manipulate the data.
It has an amazing characteristic that whether the Ethereume network is under stress it guarantees to provide proper live information and data without any hurdle. So if we want to receive the live data and infographics without any hurdle then we can prefer Tellor as it is giving the guarantee of providing live data properly even in the time of stress on the Ethereume Network.
Tellor Token (TRB)
Tellor has its own cryptocurrency token which has the symbol of the TRB. Tellor (TRB) is a utility token based on the Ethereume network and it powers the Tellor Network of the Oracles. Tellor(TRB) token is used to send queries to the oracles network where the miners pick up the particular query.
Similarly, as it is a universal rule more you pay faster you will to get. So if is there any user who wants to get the same information earlier then he will pay more Tellor(TRB) tokens and the miners resultantly provide him data fastly to get the more tokens.
According to Coinmarketcap Some of the important details of Tellor (TRB) is given below:
| Tellor (TRB) | Key Information |
|---|---|
| Market Rank | #358 |
| Current Price | $48.50 |
| Market Cap | $91,573,943 |
| Fully Diluted Market Cap | $95,671,962 |
| 24h Volume | $64,799,789 |
| Circulating Supply | 1,888,044.86 TRB |
| Social Media | Medium |
| __ | |
| __ | Telegram |
| __ | Discord |
Functionalities and Real-life Applications.
The working of the Tellor is very smooth and easy to understand as we know that it is a blockchain oracle and makes a connection between the blockchain and the real world.
So first of all there are miners who are competing with each other and transacting the information to the blockchain network by solving different problems. They are the staked miners who have to stake at least 500 TRB to be eligible to work as a miner and it is necessary to hold TRBs to contribute to the proposals and voting system. The miners can withdraw their staking at any instant they want but when they request for a withdrawal their staking is locked for the 7 days due to the disputing risk and after that, they can easily get their staking.
Secondly, the normal entities put their queries and offer a specific amount of TRBs which is attractive and the miners can pick their query and transact their query to the blockchain network. So only the TRB holders can put their queries because for every query it is necessary to tip the miners otherwise you would not be able to do that.
There is a complete process in providing the queries of the entities as you can see in the below picture.
Miners start solving the problems and provide their results to the network and when the results of the 5 miners is collected then the team concludes the average result and accept the data and answer to the entities. It is known as the Proof of Work (PoW) which is simply referred to as the mining.
Moreover, the after every 5 minutes the Tellors Smart Group combines the top five funded data types and queries and makes a challenge of proof of work (PoW0 for the miners to get the results. And the first five miners who provide the Proof of Work (PoW) earlier and at first get the rewards from the newly minted tokens and the tip offered by the entities.
Here I want to clear something about the working process that as we have learned that the top 5 winner in the mining gets the reward but the question arises how much they get. So it is simple and clear they only get half of the tipped amount and the remaining half is burnt.
The other important thing that how many queries may carry out per day in the Tellor. As it requires 5 minutes for a query to solve and transact data to the On-Chain so now it is clear that it can solve almost 288 queries per day on average.
Here in the working process and the voting dispute may occur. If an entity thinks that the network is false and taking my data in the wrong way then the entity or any party can challenge the listening data on the chain to correct it. For this process, the challenging party has to pay more fees to challenge the miners and the network than the basic fee.
After this, the voting is again done regarding that specific data and the results are collected. The voting is done by the Tribute Holders honestly and if the miners are correct then the fee paid by the challenging party is paid to the miners again.
But here something goes strict that if the challenging party wins the staking of the accused miner goes to the disputing party which is at least 500TRB a well-known amount to be considered. Due to this high risk, there is no miner who can make a false result and lose his staking.
So it is the brief working of the Tellor Network and if you want to go more deep in the working of the Tellor then you can access the Whitepaper of the Tellor.
In real-life applications, we can justify it just by explaining it with an example. Let's say that there is a smart contract which is offering you a train ticket and you pay for it and get your ticket. And due to any reason your journey is delayed or canceled then the smart contract will automatically pay back your money without the involvement of the humans.
At this time the blockchain oracle will play its role and it will get the data from the train stations and will analyze the conditions and after contacting the smart contract automatically, and will give your money back to you without the involvement of the humans. In this way, the blockchain oracle is making its way and working as a bridge between the real world and the blockchain. Similarly, the tellor is working the same and playing an important role in keeping the people aware of the live data which is a contact between the real world and the blockchain.
Pros and Cons of Tellor Network
As it is a universal rule that everything has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. Similarly, Tellor network has its own advantages as well as disadvantages which I am going to describe below:
Advantages of Tellor
As it is an Ethereum based network. So the most lovely thing about the Tellor is that it guarantees to provide all the data properly even the Ethereume network is under stress.
One of the most amazing advantages of the Tellor network is that it is easy to use, easy to integrate, easy to get indexed there.
Tellor network is not complicated and only 3 lines of code are required to get integration with the Tellor network. And these code lines are given by the Tellor network.
import ‘./UsingTellor.sol’;
contract YourContract is UsingTellor{
constructor(address _userContract) UsingTellor(_userContract) public{
}
function getLastValue(uint256 _requestId) public view returns (bool ifRetrieve,
unit256 value, uint256 _timestampRetrieved) {
return getCurrentValue(_requestId);
The other advantage of the Tellor network is that the stakes mean to say holders have a complete right to vote for the new proposals and can govern the community by using their own power.
As it is a decentralized network so anyone can submit their proposal and after voting can get a proposal and run his own project there.
The most important thing is that the Tellor network has the disputing system and has different rounds for the challenge and to solve the illusions and confusions.
It is based upon the proof of work (PoW) which makes it more secure and strong and it resists invalid attacks and makes the network more stable.
It becomes more transparent as it requires at least 5 results from the miners to confirm the average result and to transact to the on-chain.
As it has its own cryptocurrency which has a great value so there is great competition between the miners to solve the problems as early as possible as its coin's price has spiked a lot.
It is more secure and reliable as it requires its miners to stake at least 500 TRB to be eligible for the mining. So they provide only correct data otherwise they will lose their TRB tokens which no one will want to lose.
The supply of the Tellors(TRBs) is low and fixed so it can spike at any time as its demand increases so then the network will become strong and fast.
Tellor Network can work with any platform which meets the minimum smart contract criteria.
Disadvantages of Tellor
As it is a decentralized platform then there should be a dispute regarding the different proposals to upgrade the systems.
The whales can change the complete voting result for their own benefit by using their power of voting. In this way, the normal users can bear problems which is not a fair thing.
As it is working with its own cryptocurrency Tellor(TRB) which has currently the value of roundabout $50 but if its value decreases then the platform value will decrease and therefore the working of the platform will be decreased.
As the value of its own token decreases which is a governance token then there will be no miners to give their time to solve the queries and giving results. Due to this, the working process will become very slow.
Due to the less involvement of the miners the data will be transacted on-chain very slowly and it will take more time which is really a thing of disappointment.
Moreover as it is a mining process so it takes a lot of time to solve the problems and take resultantly a lot of time in creating the new block so it is ultimately a slow process.
The other major disadvantage is that if a miner mistakenly gives a result that is not correct then all the staking of TRB will be wiped out and will be paid to the challenging party.
Similarly if a party challenges the result then that party has to pay more fee to confirm and correct the data which is again a dark aspect that costs the users too much.
Future Developments and New Projects
Tellor is becoming popular everywhere due to its services as most of its important service is that it provides always proper data even the Ethereum network is under stress.
The team of the Tellor is very dynamic and working very hard day and night. As they have done an upgrade in the system to reduce the gas fees. This update is known as the Zero-knowledge submissions.
The research of the Zero-knowledge submissions has been done recently and due to this implementation, the gas fees have been decreased as well as the prevention from the mirroring has been done. So we can say that the team is really very dynamic and working a lot day and night in making the network more strong and useful.
Due to this update of Zero-knowledge submissions the automatic system has also been implemented in which the automatic reporting and monitoring of the different aspects have been implemented to make it more favorable and user friendly and fastest.
Currently, the system has changed its contract address to minimize the gas fees in February. As you can see below the official announcement.
The Official Announcement and the screenshot taken from the Twitter
The team is working to create a more secure network in the future. So that the chance of any mistake will not remain anywhere. As it is already secure but the team wants to enhance its security to provide its users more security, safety in the future.
The team of the Tellor is also working hard to make a scalable and highly demanding network. For this purpose, they have designed Tellor X Development project.
Official Announcement Of Tellor X Whitepaper- A New Development on the way.
I want to highlight here some of the future development plans for the Tellor here by using the data from the Tellor X Whitepaper
The main purpose of this whitepaper and development is to enhance the speed of the system. As currently, it is working with the mining procedure which is a relatively slow process. They are going to eliminate the Proof of Work (PoW) from the system to catalyze its working. So it will become more faster and flexible.
As currently most of the rewards are going to the miners but after the development in the Tellor X the "Data Reporters" will get most of the rewards. +And in the Tellor X the time-based rewards will be decreased as currently, the time-based rewards are 5 TRB per 5 minutes but after the development, there will be only 1 TRB per 10 minutes.
Currently, Tellor is only providing the numerical value but they are planning to provide the value in the bytes as they have included it in the whitepaper of the Tellor X. And after this new shift they will be able to provide more data.
In Tellor X they will also launch Tellor Treasuries where the holders will stake their TRBs and will be able to get rewards from the pool. And these holders will also be able to vote for the different proposals.
Conclusion
Final words are clear like a crystal that we have need of blockchain technology as it is necessary to make a contact between the real world which is full of randomness and the autonomous blockchain world. Without this blockchain cannot read the real worlds data and cannot transact to the on-chain.
Tellor is an amazing blockchain oracle project and a network which is playing an important role in displaying the real time data on-chain. Even it is providing the data properly whether the Ethereum network is busy.
Tellor network is very secure as it is giving its services on the basis of Proof of Work (PoF) which is done by the miners. But it is difficult process and slow.
The team of Tellor is very dynamic and working actively and bringing updates time by time. And it is making a new system which will catalyze the transactions with lower fees.
The future of Tellor network and its own cryptocurrency is very limited as it's supply is low and limited and due to the upcoming updates.
And if you want the data of your smart contract visible on the blockchain so you can contact Tellor network and easily integrate it with just 3 lines of code as I have provided it above.
Hello, @ Thank you for participating in Steemit Crypto Academy season 3 week 7.
Thank you professor for giving your precious time and having a look at my work.
Stay Blessed!