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A comment on Predicting Random Numbers in Ethereum Smart Contracts. Parent comment

Re:Predicting Random Numbers in Ethereum Smart Contracts by 0wing on Friday February 02, 2018 @07:59PM (#16295481)
You misunderstand.

If a smart contract relies on an external data source from a normal server (oracle), then why even take the risk of deploying the smart contract?

If you're using an oracle for a data source you might as well do everything on a normal database.

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Re:Predicting Random Numbers in Ethereum Smart Contracts by nileshtrivedi on Saturday February 03, 2018 @05:31AM (#16297056)
By minimizing the role of the oracle, instead of relying on one entity, you can rely on the market. Anybody could be the oracle, they'd put their reputation/offer/price on sale and the stakeholders would select one as they wish.

You're still trusting the selected oracle to behave honestly, but they will be operating in a very competitive market which hopefully would lead to better behaviour. They might cheat once, but it would be trivial to switch to a better oracle next time.

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