Radix Podcast

Tellor: Decentralising data oracles to increase trust.

April 22, 2021

Join Piers Ridyard in this episode of the DeFi Download, where he interviews Nicholas Fett, co-founder, and CTO of Tellor.io, a decentralised Oracle Network. They discuss what makes Tellor unique and sets it apart from peers such as Chainlink.

Tellor is a decentralised Oracle Network that facilitates bringing off-chain data on-chain. It accomplishes this by rewarding competing miners with the TRB token for providing and validating data.

Tellor allows data to be disputed for a fee, maintaining the system's integrity. The fee increases for each subsequent dispute, making malicious parties’ attempts to attack the network prohibitively expensive.

[00:00:37] What is a decentralised Oracle Network and what distinguishes Tellor?

[00:03:32] What if the winner of the Nakamoto leadership proof-of-work race provides false information? Is there a way to ensure that the winner of the proof-of-work race is indeed honest about the price they claim?

[00:05:22] What was it about decentralised Oracle services that existed at the time that did not compare favourably to what Nick and his team considered essential for ensuring efficient operation?

[00:11:59] Nick’s observations on the evolution of the oracle space: With Chainlink being the most well-known oracle platform today, what does Nick think about similar entrants into the market? What opportunities and shortcomings does he see in those entrants’ approaches versus Tellor's approach?

[00:14:32] The concept of anti-fragility and ensuring that the system around which you want to build a trustless ecosystem is also inherently trustless

[00:16:31] What are some of the projects that people are working on with Tellor that Nick is excited about? 

[00:16:41] The Tellor network's current usage

[00:18:56] How easy is it for Tellor to add a new feed?

[00:22:16] The challenge in convincing data and identity providers to interact directly with ledgers

[00:24:10] Tellor's two- to five-year vision

[00:26:40] Is there something else besides the stablecoin that Nick considers significant that has not been properly decentralised yet and is waiting on the side-lines to be produced or perfected?

[00:29:21] What kind of proof-of-work system is the Tellor security paradigm, and what is its proof-of-work algorithm?

[00:32:36] How do Tellor's voting system and dispute resolution work?

Further resources