4 ms·

That's what oracles do.

• joosters 7y ago
  If you have to trust an oracle, you have essentially thrown away all of the plusses of decentralisation/trustlessness. At that point, the blockchain becomes pointless busywork, useful only for duping mug investors.
  • nootropicat 7y ago
    The impossibility of a full elimination of trust, for any particular problem, doesn't mean a partial reduction isn't valuable. If you disagree, would you be fine with changing the political and justice system of your country into a fully opaque black box? As in, you still can vote for the policies you want, but it's impossible to know how the government functions, what are the reasons for its decisions, or even who personally forms the government, to the point it could be run by aliens or an ai. Sometimes people are arrested for crimes, but it's impossible to know what's the evidence or even what the crime was, even after sentencing. If you don't consider this equivalent to the currently utilized system in your country, you have to agree that there's value in trust minimization.
    • monospaceisgood 7y ago
      Infiltrate a government or a justice system require a lot of time and resources. A blockchain? not so much You basically replace trust (with doubts) with faith.
    • SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      I think we're detached from the original discussion. "That's what oracles do" was a response to the problem that "smart contracts cannot be easily modified if they are found to be buggy". Trust minimization is valuable, but a smart contract that allows an oracle to unilaterally override its terms doesn't minimize trust in any meaningful way.
  • dorgo 7y ago
    care to elaborate? Afaik, oracles are used to synchronize the blockchain to the real world and there are sophisticated mechanisms to keep them honest.