Currency circle for a day, the world for a year. In the face of the ever-changing blockchain industry, the wolf in 2017 finally couldn’t help but throw himself into it. Many startups first hired a code writer, and the wolf hired a technical expert from the original company, and then hired an administrative expert. For a year, the Wolf team focused on smart contracts, repeatedly deducing how they “hit the nail on the head” if smart contracts burst.
Finally they aimed at the direction of the oracle (Oracle). The reason is also simple: people expect a DApp with millions of users. And every million users’ DApp is bound to need prophecy machine service.
Before interviewing Lao Wolf, Lianwen ChainNews did in-depth research on the Oracle market. “A platform to provide out-of-chain data for intelligent contracts” is now the main definition of Oracle in the circle. The original meaning of Oracle in English represents the meaning of prophecy, “to convey the oracle in order to answer the requestor’s inquiry, and to be a philosopher and messenger to convey messages”. Obviously, the Oracle project is a middle-tier service, which will change the current development mode of blockchain applications and cut open the screen walls inside and outside the chain, so as to unlock the brand-new DApp ecological map and cultivate blockchain applications that can really serve the real world.
Oracle realizes its value through cooperation with various projects such as Bodhi, Heavenly calculation and other Dapp.
To understand Oracle, you first need to understand the background in which it came into being. We know that blockchain is a great change in production relations. On the other hand, there is a gap between the data in the block chain and the data in the real world, and the world inside and outside the chain are two parallel worlds that do not intersect. The block chain urgently needs to deal with this problem to open up the bridge between the real world and the world of the block chain. Through leapfrogging, transition, and realizing the intercommunication of data outside the chain, so as to ensure the security and untamperable, transparent and open of the real world data on the block chain.
The purpose of this interview is to unveil Oracle for everyone through the in-depth thinking of European chain and its founder Zhao Wei in the field of prophecy machines.
Oracle is not to sell data, but to save resources.
Blockemist: why does the blockchain world / system need Oracle services?
Zhao Wei: we know that in the blockchain, the intelligent contract of blockchain features it can only passively respond to requests from the outside world, it is not as intelligent as expected.
Suppose that on the DApp of the blockchain system, the tenant and the landlord have reached a lease agreement, in which a smart contract stipulates that if the tenant destroys the Xiaomi 9A TV in the living room when checking out, he needs to pay compensation according to the original price of the Xiaomi official price on the day of check-out. In the twinkling of an eye, when the tenant clicked a button on DApp to check out, DApp automatically issued instructions to let the living room Xiaomi 9A TV self-test (to confirm whether it was damaged), because the tenant did break the Xiaomi TV in the course of use, resulting in the self-test result triggered the compensation clause in the intelligent contract. Unfortunately, the flagship store of Xiaomi Tmall was doing activities that day, which was 300 yuan cheaper than Xiaomi Mall. At this time, the intelligent contract compensation amount should be based on which price?
According to our traditional thinking, the smart contract initiates an external request to the third party Xiaomi (assuming Xiaomi provides an external query interface), and then executes the smart contract according to the price returned by this API, but the following problems will be encountered in doing so:
1. Because the blockchain is a system based on consensus mechanism, suppose there are 10000 miners who need to agree on the amount of compensation (the price of Xiaomi TV 9A) in order to implement it effectively, and each miner’s intelligent contract is executed independently. In this way, 10000 miners will send price inquiry requests to Xiaomi system respectively, which is not only inefficient, but also a huge waste of resources.
2. If the network conditions of the miners are different, causing delays, once the official price of Xiaomi fluctuates, it will cause the miners to get different prices and cannot reach a consensus.
At this point, an Oracle is needed. The Oracle is a trusted entity that introduces information about the state of the outside world through signatures, allowing certain intelligent contracts to respond to the uncertain outside world.
Oracle has the characteristics of untamperable, stable service and auditable.
Blockemist: how does the prophecy machine get the authorization of out-of-chain information?
Zhao Wei: obtaining data is a very long thing, or it is a dynamic work. In the initial stage, any project should not dabble in too personal data rationally, but should make great efforts to make up for the uncertainty of the world outside the chain.
The real world is uncertain (to some extent) and there is no specific order in which events occur, which can lead to transparency problems. Data points can be generated and understood anywhere at any time in the real world, which provides a lot of flexibility, but it is difficult to communicate with the blockchain world.
For example, if you want to get the latest transaction price of ETH/USD from some exchanges, the data carrier (Data feeder) will return the eclectic transaction price from these transaction data. This data sender will also integrate different data sources and reach a consensus to obtain a balanced transaction price.
Only when Oracle first solves the uncertainty of these non-private public data and really becomes a reliable trust tool, can individuals further authorize private data, which is a step-by-step trust process. The European chain is still at this stage.
Blockemist: is it too early for the Oracle business model at this stage? What do you think of the policy risks it faces?
Zhao Wei: first of all, the prophecy machine is very important. Even ancient fairy tales cannot be generated out of thin air without any source of information. Smart contracts cannot be triggered and run without data sources. Without such a platform that provides external information, smart contracts can only be used in a few places, and their usefulness will be greatly reduced.
Once these prophecy systems are available, intelligent contracts can be applied to almost every field in the real world. Once the data is passed into the blockchain, it can be used as input to execute the contract or provide use cases, and the changes it brings are subversive for most industries.
So now it’s not whether Oracle is at risk, but whether it’s officially conservative or not, Oracle services are bound to emerge. Oracle seems to be a new concept in the blockchain era, but in the past, this trust platform also existed in other forms, it is a requirement, not some kind of “Plan B”.
Blockemist: can you explain the independent PoRD consensus mechanism of the European chain? Why is it designed like this?
Zhao Wei: just like the uncertainty of the out-of-chain world just mentioned, it is a very big problem for the data of the outside world to prove whether it is true or false, so we (European chain) adopt the PoRD mechanism (prestige + token reward) to resist malicious data feeds by using an effective means of reward and punishment, so as to ensure that the data in the upper block chain is true and credible, or false information has to pay a great price. (Data feeder), the prophet of the European chain, will make the blockchain society more dynamic, thus creating more abundant possibilities. Users can obtain Oracle services by paying OCT, thus realizing the closed-loop flow on the European chain.
Blockemist: how does the European chain avoid the question of centralization?
Zhao Wei: first of all, I must admit that the prophecy machine itself is centralized. now that the blockchain has developed to nearly the tenth year, in fact, we have gradually found that it is impossible for any project to be completely de-centralized. but between centralization and decentralization, two sides of the whole.
In the face of centralization, on the one hand, we designed a prestige + token reward mechanism for the prophet (Data feeder) to “punish evil and promote good”. Although the prophecy machine is central, the users who provide data such as Data feeder, are based on a set of “Constitution” de-centralization, that is, our PoRD consensus mechanism.
On the other hand, in order to avoid the centralization of a single Oracle, we set up multiple Oracle to provide services.
In fact, in most cases, one prediction machine is enough, but when dealing with major assets, if one prediction machine is not guaranteed to be completely reliable, we propose the solution of multiple prediction machines, such as setting up five prediction machines. if three or more of them offer the same price, initiate a transaction to the block chain with this price remark. This multiple model, which is composed of multiple single prophecy machines, is also called prophecy machine network.
These two different forms of prophecy machine models are also known as single model and multiple models (prophecy machine network). This is also a solution generally accepted by the Oracle industry. Of course, centralization is inevitable, on the contrary, absolute decentralization will lead to a waste of resources.
Oracle is a huge future.
Blockemist: when will you touch the block chain? Why are you optimistic about the direction of the prophecy machine?
Zhao Wei: I began to contact Bitcoin in 2011, and I also participated in bitcoin mining in the early stage. When the graphics card could not continue mining, I no longer valued the trend of more and more concentrated computing power of Bitcoin POW, and began to pay attention to the POS consensus mechanism. It can also be regarded as turning from the currency circle to the chain circle, seeing the other side of the blockchain world.
Why optimistic about Oracle, can be made clear in one sentence: blockchain technology can solve a lot of problems, but it is today’s problem that allows you to solve it.
Blockemist: the profit way of the prophecy machine?
Zhao Wei: we are really burning money to do it now. This is a kind of user training. In the understanding of the European chain, there will certainly be more segments of the Oracle market in the future, which is the law of market development. In the white paper of the European chain, we have given four market directions, forecasting the market, insurance market, intelligent patronage and sports guessing, but in fact, the market scope of Oracle is much more than that. In the future. There may be Oracle service projects focused on sports guessing, while European chain has more market space and application scenarios because it entered the market earlier, and people are looking forward to the emergence of a DApp with 100, 000 or even millions of users, which correspondingly gives Oracle a huge profit space.
Blockemist: for the prediction market, why does Eurochain not choose to directly do front-end applications such as Tianshu and Bodhi, but choose to do the prediction machine market? will the prediction DApp? be launched in the future?
Zhao Wei: (smiles) We don’t plan to do this. In fact, we are partners with Tian Shu (ChainNews will conduct an exclusive interview with Tian Shu in the future). In the direction of Oracle, we are both greedy and abstemious. instead of making a predictive DApp, ourselves, we are more willing to discover such projects, cooperate, or even incubate.
(Blockemist: is it hatching for predictive DApp? ).
This kind of incubation is not limited to predicting this direction, because Oracle does not only provide services for forecasting applications, all DApp require data exchange inside and outside the chain, and they may be the incubation targets of the European chain. In fact, we are already incubating some high-quality blockchain projects.
Blockemist: what is the product matrix layout of the European chain? Are they all based on the overall layout of the prophecy machine?
Zhao Wei: the core of the European chain is the prophecy machine, that is, the Oracle service, which is why we set up this company, but our nature Oracle is 2B, and we have laid out some products from the 2C point of view. For example, we found that in the intelligent contract ecology, C-end users do not have a very convenient way to use the distributed application DApp, so we launched the PocketEOS project, which has this function: asset management wallet. More importantly, DApp App Mall, we hope that in the future DApp users will be able to easily use smart contract applications through PocketEOS. PocketEOS is a DApp mall based on EOS, and there are already hundreds of community volunteers helping us with the testing. European chain itself has made an application called “Q & A” on this DApp platform, which can offer a reward for questions.
(Blockemist: it can be seen that DApp training and incubation based on Oracle is a clear business strategy of the European chain. ).
The future is unpredictable.
Blockemist: what do you think of the recent problems in EOS? Does it have an impact on the European chain?
Zhao Wei: (smiles) if you say what is the most popular blockchain project? Don’t even think about it, it must be EOS,. I also brought the European chain team OracleChain to run for EOS node, code name is OracleChain. (stock symbol: oraclegogogo).
Participation is the safest choice. European chain is a data service platform based on EOS’s out-of-chain data, which is a prerequisite for the establishment of intelligent contracts involving out-of-chain data. A year ago, the three founders of our team mainly translated the EOS white paper.
Whether EOS can become the next generation public chain beyond Ethernet Square still faces a lot of doubts and uncertainties. However, the European chain team is a technical background and does not care about this, our idea is to be “the first person to eat crabs”.
In fact, the day after the EOS “epic” loophole was exposed, we signed a partnership agreement with 360. the industry needs time to be questioned, the future unpredictable and moving forward steadily.
Blockemist: what is the current team size and one-year goal of the European chain?
Zhao Wei: in the future, European chain hopes to become an underlying technology platform-level service provider for intelligent contract applications. Soon, European chain will launch a larger open source plan, hoping that more developers will join. At present, all the work of the team is based on EOS, but this is not a part-time job for others. While contributing to EOS, it is also getting users for itself, with a high degree of overlap between interests and ecology.
Blockemist: does the European chain have any plans to make a public chain?
Zhao Wei: the future is unpredictable.
Interconnect the world with the block chain.
On June 10, 2018, Eurochain joined hands with Ant Mine Pool to hold the “2018 Global EOS developer Conference”. Guests such as Zhao Wei of OracleChain CEO, Cao Fei, director of fiery coin mining pool, Lao Cat, founder of EOSLaoMao, Li Wancai, co-founder of EOS Gravity Zone, Xu Bo, partner of Martian financial technology, Yang Yang, founder of EOS Pacific, Professor Zhang Chao of Tsinghua University, Zhong Hong, director of x-lab of Tsinghua University, Peng Zhijiu, security expert of Tsinghua University, Zhao Lanyan, future copyright CEO, etc., as well as more than 20 project teams and dozens of media outlets around the world. Jointly discuss the ecological development and technological direction of EOS. Thomas Cox, vice president of Block.ONE CTO Daniel Larimer (BM) and Block.One products, participated in the conference.
The 2018 Global EOS developer Conference is the first offline EOS ecological conference attended by multinational teams and focused on technology development. As a technical representative in the EOS circle, OracleChain hosted the conference. OracleChain CEO Zhao Wei said:
It is true that capital and community are important in EOS ecology, but developers are the soul of ecology. If there are no good developers to invest in ecological construction and create excellent landing applications, then EOS is just air.
“Open source” is one of the themes of this conference, and most of the guests are team leaders who have contributed to open source projects in the EOS ecology. Zhao Wei said:
Open source is the core of blockchain technology. Only fully open and open blockchain projects can get greater support from the community and attract more developers to join the ecology.
Many actions of the European chain in the industry can also be seen that the vision of the European chain “connecting the world and the blockchain” is not empty talk.