Witnet: A Decentralized Oracle Network Protocol

Witnet is a decentralized oracle network (DON) that connects smart contracts to the outer world. Generally speaking, it allows any piece of software to retrieve the contents published at any web address at a certain point in time, with complete and verifiable proof of its integrity and without blindly trusting any third party. Witnet runs on a blockchain with a native protocol token (called Wit), which miners— called witnesses—earn by retrieving, attesting and delivering web contents for clients. On the other hand, clients spend Wit to pay witnesses for their Retrieve-Attest-Deliver (RAD) work. Witnesses also compete to mine blocks with considerable rewards, but Witnet mining power is proportional to their previous performance in terms of honesty and trustworthiness—this is, their reputation as witnesses. This creates a powerful incentive for witnesses to do their work honestly, protect their reputation and not to deceive the network. The Witnet protocol is designed to assign the RAD tasks to witnesses in a way that mitigates most attack vectors to the greatest extent. At the same time, it includes a novel ’sharding’ feature that (1) guarantees the efficiency and scalability of the network, (2) keeps the price of RAD tasks within reasonable bounds and (3) gives clients the freedom to adjust certainty and price by letting them choose how many witnesses will work on their RAD tasks. When coupled with a Decentralized Storage Network (DSN), Witnet also gives us the possibility to build the Digital Knowledge Ark: a decentralized, immutable, censorshipresistant and eternal archive of humanity’s most relevant digital data. A truth vault aimed to ensure that knowledge will remain democratic and verifiable forever and to prevent history from being written by the victors. ∗ Note: Witnet is a work in progress. Active research is under way, and new versions of this paper will appear at https://witnet.io. For comments and suggestions, contact us at [email protected].