What Are Blockchain Oracles and Why Do You Need Them?

Blockchain technology is created to address a few main problems: privacy and data security. Due to this focus, blockchains are designed to be run on closed-off networks that can't natively communicate with legacy systems and web2 APIs. What can you do when you want to use off-chain, real-world data in your dApps? The short answer is that you need to use blockchain oracles. For the long explanation, read on.

Most blockchains are secured and validated by a peer-to-peer (P2P) network of computers. These validators work together to reach a consensus and determine the current state of the blockchain.

Each blockchain has a different mechanism for reaching consensus. Whatever the mechanism, all nodes need the same access to the same data, and most of them must reach the same conclusion for the state of the blockchain to change and for the transactions to happen.

In other words, blockchains are deterministic networks, meaning that every transaction must produce the same result, no matter which validator tries to process it and when. This is why they are closed off by design.

Imagine that I want to send you some money in the form of cryptocurrency. For this to happen, all validators must check my wallet to see if I have enough to cover the amount I want to send + the transaction fee.

If I have enough, the gas fee will go to one of the validators, and the transaction will happen. Now, the nodes will subtract the transaction amount from my wallet and add it to yours. The state of the blockchain will also change to reflect these new changes.

What if I wanted to write a smart contract to let people exchange one cryptocurrency for another? This contract would need access to the real-time exchange rates of these cryptocurrencies. As we all know, these exchange rates can vary from one second to another, unlike the balance in my wallet.

In this scenario, if I use a regular web2 API, it could give a different answer each time a blockchain node asks it for the exchange rate to validate a transaction. This uncertainty would make reaching a consensus impossible, which is precisely why we need blockchain oracles.

An oracle is a device or entity that brings off-chain data to a blockchain. How do oracles avoid the problem we mentioned above?

First, they call the API and get the data. Then, they report the result in a transaction. This way, your smart contract will have the data it needs, and the nodes will have everything they need to reach a consensus.

In our trading smart contract example, we can use a trusted source as an oracle to get the real-time exchange rates onto the blockchain. This oracle will report the exchange rate for any transaction that wants to occur in another prior transaction.

Because blockchains are immutable, once a transaction occurs, no one can change its data without simultaneously attacking most validators. When the price is reported in a transaction, it is there for everyone to see, and no one can change it.

This is how our first problem is solved.

We need help with off-chain data and blockchains. That's when oracles become a single point of failure and hurt the decentralized nature of the blockchains.

Blockchains are designed as trustless and decentralized systems. When you want to bridge the gap between web3 and web2, you introduce the old problems to the new system.

When it comes to using oracles, you need to be careful. Either use a source you've tested and trust completely or get help from a team of blockchain development experts.

(If you have a web2 online business and want to bring it to web3, read our guide for making your business web3 ready or contact us to be your guide!)

• Software Oracles: If the data you want to bring to the blockchain exists online and in a digital format, you'll use a software oracle. Software oracles utilize web2 APIs and databases as their source. Oracles that deliver exchange rates are an example of this.
• Hardware Oracles: There aren't many hardware oracles right now. As IoT (Internet of Things) grows, there'll be more use cases for this type of oracle. Hardware oracles get their data from the real world via hardware like a sensor.
• Human Oracles: Using a human oracle, you can have an expert's input for your dApp or smart contract. Human oracles can gather the information you need or manually check the accuracy of data and deliver the results to the blockchain.
• Inbound Oracles: Any oracle that brings off-chain data to a blockchain is inbound. All of the above examples were of this kind.
• Outbound Oracles: Outbound oracles are rare right now. They do the opposite of a regular oracle and deliver on-chain data from the blockchain to the outside world. For example, an outbound oracle may provide some data about liquidity or the aggregate amount of transactions from a smart contract to a website.

As with any other new technology, it mostly depends on your creativity. We've seen the use of blockchain oracles in games, betting systems, NFTs, DeFi, and even insurance-related products.

If you want to build an online business on web3, you'll need to use some blockchain oracle at some point. If you have a web2 company that offers any APIs, you can bring them to web3 using an oracle network like Kenshi's.

Bringing your online business to web3 can seem like a daunting task. A lot of stuff is different when you build on a blockchain. Not everything has to be, though. That's why we've built Kenshi's Oracle Network as a platform.

Kenshi has a high-performance oracle network that can host your custom oracles. You can use the technology you're already familiar with, even on web3. This network uses the same asynchronous, serverless technology as the Kenshi Deep Index to bring you these features and more:

• Event sourcing: you can source any event on a blockchain and send it to your oracle to be processed.
• Caching: so that no requests get processed twice.
• Gas station: to calculate gas fees with "fast" transactions.
• Delivery: 10 retries if something goes wrong with your initial request.
• Nonce management: keeping your transactions in order and ensuring that nonces are not skipped.

You can do all this using your preferred technology and the tools you already employ. It would help if you implemented Kenshi's Custom Oracle Protocol.

To learn more about custom oracles on Kenshi's Oracle Network, read our documentation here or start with one of our oracle blueprints or sample codes.

We need randomness in many dApps and smart contracts. Because of the deterministic nature of the blockchain, you can't use an on-chain solution to create it. If you want genuine unpredictability in your games, NFTs, betting systems, and more, you must use a VRF oracle.

Fortunately, Kenshi's got you covered here too. Our VRF oracle can generate random numbers and deliver them to your app or contract, complete with verifiable proof that shows it hasn't been tampered with. You can learn more about Kenshi's VRF oracle here .

To start with Kenshi's Custom Oracle Network, connect your wallet to the dashboard . If your business offers a web2 API, contact us

to bring it to web3 quickly. A whole new market is waiting for you!