Blockchain adoption has been taking giant leaps forward in the last couple of years, and with DeFi leading the change, oracles have become a necessity, representing one of the cornerstones of blockchains’ utility.

Blockchain oracles allow interaction between real-world data and smart contracts, allowing any publicly available data to be seamlessly integrated into smart contracts. The oracle connects the blockchain and the real world, allowing the smart contracts to change when certain world events trigger such a reaction.

It is well established that æternity was born DeFi-ready, with smart contract capability as well as extremely high scalability and transaction speed. However, it is not common knowledge that æternity also offers an embedded oracle system to its users. What the developers of æternity knew at the time of building the blockchain’s foundations is that oracles will be an integral part of any blockchain that wants to host the plethora of DeFi applications that are currently being developed. By looking ahead and learning from the mistakes of the early blockchain platforms, æternity’s design resulted in a completely modern blockchain, with sufficient performance and functionalities to support the heavy traffic demands of DeFi.

Oracles are just one of many functions essential for what blockchain is trying to bring to the world — efficient independence from the central banking systems and the instant interoperability of the physical world and the decentralized financial system.

However, æternity’s oracles differ from most oracles in the blockchain space in the sense that they do not operate automatically. Instead, æternity utilizes oracle operators — individuals or entities who register oracles and set them up to communicate the relevant data between smart contracts and the world outside the blockchain.

Although this makes the process more complex, it creates a structure in which oracle operators can earn from the parties using the oracles they provide. This means that, in the future, there could be a dedicated Oracle Marketplace where users can choose their trusted oracles, creating strong competition in the market to provide the best possible oracle service.

Undeniably, any business planning to utilize blockchain for its benefit will have to go through oracles. With numerous blockchain projects offering different solutions, it will be a system with the most secure structure and least capacity for manipulation that becomes the standard.

The race to provide the world and blockchain with seamless interoperability is far from over, and oracle systems will continue to be created and improved. The Akshwani haeck held in April and May, organized by æternity, aimed to do just that — find more opportunities to utilize and improve the ways oracles are being used. The brightest minds of the blockchain space took on the ambitious task of testing out the new use cases of oracles and building the digital structures of the future on the æternity blockchain network. The fruits of their labour can be found in the Devpost project gallery of the Akshwani haeck.

While æternity isn’t the only competitor working on advancing oracles and bringing mass adoption to blockchain, one thing is certain — with oracles embedded in its protocols from the start, and with its uniquely active and collaborative community, æternity has a head start.

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Original Article
https://blog.aeternity.com/the-race-to-connect-the-world-to-the-blocks-44cfa659edc7