Transparent, Decentralized & Composable
Reimagining Oracles
Pragma Network has a uniquely robust and transparent architecture made possible by leveraging new zk-technology.
Transparency
On-Chain. Anyone can verify any data point from origin through transformation to destination.
Verifiable Performance. Every time a publisher sends new data to Pragma, the smart contracts emit events, so anyone can inspect the network's historical performance.
Open Source. Check out Pragma's source code on Github.
Decentralization
Proprietary data. High-quality publishers sign and bring their proprietary data directly on-chain, giving Pragma its best-in-class robustness and accuracy.
No off-chain infrastructure. This makes Pragma as decentralized as the underlying zk-rollup networks.
Composability
Cheap zk-computation. Raw data building blocks can be composed on-chain. Thus, new feeds that are just as secure and robust as the main price feeds can be created using verifiable computation.
Advanced computational feeds. We are working with leading protocols to create dynamic yield curves, risk metrics, volatility surfaces and more...
How it works
Step by Step Overview
Follow along as the data moves from the sources on-chain and to your smart contract.
Timestamp & Sign
Data sources timestamp and sign their proprietary data.
Publish
The data sources themselves publish their signed data on-chain, directly sending it to the Pragma oracle contract via their account contract.
Verify
The Pragma oracle contract verifies that the data is valid, including checks on its signature, timestamp and value.
Persist
Finally, once the data has been verified on-chain, it is stored transparently for future retrieval by smart contracts that need to interact with the real world — whether that is via price feeds, computational feeds or other data.
Answers to
Frequently asked questions
- How do I start using Pragma?
- Integration is simple, just add a few lines of code to your smart contract and you can start using our price feeds. See a sample code snippet.
- How does Pragma verify data?
- Every data point on Pragma is timestamped and signed directly by the source.
- What are the differences between off- and on-chain oracles?
- Historically, the limited performance of blockchains has meant that oracles gathered all data off-chain and only posted the final answer on-chain, thereby operating as a black box with a trusted output. On-chain oracles use performant new technologies such as zero-knowledge cryptography to bring the core logic on-chain. This makes the on-chain oracle much more secure and trustless.
- Why do blockchains need oracles? What is the oracle problem?
- Blockchains are extremely secure but applications running on them are not able to communicate with the outside world. Oracles bring information about real-life events onto the blockchain, thereby enabling applications to have a useful impact on the outside world.
- How will Pragma become permissionless?
- Pragma is already decentralized, transparent and composable as described above. But a critical further step in the evolution of the protocol is becoming permissionless so that anyone can provide their own data while maintaining the highest standard of robustness. We are working on a whitepaper that discusses our plans for this next phase and will release that soon.
- Why does data composability matter?
- DeFi is still in its early days: Simple, overcollateralized protocols have shown the massive appeal of the technology. To reach the next billion users, DeFi will need to become more sophisticated and user-friendly. Key to this advance is leveraging advanced feeds such as those on Pragma, such as yield curves (fixed-rate loans) or volatility oracles (hedging against market swings).
- Why use Pragma rather than building your own oracle?
- In-house oracle solutions are less robust and decentralized because they do not rely on a large network of the biggest market makers and exchanges providing their proprietary high-quality data.
- Does Pragma only provide financial data?
- Pragma is starting with financial data but will quickly expand to sports, weather and news — any event that happens anywhere should be available on-chain.
- Wen token?
- No comment, for now.
Ready to get the data you need?
Leverage recent breakthroughs in zero-knowledge computation by using verifiable and composable data in your decentralized application.
Pragma is the leading oracle on Starknet, built to empower native protocols to realize their ambitious potential.
