2025-06-13 –, Cinema 10
Enshrined oracles have long been controversial, because in extreme conditions they put pressure on the protocol to either fork or gaslight some of its users. We present an "intents"-based method called Veiling, implemented in about 100 lines of code, that is a provably optimal way to address the classic concerns directly.
The price of e.g. the Euro isn't natively known to a blockchain, so it uses an oracle to report such a value. But oracles can fail or be manipulated. In such circumstances, should a protocol gaslight its users by pretending to know more than it does? The well-known risks of such gaslighting include forking or halting the chain. We propose instead that in such circumstances, a protocol can 1. communicate its uncertainty directly and 2. enable a "Veiling" procedure whereby users and applications can transact fairly and efficiently under this uncertainty. Doing so preserves liveness and avoids costly forks or PoW-style races.
