Steemit Crypto Academy // Season 3 week 7 // Homework Post for [@allbert]

QUESTION 1
History and description. Does it have any token or cryptocurrency associated? Explain

In general view, the blockchain oracle is a acts as a third party service which provides smarts contracts using information from the outside world.
I will be talking specifically on the Witnet Oracle

The Witnet Oracle Network Protocol

Definition and Description

The Witnet protocol is a normalized decentralized oracle network, which principally works by connecting the smart contract to the outer world. It has the legal name Witnet Foundation and was founded in January 2018 as a Delaware corperation with website witnet.io. The co-founders are Adan Sanchez de pedro and Daniele Levi who are also the Tech lead and the Operation lead respectively.
So to say, the Witnet decentralized oracle allows pieces of software to retrieve contents which are being published at web addresses at a particular point in time. This is done with variable proof as well as the intergrity and not blinding trusting any third party.
Landing page on the Witnet.io website

The token associated with the Witnet protocol is the Wit token
They Wit token acts as

• An incentive node validator suing the reward system in resolving data requests and blocks mining
• Used as payment of the system
• Acting as a form of collateral, making sure to ensure the node operators are not subjected in bribery when it comes to high value requests.

The wit has a total supply of 2500000000 with consensus mechanism PoE. With 70% to be mined by withnesses and 30% is to be minted by early stage block, which is the first block in the chain.

In futhur description, the witnet runs on a blockchain called the Wit, this is shown by native protocol token. The miners in this system are earn by retrieving, delivering and also attesting web contents for its clients. We can also say the Wit is spent by the clients to pay for witnesses for particular retrieving, attesting and delivering work. This is given the acronym of RAD. The witnesses in the system can compete to mine blocks with actually considerably rewards. We also note that the witnet mining power is proportional to the previous performance when talking in terms of trustworthiness and reputation of the witnesses.

So with all the explanations so far, we see that the Witnet protocol is actually designed to assign the RAD tasks which is witnessed in a way that it takes out or mitigates attacked vectors to the greatest extent.

They have the following characteristics;

• they guarantee efficiency and scalability of the network
• they also make sure to keep the prices of the RAD task in a reasonable bound
• thay make sure to give clients the freedom to in adjusting prices and certainty. This is achieved by allowing them in choosing the number witnesses to work in their RAD tasks.

QUESTION 2
Functionalities and real-life applications.

Functionality and Real-life Application

Talking about functionality, we know the witness protocol allows a network of computers which acts as a decentralized oracle. This actually retrieves, attests and delivers information to smart contracts actually without having to place trust in a particular entity as I mentioned above.

We know that, normally smart contracts are small programs which can be run in a trustless manner. With this, once a smart contract is created, no one can stop them form doing what it was created for, principally by obeying their source code with impossible censorship.

They witnet protocl then comes in play now to create an overlay network which connects smart contracts to any online data source.

Such queries which will include real application will include;

• sports results
• weather forcast
• stock prices

The Decentralized Oracle Network districutes and maintains blockchain data structures. The data structure serves as a common ledger for the operation of the protocol as well as for the wit token practically in incentivitising the the network players in abiding to the protocol and ensuring they are liable when it comes to any misbehavior.

The witnesses here are incharge of the validation of transactions in networks while bundling them into blocks which will be appended to blockchain in a periodic manner.

QUESTION 3
Pros and Cons.

Advantages of Witnet Protocol

• The Witnet protocol allows allows any piece of information or software to be published at any web address in anytime period.

• It connects smart contracts to any online data source which include sport results, weather forecast, stock prices and others.

• they have low barries for the entry of new nodes. With this, new nodes does not necessary have to stake a significant amount to be eligible to resolve data requests and mining.

• Spurious incentives often appear when witnet allow a perpertuation in the power of reputable nodes.

Disadvantages of the Witnet Protocol

• The Witnet oracle Network protocol is like to have conflict of interest.

• The Witnet oracle network is known to be scarce, with this scarcity it may cause a centralized system solely because of the so much trust levy by each node.

• In terms of attack, the Witnet oracle can be trivially predicted. With this it can be easily targeted by DoS attack.

QUESTION 4
Future developments and new projects

Future Developements and New Projects

Talking about the Future ans New Projects of the Witnet Oracle Network Protocol, we see that on the landing page of the website on the Witnet site, the ecosystem welcomes developers of all kind, this include developers who can contribute to the Witnet-Rust, The Sheikah and those who want to connect their smart contracts to external API’s.

So their main projects are as listed below;

• To build Witnet Clients

• Buliding an application which will interact with the Witnet clients

• Writing Ethereum Smart contracts that uses Witnet as well as intergrating the Witnet to the Decentralized Finance Protocol

• They also want to build bridges between Witnet and other blockchain. With these contracts in the other network can query the Witnet decentralized oracle

• Finally, the Witnet Oracle network protocol wants to contribute to Witnet-Rust and Sheikah.

@allbert