And what’s the oracle problem? Why can’t blockchains themselves make API calls?
1. What Is an Oracle?
A blockchain oracle is any device or entity that connects a deterministic blockchain with off-chain data.
There is a lot to unpack in that one sentence.
To understand what blockchain oracles are and why we need them, let’s go back to one of the core features of a blockchain — decentrality.
The problem with blockchains
Since the blockchain has its distributed ledger nature, each node in the network has to be able to find the same end result given the same input. Otherwise, when a node looks to validate a transaction another node makes, it would end up with a different result. …
A glorious guide to building and creating NFTs, the ERC-721 standard for creating collectibles, art, and any type of unique asset on-chain.
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are the hot new up-and-comers in the smart contract space. If 2020 was the year of DeFi, then at least the start of 2021 belongs to NFTs. NFTs are a token standard similar to the ERC20.
A Non-Fungible Token means that it’s a unique token that has no other token like it. This is starkly different from the ERC20s, which are fungible. Fungible means “replaceable” or “interchangeable.” For example, your dollar bill is going to be worth $1 no matter what dollar bill you use. …
Ex-Hedge Fund Engineer explains how GME and WallStreetBets exemplify the exacerbated fintech industry and the outdated rails they run on. The 2008 crash, 2010 Flash Boys Revolt, and now the 2021 RobinHood/Reddit/GME uprising all point to one clear conclusion — the game is rigged. We either grow or risk repeating this forever
Introduction
Our quality of life is as good as the rails that life runs on. Each aspect of our lives has its own infrastructure. Our communication runs on the internet. Our transportation runs on roads. Each year new technologies enter the market and usher in a new era of heightened prosperity in the area it affects.
When was the last time our monetary and market system got an upgrade? Some will argue that was when we got off the gold standard. In any case, we are at least 50 years outdated for an upgrade to how our monetary system and marketplace…
Why are smart contracts so important? What do smart contracts do? Why are smart contracts one of the most important technologies of the 2020s? How can smart contracts make our lives better? All these are answered and more.
Introduction
Smart Contracts are the technology that will define how we humans interact in our future, and they’ve already started their explosive growth and adoption. We’ve seen smart contracts use in just the financial space alone go from $500M to over $20B in 2020, and projects that use smart contracts platforms have seen skyrocketing prices, like ETH going from $130 at the start of 2020, to over $700.
Smart Contracts are enabled due to the technology known as blockchain. Blockchain is much more than just the flagship currency “bitcoin”. Bitcoin was the original blockchain use case, but there is more to…
The best smart contract and blockchain developer frameworks, focusing on Ethereum smart contracts across all languages
Smart contract development frameworks make engineers’ lives easier by allowing them to deploy and test their smart contracts. I took hours and days to go through every recommended framework from ConsenSys and the Ethereum website to see which ones are the best for 2021. You can see my experimentation with the platforms on GitHub.
Not only that, but I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews with blockchain hackathon participants and gone through hundreds of hackathon submissions, looking for which tools perform the best and have the best developer experience. I also do a lot of work using each framework myself, and I…
We explore the reasons why blockchain engineering is such a mind-blowing reality. We go through 6 reasons why people should become blockchain engineers, the problems it solves, and how to get started.
Preface
Being a blockchain engineer is one of the most fun and rewarding experiences and career paths today. You’ll easily slip through the looking glass of smart contracts and become enamored with planet altering tech.
And I personally, flippin' love it.
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Every day I wake up AMPED. I have two titles, CEO of my own blockchain company and Developer Advocate for Chainlink Labs, which is a fancy way of saying I’m a blockchain engineer who also writes.
It was only one year ago I took the plunge into cryptocurrencies and blockchain, not expecting…
Python has numerous tools including brownie and web3.py that allow users to become a blockchain engineer.
In this article, we are going to deploy smart contracts using Python. This means that, if you know some Python, this could be your transition into smart contract and blockchain development!
Introduction
I love Python, it has such an amazing developer experience. There is something so sweet about being able to just write print("hi") and not having to do anything verbose like System.out.println("hi"). This sentiment is shared by many, including those in the fintech world. Many of the hedge funds I’ve worked with (and worked at) have used Python as their main language.
How to start staking Ethereum from all ranges of technical skill. And everything you need to know from total beginner to advanced DevOps engineer. We also peek into a popular method people use and how to set it up.
Introduction
ETH 2.0 phase 0 is finally here! And it seems to be going uncharacteristically smoothly for a move of this size. We are starting the first phase of migrating from ETH 1.0 (the current version of ETH) to 2.0. This phase is characterized by running validators for the ETH 2.0 beacon chain. Along with this, we are moving from proof of work to proof of stake. This change means that we are going from having miners -> to having validators, and validators can sign up and start helping secure the network today! Helping secure the network does two massive things:
- …
Connect your serverless architecture on GCP using Cloud Functions to your MongoDB Atlas database using network peering and private clouds
Serverless functions are great, and Google Cloud Function makes them really easy to spin up. However, given the fact that they are serverless, security can pose an issue. How do I whitelist the IP of my Cloud Function in my MongoDB Atlas account if the IP is always going to be changing? We could just use 0.0.0.0 , but then we are open to attackers hammering out at our servers! We need a way to protect ourselves against these attackers while still being able to have our functions speak to each other.
What is Polkadot? What problems does it solve? Everything Polkadot.
With each new technology coming out claiming to be “the next generation of XYZ”, it can be hard to keep track of what actually is the next generation of XYZ. In this case, that XYZ is blockchain, and that technology is Polkadot.
With so many blockchains being spun up saying “they are the best, etc, etc” it’s important to look at the problems they solve — the only reason to use any tool. If you don’t understand the problems, you can’t understand the tool.
With so many blockchains and platforms that you can build on, you’ll be asking “why should…
Patrick Collins
Chainlink developer advocate, fintech data engineer, and human performance buff. I love hearing about how people make their lives better. https://alphachain.io
