SEDA is web3’s most powerful oracle, connecting any protocol to millions of feeds in one integration.
Whether you’re new to SEDA or a seasoned SEDAlien, chances are you’ve seen our claims as Web3’s most powerful oracle, including:
- Build anywhere, access everywhere.
- Millions of feeds, one integration.
- Connect, customize & create.
- Custom feeds in 97 seconds.
- Any data, Any app
- Build limitless
Behind SEDA’s benefits lies a meticulous and novel oracle infrastructure, designed by a team with first-hand experience building traditional oracles. This education series starts with “‘What SEDA Is” and will walk through Oracle 101s, compare traditional to intent-centric designs, and explore each element that makes SEDA Web3’s most powerful Oracle.
Article Overview
- What is an oracle?
- Types of oracles.
- SEDA’s unique selling points.
What is an oracle?
An oracle, by definition, is a system that brings external data into a blockchain’s execution environment. Blockchains, by design, are unable to access data outside of their execution environment and rely on third-party software, known as oracles, to transport data onchain.
Under this definition, oracles include bridges and message-passing protocols that transport data from one chain to another. Where other data-focused projects, such as data availability and indexers, center around data storage, oracles are primarily focused on data transport from source to destination.
You can think of a blockchain as a library and its applications, like students creating a school project. Without an oracle, the only books in a library are about the library itself, such as what has happened in the library since it was built. The student projects that can be created with these books are library-specific, as students can’t access books on other topics. Oracles are book couriers that deliver books to libraries, allowing students to collect other information needed to create non-library-specific projects using information outside of the library walls.
Types Of Oracles
- Push-Based Oracles
Push-based oracles were the first oracles built for blockchains and used by companies such as Chainlink. These oracles transport external information onchain periodically at predefined intervals. For example, this means that updated data, such as the price of an asset, could be made available onchain every 15 seconds. Applications using this data have to wait for an oracle update to get the latest data for their users.
- Pull-Based Oracles
Pull-based oracles such as Pyth are a direct design response to challenges faced by push-based models, including unfair pricing arrangements and lack of on-demand data access. Where push-based models demand users pay monthly / yearly access to the data pushed onchain, pull-based oracles allow users to only pay for the data they need, when they need it. In contrast to pushing data onchain, users can make a data request that pulls the data onchain only when they request it. This significantly reduces user costs and gives protocols greater control over accessing the latest data.
- Intent-Based Oracles
While pull-based oracles represent a significant improvement in oracle designs, users began to face challenges such as lack of customization and variety in the data they could access. Push-based and pull-based oracles offer users a preset data menu, such as price feeds. Intent-based oracles like SEDA, in contrast to push & pull models, offer developers access to any data type where developers express what data they want, from where it is sourced, and how it should be returned. This is known as a data-request intent.
Returning to the library analogy above, a push-based oracle would be like having a book courier arrive every 15 minutes with the book’s latest version ready for reading. A pull-based oracle would be like a messaging app to tell the courier when to come and then deliver the books on demand. With push & pull couriers, it’s important to understand that the courier has a limited list of books it can collect, and students can only select topics available on the list.
However, an intent-based oracle is like having a courier assistant who takes your custom book order on demand and follows your instructions on:
- What book you want.
- From where you want it sourced.
- The specific passages in the book you need. With this courier (oracle), you decide not only when you want the book, but also what books you want and which information should be presented — on any topic in the world.
Students creating projects with push and pull couriers are forced to do the same projects with only limited book topics provided. Students creating projects with intent-based couriers can create limitless types of projects with unrestricted access to any book.
SEDA’s Unique Oracle Selling Points
SEDA is built upon three founding design principles:
- Permissionless — Connect to SEDA at any time, unrestricted.
- Programmable — Customize data feeds in any way.
- Omnichain — Create oracles from any network.
These three design principles make SEDA the most powerful oracle in Web3 to date. From a builder’s point of view, they simply integrate SEDA when they need access to data using a single contract, configure the parameters (what data, from where, and how), and then essentially deploy their own oracle on whatever chain they are building from.
As opposed to traditional oracle models, SEDA doesn’t dictate what builders and from where they can connect. Traditional models, like a cafe, tell the builder what data is available for consumption. On the other hand, SEDA offers a builder any ingredients and cooks the meal (oracle) according to the instructions (intent) provided. This is the secret behind powering limitless onchain development by connecting any builder on any chain to customizable oracle access for any data type.
Summary
- Oracles access data and transport it onchain for protocols to use.
- Traditional models tell protocols what data to use and from where, according to the oracle’s conditions.
- SEDA powers protocols to express what data they need and where it should come from under protocol-defined conditions.
- The result of SEDA, is a user-first oracle experience that powers the creation of data feeds for any use case on any chain, as opposed to repetitious use cases across the same networks.
Build limitless → Build SEDA.
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