For the past year, the team at Suredbits has been diligently working on Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs) . DLCs are a new technology that enables non-custodial bitcoin-settled derivatives.
It is important to understand how this is accomplished. The core piece that powers DLCs is called an “Oracle”. An Oracle cryptographically attests to the outcome of an event in the real world. In the US election DLC between Chris Stewart & Nicolas Dorier we had the OutcomeObserver attesting to who won the election.
All DLCs require oracles. The success of the DLC ecosystem is predicated on a vibrant ecosystem of high quality oracles attesting to outcomes of events in the real world.
To help solve this problem, we are excited to announce the release of an oracle application called Krystal Bull & a new tool to help find oracles, the Suredbits Oracle Explorer.
Krystal Bull
Krystal Bull gives anyone the ability to become a DLC oracle. With Krystal Bull, you can attest to simple things like “Will it be sunny in Chicago today?” or more complex attestations like “What will the bitcoin price be on 2021-06-01?”
After the event occurs, you enter in the value you observed (“Sunny in Chicago”, or “75,000” for bitcoin market price) into Krystal Bull and it will create a digital signature (“attestation”) that corresponds to the value you entered.
Now users of your oracle can use this digital signature (“attestation”) to settle their bitcoin-based derivatives according to the outcome you’ve attested to.
Suredbits Oracle Explorer
The Suredbits Oracle Explorer solves 3 problems in the DLC ecosystem.
- Oracles need to distribute their announcements so others can find them
- Oracles need to distribute their attestations so users can settle their DLCs
- DLC users need a way to find high quality oracles to use for their DLCs
The oracle explorer solves all these problems. Now oracles can post their announcements to the oracle explorer and follow up with their attestations after the event occurs.
A DLC user can now browse the oracle explorer to find an oracle that is suitable for their derivative. They can then also follow up and find the attestation for that specific event and settle their DLC.
We’ve made a demo video of
- Creating an oracle with Krystal Bull
- Posting the oracle announcement to the Suredbits Oracle Explorer
- Attesting to the event, and posting that attestation to the Suredbits Oracle Explorer
Whats next
The Suredbits Oracle Explorer is a tool meant to help facilitate a healthy oracle ecosystem for DLCs. We will continue to iterate and improve on providing tools for DLC users to find high quality oracles.
The next suite of tooling we are beginning to work on is for creating DLCs. The Suredbits Oracle Explorer will be an integral tool in accomplishing that. Our goal is to make DLCs as easy to use as “normal” bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin settled derivatives are an extremely exciting development for the largest cryptocurrency in the world. Bitcoin has the potential to not only be the reserve currency of the world, but a neutral settlement rail for modern day financial products.
Resources
Discreet Log Contracts specification
DLCFD (Discreet Log Contract For Difference)