Band v3: An Open Data Oracle for Everyone

Embracing the Boring: Why Oracles Matter

In the fast-paced world of blockchain and decentralized applications, it's easy to get caught up in the hype of the latest trends and fancy buzzwords. But at Band, we believe that true innovation often lies in addressing the less glamorous, yet fundamentally important problems. One such problem is the need for reliable, secure, and affordable oracle solutions.

Oracles are the unsung heroes of the blockchain ecosystem. They bridge the gap between the real world and the Web3, providing smart contracts with the external data they need to function. Without oracles, dApps would be isolated and limited in their capabilities.

That's why we've made it our mission to create a decentralized oracle solution that just works – seamlessly, securely, and affordably. We're obsessed with this "boring" problem because we know that doing so is essential to unlocking the full potential of blockchain technology.

Introducing Band v3

Band v3 results from over a year and a half of dedicated work by our core contribution team. This major upgrade to our oracle solution is designed to make decentralized oracles more accessible and cost-effective for developers and users.

Band v3 is built on three core principles:

1. 🔎 Transparency: All data aggregated by Band v3 is fully auditable, with cryptographic guarantees from the data sources, ensuring the highest level of trust and integrity.
2. 🔌 Interoperability: Band v3 integrates seamlessly with both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and non-EVM platforms, including native support for the Cosmos-SDK ecosystem, enabling interoperability across a wide range of blockchain networks.
3. ⚡️ Affordability: By optimizing for cost-efficiency, Band v3 ensures that its oracle services are accessible to a diverse array of applications, promoting decentralization and widespread adoption.

How Band v3 Works

Band v3 consists of three key components that work together to provide a fully decentralized, permissionless, and open-price feed system:

1. 🛜  The Signaling Hub: Band stakers vote on which symbols to include in the price feeds (up to 1,000 symbols). The voting results determine the frequency and deviation of each feed. This permissionless process ensures free information flow for the decentralized application ecosystem.
2. 📈  The Concurrent Price Streams: BandChain validators report prices for each symbol listed on the Signaling Hub concurrently, at a rate of up to once per second. This automated process ensures uninterrupted price feeds as long as BandChain is operational.
3. 🕳️  The Data Tunnels: Aggregated prices are permanently recorded on BandChain and automatically relayed to destined blockchains and smart contract platforms via the Data Tunnels. This secure relay mechanism provides superior cryptographic guarantees while minimizing the cost of proofs. Band works with leading interchain messaging and interoperability protocols to ensure open and permissionless access to price feeds.

For a comprehensive deep dive into the technical aspects of Band v3, please refer to our Band v3 Whitepaper.

Improvements over Band v2

Band v3 introduces several key improvements over its predecessor:

1. Free and Open Data: The price feeds on BandChain are now completely free. Band only charges for data validation rather than per request, making it a much more scalable and cost-effective solution for the next generation dApps.
2. Ease of Integration via Improved DevUX: Band v3 comes with publicly available price feeds, eliminating the need for developers to write custom oracle scripts. Developers can now integrate price data with just a few clicks via the developer portal WebUI. It now takes as little as 10 minutes to set up a Band oracle data feed, making v3 more scalable and ready for mass adoption than ever before.
3. Bullet Proof Security: Every data point on BandChain is now accompanied by Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS) cryptographic validation, offering great security at a fraction of on-chain validation cost.

Empowering Developers

Band v3 is not just about providing a better oracle solution; it's about empowering developers to create innovative dApps. With Band v3, developers have access to a reliable, secure, and cost-effective oracle that can be easily integrated into their projects.

Whether you're building an RWA protocol, a DeFi application, a prediction market, or a gaming platform, Band v3 provides the data infrastructure you need to bring your vision to life. With support for a wide range of data feeds and a thriving community of developers, Band v3 is the perfect foundation for your next project.

The Phased Rollout

We're committed to ensuring that Band v3 is not only feature-rich but also stable and performant. To achieve this, we're rolling out Band v3 in multiple phases.

The latest release of Band v3 can be found on our GitHub repository. We're currently working closely with our validators to rigorously test the stability and performance of the system before deploying it to live dApps.

This phased approach allows us to gather valuable feedback, identify and address any potential issues, and ensure a smooth transition for our users and partners.

Join Us on the “Boring Yet Important” Journey

At Band, we're passionate about the potential of decentralized technology to transform the way we live, work, and interact. We believe that oracles are a key piece of this puzzle, and we're committed to building the best oracle solution possible.

So join us on this journey. Whether you're a developer building the next great dApp, a data provider looking to contribute to Band price feeds, or a community member passionate about decentralization – there's a place for you in the Band ecosystem.

Together, let's embrace the boring, tackle the hard problems, and build a future where data is truly decentralized and accessible to all.

About Band Protocol

An open data oracle for everyone - Band delivers free information flow and connects the real world to the Web 3, serving as the backbone of DeFi, prediction markets, and games for global blockchain users and institutions with zero counterparty risk.

Through an incentivized tokenomic design and robust governance, Band helps secure billions of dollar in value on-chain.

Learn more about Band: Linktree