Steemit Plans To Add Oracles To SMT: What's That, Why It Matters And How It Could Work
Less than 24 hours ago, @steemitblog gave us another update, this time on something yet-to-be-implementd, and, to be honest, very complex. It's called Oracles, and it's intended to be paired with the new SMT layer (when it will be implemented, of course).
For now, all we have is this article - and a video featuring @ned and @theoretical - but there are hopes for a separate whitepaper dedicated entirely to Oracles. Based on this article, I will try to "translate" again the concepts into layman terms and try to grasp their practical use cases.
What Is An Oracle In The Steemit / SMT Ecosystem?
An Oracle is an account that can submit an arbitrary number of accounts to a whitelist. The presence in that whitelist means the Oracle verified the requirements for every account to be there - so, in a sense, an Oracle is a trusted account, vouching for a group of other accounts, on arbitrary rules.
One use case for Oracles is to determine if an account really belongs to a person. But, as you will see, there are many other potential use cases, especially when we pair this trusted function with the SMTs.
What Is The Link Between An Oracle And SMT?
According to the article, when issuing an SMT, you could set up in the creation process up to 5 Oracles, that will establish who are getting that SMT.
Let's say I'm creating a community token, called ROUA (lame, I know, but that's my name). I want to distribute this token to all the people from Spain, above a certain age and who have running as a hobby.
Therefore, I will delegate (pretty much like witnesses are delegated) 3 accounts that I trust on the Steemit bockchain, to create these lists for me. I will have a hypothetical account called @CheckSpanishSpeakingPeople, another one called @CheckAgeRequirements and another one called @CheckIfTheyReallyRun. Each of these accounts are now trusted that they will add on their list people according to the criteria they've been empowered to verify.
So, when people are voting on my articles, only those in any of the 3 lists created by the 3 Oracle accounts above, will receive SMT.
Pretty cool, huh?
How Many Oracles Can We Have For An SMT?
According to the blog post, at least one and up to 5. But you can have any number of rules, like one Oracle in all five, all 5 Oracles in all 5 should be checked when SMTs are distributed. The reason for this limit is that at each vote, the blockchain needs to verify the whitelist, thus making data store requests.
When These Oracles Are Going To Be Implemented?
My hunch is that they won't be implemented when SMTs will be launched and I'm basing this conclusion on this part of the article:
We plan on expanding on the content within this post in the coming months with the release of a new SMT Oracles whitepaper[].
So, it could be months until we hear more about Oracles and their whitepaper, but meanwhile we will have to deliver those SMTs...
The Potential Impact Of Oracles
Although the name is a bit precious, Oracles are nothing but trusted filters implementing arbitrary rules for who gets the rewards.
As of now, the only rule for getting the rewards in the Steemit ecosystem is Steem Power. By implementing these filters, we could add a potentially unlimited number of extra filters, refining the way money is flowing to beneficiaries. And by money I mean SMTs in this case.
Because Oracles are real life accounts and they are providing their lists off-consensus (or pre-consensus, if you want), their implementation seems to me more like a form of in-place governance, shifting the platform towards more niched use-cases.
Strategically, they are a good move. SMTs were a good move too, but one which wasn't made yet. Like in SMTs are not yet launched.
I saluted this idea when it was announced and I said it is brilliant, and genius, but that it will all come down to execution. We're still yet to see that execution. I mean, it's nice to jump to new ideas, in an ElonMusk-esque ADHD kind of way, looking at the next shiny object, but it will really help if we could deliver on the first idea, in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I'm far from complaining, because I know the "shiny object syndrome" way too well, I'm just trying to understand when and how we will be able to play with SMTs.
After that, I'll be happy to play with Oracles as well.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Wanna know when you're getting paid?
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I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
Mmmm, RO(U)A smt, give me that sweet oracles :).
Good one, I almost forgot it :)
yes, let's hope Ned is not the next Elon Musk, that guy kind of annoys me ... so will Oracles be a step back from decentralization if they are a form of
"in-place governance" or not?
They will support various niched use-cases. Like, for instance, creating a community for runners, or for Spanish language people, etc. It's a tradeoff between centralization and functionality. All in all, I consider it a good thing.
So are they kind of for exclusion/censorship? Couldn't a site like Dtube build in "Oracles" themselves by taking a cut of profits and adjusting rewards or doing some sort of censorship like I guess Steemit can with certain posts.
Whitelisting is, in itself, a form of censorship.
But, as far as I understand these Oracles, they apply only to SMT, not to Steem. So if Dtube makes a an SMT and creates some whitelist in which they are the only ones allowed to receive rewards, then they can do it using Oracles. But it will also be public so other people could see it as well, which may lead to people stopping using Dtube entirely.
Oracles may work well when you want to limit the distribution of your SMTs only to people in your own company, for instance, or only to your company customers. From that point of view, it kinda makes sense.
so kinda like shares in a company
nice, thanks
Wow that would be great, we will know have a criteria for good blog and spammy log :) complex but very good step.
I have to confess that some months ago I became discouraged in @ned specifically, after I saw no movement towards matters we had privately discussed, and said so, all too publicly. However, after his remarks in Korea included in the presentation on oracles you are posting about, I have been haply eating crow.
I am actually in danger of becoming a fanboy (a fate I will resist), but the truth is that have long noted the degradation of society (in this case Steemit users) that stake-weighting creates, and am very encouraged that @ned and Stinc have far more interest in society as opposed to merely money.
I don't discount economics as an integral feature of society, but society is much, much more than merely an economy, and stake-weighting inevitably degrades society to that sole metric: profit. I am glad to see this fact is being carefully considered by them as are crafting this society we have become.
Thanks for your addition to our understanding of how those considerations are being effected.
Totally agree. One of DPoS greatest challenges: being just a consensus layer (validating transactions on the blockchain) or a full governance layer?
I strongly encouraged Stinc to merely verify individual status, and 'good blockchain citizen' (meaning not a scammer or the like) and leave all other oracular functions to the communities.
I hope that's what they do. @andrarchy did reply that other oracular functions will be left to communities, but the most critical and dangerous oracular function is determining 'good blockchain citizen', and the potential for abuse is clear.
Man this can really change flow of rewards in a much efficient .............I mean this could give us more control over reward flow and allow us to direct the amount we desire to the particular content creators.
Have you come across the @oracle-D project @dragosroua?
These oracles seem very similar to what @anarcotech and @starkerz are currently implementing in that.
I briefly looked over their first posts and yes, seems pretty similar to what they're doing.
So.....game begins? Whaly whales started?
I don't know what charts are you looking at, but CMC excluded HitBTC. Average price for SBD is now $1.7
No, no link between Oracle, the database and Oracles in Steemit. Think at an Oracle as a specific type of Witness.
i am an oracle database programmer, when i see the post title with oracle + steemit then i was bit confused, after i read your post i just understood the matter of this new oracle :D
okay my friend thank you for the information :)
you are very kind :)
Will we be able to search the post using different filters also like only video, words count, date and many more with the oracle layer added?
Nope, it's not about that.
why we are still in beta? is there a team working on steemit? Why smt are not real?
Steemit is a very actively developed platform, have a look at the Github repo if you want to see the progress. The delay and confusion surrounding SMTs are a bit disconcerting, that's all.
Thanks