What is Oracle?

Question

What is Oracle?

Accepted Answer

A **blockchain oracle** is a third-party service that acts as a secure, decentralized bridge between a blockchain's smart contracts and the external, real-world data and systems (off-chain), enabling the execution of complex, data-driven agreements. By providing verifiable data inputs and outputs, oracles solve the "oracle problem," which is the inherent inability of a blockchain to access information outside its own network.

Oracle

What is Oracle?

What is the "oracle problem" and how do decentralized oracle networks (DONs) solve it?

How do blockchain oracles specifically enable the functionality of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)?

What are the main types of blockchain oracles and their primary use cases outside of finance?

Why is decentralization critical for oracle security and what are the risks of using centralized oracles?

Learn More