On November 4 th 2025, a DeFi lending protocol called Moonwell lost about $1 million in an exploit that once again reminded the industry of an uncomfortable truth:

💡 In decentralized finance, your smart contract is only as secure as the data it trusts.

This time, the vulnerability didn’t originate in Moonwell’s own code. The problem was upstream — in the oracle that supplied token prices to the protocol.

According to post-mortems from several blockchain security firms, a faulty Chainlink price feed returned a wildly inflated valuation for a collateral token (wrstETH), briefly showing a few cents worth of tokens as millions of dollars. The attacker seized the opportunity, borrowed against the fake collateral, and drained the pool before liquidation bots could react.

Within minutes, $1 million were gone. Within hours, $WELL — Moonwell’s native token — had dropped over 12 %. And within days, community forums were filled with a familiar argument: Was it Moonwell’s fault for using an old feed, or Chainlink’s for providing it?

The blame game hides a bigger problem

Chainlink community members were quick to point out that the exploited feed was “deprecated” — no longer listed in Chainlink’s current documentation. That might be true today, but at some point that feed was listed. It might even have been added under request, a common practice where a client project asks Chainlink to publish a specific market pair or network feed.

So the real question becomes: How is a DeFi protocol supposed to know whether a feed is still safe to rely on?

Chainlink’s documentation indeed marks feeds as deprecated, experimental, or low-liquidity. But all of that guidance exists off-chain, buried in a web page. Once deployed, an aggregator contract gives no on-chain signal about its current status, maintenance, or risk category.

At the contract level:

• there’s no on-chain metadata describing the feed’s reliability, number of sources, or who maintains it;
• the only “safety hint” available is a timestamp — leaving it to each consumer to judge whether the data is “fresh enough”;
• and crucially, there’s no mechanism for a consuming contract to evaluate the quality of the data update itself.

Everything depends on trusting that the off-chain documentation remains accurate — and that’s hardly “trustless.”

Why oracle design is the hidden layer of DeFi security

Every DeFi protocol depends on external facts — asset prices, interest rates, event outcomes — that don’t originate on-chain. Oracles are the bridges that bring those facts into smart-contract systems. If that bridge collapses, so does the logic built on top.

Typical oracle failure modes include:

• Stale or delayed data, causing outdated prices during volatile markets.
• Manipulated inputs, like flash-loan attacks on thinly traded pairs.
• Centralized dependencies, where a single feed operator or API becomes the weakest link.
• Consumer negligence, where the smart contract fails to check freshness, deviation, or feed integrity.

The Moonwell hack didn’t expose a bug in Solidity; it exposed a missing safety layer between oracle and consumer. And that’s precisely one of the layer Witnet was built to strengthen.

How Witnet approaches oracle reliability differently

With Witnet, the paradigm flips: protocols don’t need to depend on a pre-approved list of feeds published on a corporate website. Instead, they can openly compose and deploy their own price feeds, either from scratch or from shared templates, and maintain them independently — all while benefiting from the same cryptographic guarantees of authenticity and transparency.

Verifiable data at the source

Every data point notarized through Witnet carries on-chain proofs of:

• which sources were queried (e.g., Binance, Coinbase, Gate, etc.);
• how many independent witnesses agreed on the result;
• and when exactly the data was retrieved and attested.

This information is publicly verifiable, meaning that any observer — or any consuming smart contract — can check not just what value was reported, but also how it was derived.

Runtime evaluation and self-defense

Through the Witnet Price Feeds (WPF) framework, consumer contracts can perform real-time, on-chain evaluations of:

• the freshness of the latest report,
• the number of data sources used,
• and even the identities of those sources.

With the latest v3 release of the WPF, additional guardrails come built-in:

• Safe-read functions that revert automatically if the last report is older than the configured heartbeat.
• Optional deviation limits — for example, reject any update that deviates by more than 25 % from the previous one.
• Configurable redundancy models: “fallback mode”, where a secondary feed activates only when the primary one is stale; and “hottest mode”, where the most recent valid value is always used.

These features let protocols create autonomous, self-auditing oracle consumption logic, enforced purely on-chain — not by human vigilance or a corporate dashboard.

Building resilience into DeFi

The lesson from Moonwell isn’t that one oracle network failed; it’s that DeFi protocols can’t afford to treat oracles as black boxes. A sound oracle design must make data transparent, verifiable, and composable — enabling consumers to reason about quality, not just quantity.

Witnet’s architecture provides exactly that:

• complete transparency of sources and witnesses;
• cryptographic attestations that can be audited in real time;
• and open tooling for developers to compose new feeds or fork existing ones to suit their needs.

This turns oracles from opaque dependencies into auditable infrastructure primitives — the way they were always meant to be.

Closing thoughts

The next billion dollars in DeFi losses won’t come from your typical re-entrancy or arithmetic bugs. They’ll come from misplaced trust — in data feeds, in dashboards, in assumptions.

Since its foundation in 2017, Witnet’s mission has always been to get rid of the need for trust as much as possible — and where strictly necessary, make it verifiable.

Because in the end, oracles matter. And in a decentralized world, only the verifiable survives.

If you care about any this, it’s your time to join the Witnet revolution — together, we can make decentralized finance truly decentralized, and pave the way for a safer, fairer, and more prosperous future for Web3, and ultimately, for humanity:

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Oracles Matter: What We Can Learn From the Moonwell Hack was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A long-standing paradox

Witnet — also known as the Wit/Oracle — has always done one thing better than anyone else: ensuring data integrity in a completely trustless way.

Instead of relying on a single provider, Witnet uses a crowd-attestation mechanism: a random subset of validators independently fetch and attest to data before reaching consensus. The result is no single points of failure, total transparency, and resistance to manipulation — the qualities that make Witnet ideal for critical use cases like finance, insurance, and governance.

But there’s always been a catch. While Witnet can access virtually any public API, it’s not compatible with private or paid APIs that require access tokens or authentication.

Why private APIs don’t mix well with oracles

Private APIs typically expect clients to include an access token with every request. That’s how they identify who’s calling, enforce rate limits, and charge for usage.

The problem: Witnet’s oracle queries are public and reproducible by anyone. Including any kind of secret credential in them would instantly break trustlessness.

Asking validators to use their own access tokens isn’t feasible either — the Wit/Oracle is designed to query any HTTPS endpoint in the world without special adapters. The number of possible paid APIs is effectively infinite. No validator could manage keys for all of them.

So for years, the conclusion was simple:

Private APIs aren’t compatible with Witnet*

But there’s always been a fine print to that statement.

The missing piece: unattended payments

That limitation only holds as long as APIs don’t have a standard way to request payments directly from clients.

If such a standard existed — if APIs could simply say “402 Payment Required” and accept on-the-fly micropayments from anyone — then the picture changes dramatically.

In that world, Witnet validators could:

1. Receive the API’s payment request,
2. Pay for it autonomously,
3. Prove the payment,
4. And retrieve the data — all without using any secret credentials.

Good news: that vision has just become possible.

Enter x402

x402 is a new open standard built on top of HTTPS, named after the dormant HTTP status code 402 — Payment Required.

It defines a lightweight framework for APIs to express the cost of delivering data and for clients to fulfill and prove those payments — seamlessly, natively, and without centralized billing systems.

Think of it as a pay-per-request layer for the entire web:

• Fully compatible with existing HTTPS infrastructure,
• Friendly to both humans and autonomous agents,
• And built with crypto micropayments in mind.

With x402, APIs can set prices per request, clients can pay automatically, and both sides can verify the transaction — all in one elegant flow.

What this means for Witnet

Since Witnet validators already communicate with HTTPS endpoints, they are theoretically ready to speak x402.

In practice, a few assumptions in the current validator software prevents it from working right now. But if x402 adoption grows — and the web starts embracing “pay per API call” — it would take only minimal changes for the Wit/Oracle to make x402 a first-class citizen of the protocol.

That would instantly unlock one of the biggest pain points in Witnet’s history: the inability to access private APIs.

Validators could autonomously pay per request, fetch premium data, and include it in oracle reports — all within the existing decentralized protocol.

Why this would be huge

Adding x402 compatibility would:

• Expand Witnet’s universe of data sources — from open public APIs to high-value private ones (financial data, weather feeds, IoT sensors, AI models, analytics, etc.)
• Eliminate a major limitation that has often been cited by developers and analysts comparing oracles.
• Increase $WIT utility and demand, since data requests would need to fund off-chain API calls.
• Reinforce decentralization, by allowing validators to autonomously handle paid requests without centralized coordination.

In short: x402 could transform Witnet from the oracle of public data into the oracle of all data.

Parallel efforts already underway

Even before x402, several efforts within the Witnet ecosystem have aimed to extend support for private APIs:

• Access token templating, where validators can securely combine non-sensitive templates with local credentials.
• Partial capabilities in Wit/2, which will allow validators to announce support for specific protocols or datasets — enabling delegated access to private resources in a controlled, opt-in way.

Together, these developments show a clear direction: progressively expanding what Witnet can fetch, without compromising its trustless and censorship-resistant architecture.

x402 simply accelerates that trajectory — offering a universal language for paid API access that fits perfectly with Witnet’s decentralized design.

The bottom line

Witnet’s greatest strength — its transparent, trustless data retrieval — once limited it to public sources.

But with the rise of standards like x402, that boundary is fading.

If x402 becomes widely adopted, Witnet will have every reason to embrace it — and doing so could unleash hundreds of new use cases, more network activity, and stronger fundamentals for $WIT.

In other words, x402 could turn one of Witnet’s few limitations into one of its biggest growth catalysts.

And that’s the kind of quiet evolution that, over time, makes a project much more valuable.

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How x402 Could Make Witnet ($WIT) More Valuable was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Witnet protocol is entering a transformative era. With the launch of Wit/2.1, the introduction of delegated staking, and the expansion of $WIT liquidity into Ethereum and other Layer 2 ecosystems, Wit/Oracle ecosystem is evolving faster than ever before

These milestones mark a shift in Witnet’s role within the broader Web3 landscape: from powering reliable, trustless data delivery to becoming highly interoperable, liquid, and accessible.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming, and why it matters.

Phase 1: Wit/2.1 Testnet and Fixes

The journey begins with the Wit/2.1 public testnet launching on October 1st, introducing Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) to Witnet for the very first time. Until now, staking in Witnet required running a node. With Wit/2.1, that changes. Node operators and delegators can now test:

• Delegation flows
• Validator Management
• Reward Distribution

This testnet phase allows the community to fine-tune the new staking experience and help ensure a seamless transition to mainnet activation.

Phase 2: Wrapped $WIT Goes Live on Ethereum Mainnet

The next major milestone expands Witnet beyond its own chain: Wrapped $WIT is coming to Ethereum mainnet. To start, we will be beta testing on the Sepolia testnet beginning on September 22nd 2025.

Bringing $WIT to Ethereum unlocks new opportunities:

• Participate in DeFi across DEXs and liquidity pools
• Bridge $WIT to any superchain compatible Layer 2
• Strengthen $WIT’s position as multi-chain asset

This launch establishes a deeper connection between Witnet and the broader crypto ecosystem.

Phase 3: Wit/2.1 Release

With the testnet phase complete, Wit/2.1 will be ready for a mainnet release. The upgrade will activate delegated staking, allowing $WIT holders to participate in securing the network without running their own node.

Phase 4: Wrapped WIT expands to Layer 2

The Ethereum mainnet launch is just the beginning. Next, Wrapped WIT expands into Layer2 ecosystems, where speed and cost-efficiency dominate.

Benefits of L2 integration include:

• Cheaper transactions
• Faster Settlement
• L2-native liquidity

With L2 usage growing, this move ensures $WIT stays relevant and competitive in the broader Web3 economy.

Phase 5: Stake as a Service Providers go Live

The final milestone brings simplicity to staking. Witnet will onboard Stake-as-a-Service providers, making it effortless for $WIT holders to delegate.

Through trusted partners and custodians, $WIT holders will soon be able to:

• Delegate without running any infrastructure
• Stake directly via the integrated partner platforms

This opens the door for institutional players, exchanges, and DeFi platforms to participate in Witnet staking.

What’s Next

Witnet is evolving into more than just an oracle network, it’s becoming an interoperable, liquid, and accessible infrastructure layer for Web3. With Wit/2.1 already live on testnet and Wrapped $WIT on its way to Ethereum, the next few weeks will define Witnet’s trajectory.

If you’re a $WIT holder, developer, or DeFi builder, now’s the time to start exploring what’s possible.

Stay connected, follow the roadmap, and be part of the future of the Wit/Oracle ecosystem

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Wit/Oracle’s Next Chapter: Delegation, Liquidity, and the road to Wit/2.1 was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is time to pull back the curtain on blockchain oracles — before someone else pulls the rug.

The original promise of Web3 was a dream come true for technologists and freedom fighters alike — unstoppable code. Software that can’t be stopped, censored, hacked or manipulated in any way.

But what if I told you that there’s a hidden layer of tech that is breaking that unstoppability? A piece of infrastructure that we are constantly looking away from. A silent vulnerability that undermines Web3’s original promise.

I’m the decentralized oracles guy. Of course I’m referring to blockchain oracles!

In this post, my goal is to bring some light on this obscure topic and the bad practices surrounding it. I want to speak up before it becomes too late. I feel forced to pull back the curtain — before someone else pulls the rug.

So Wait… What Is an Oracle, Actually?

A quick Google search will give you a thousand articles on “the oracle problem” and how important oracles are for the security of smart contracts.

So I will run away from repeating that same old story. Instead I’ll try to give you a fresh new interpretation, and a twist!

Understanding Determinism

Your typical explanation would start by saying that the real world is full of random stuff and inconsistent behavior (indeterminism). And then go into saying that smart contracts, on the contrary, require consensus: the outcome of their execution must be the same across the multiple computers they run on (determinism).

Determinism, however, is nothing but a fancy way to say that we expect the same results every time we apply the same process to the same raw materials.

You throw some fruit into your blender, let it run for a couple of minutes, and you get fresh smoothie. Sweet! But throw your iPhone instead of fruit, run the blender again, and… I think you get my point — the outcome of a process is largely affected by its input.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

That principle (“the quality of the output is determined by the quality of the input”) often receives the name of “Garbage In, Garbage Out”.

When we go and apply this to smart contracts, we realize that it doesn’t matter how good your code is — you can be the best Solidity or Rust developer — but still your smart contracts will only execute correctly if they operate on correct data.

The Gap Between The Blockchain And The Real World

When the clever engineers behind Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana, etc. designed their platforms, they made sure to build a big firewall between the blockchain and any piece of data coming from the real world. At the end of the day, they didn’t want inconsistent data polluting the chain state. They wouldn’t let indeterminism creep into your contracts and jeopardize consensus.

As a consequence, blockchains are pretty much isolated from the real world. This clearly limits the uses cases that we can build, and reinforces the perception that Web3 is only for self-referential speculation and that it can have no real transformative impact on society.

This is the so-called “oracle problem”: how do we build determinism from indeterminism, or more specifically, how can we introduce data into smart contracts without breaking their security properties.

Meet The Blockchain Oracles

The solution to this oracle problem could be no other than — rather unsurprisingly — blockchain oracles.

Pretty much like the oracles in ancient times would be the connection between the human and the divine, a blockchain oracle connects the on-chain to the off-chain.

You use a blockchain oracle every time that your smart contract needs to operate on the price of an asset, or on any piece of information that you normally get from an API (market indicators, temperatures, weather data, sport results, AI outputs, etc.)

The Twist

But as I promised, there’s a twist. Ladies and gentlemen:

Oracles are not what they seem.

I’ve been building oracles for last 8 years. And if I had to summarize all the things I’ve learnt during these years into a single lesson, this would be it:

While it is technically right that oracles are “something that pushes data into your contracts”, this view is also utterly wrong from the human perspective of what motivates a builder to use an oracle.

When you look for an oracle, you are not shopping for data — you are buying peace of mind.

When founders and teams come to us looking for an oracle, what they really want is to offset the liability of making sure that data won’t go wrong. Somebody else to take the blame. As builders, they just want to feel safe to move forwards. Because builders gonna build.

So two key questions we need to make ourselves are: how do oracles achieve that peace of mind? and is it related to who is securing the oracles?

Different Oracle Models

We already stated that a blockchain oracle is something that pushes data into your contract and buys you some peace of mind. But that’s quite broad.

In practice, you can find all kinds of things of very different nature being called an oracle. Just like a chihuahua and a dobermann are both dogs — they have four legs, one tail, they bark, they leave little gifts everywhere — but that’s where the similarities stop.

#0: Noracles

In their simplest approach, you can find those that I call “noracles”. This is the situation where data is centrally introduced by an authorized entity. Most often, this is either the deployer of the smart contract itself; or a trusted, reputable data source or institution.

Because of its simplicity, this pattern can be quite effective. But of course it introduces a very evident point of failure as well as a very central point of trust. It will only work as long as that one single actor makes sure that the data is correct, and it doesn’t get hacked, corrupted, blocked or just stops working for any physical, technical, economical, or regulatory reason.

By adopting this pattern — which is surprisingly common in many protocols and dApps even nowadays — you are basically defeating the purpose of using a smart contract in the first place. By introducing trust in that central actor, you break liveness, censorship resistance, and the core security properties you expected your contracts to inherit from the blockchain. Instead, you only inherit the vulnerabilities that the noracle may have.

When we evaluate noracles under the “who secures the oracle?” perspective, the answer is pretty straightforward — a trusted party to whom you are basically handing the keys to your safe.

Some famous instances of noracles where:

• Oraclize.it and some other early oracle solutions.
• ChainLink VRF, as it uses a single coordinator model that can stop feeding randomness at any time.
• Most recently pretty much every project in the RWA space.

#1: Multiparty Oracles

Next in line you have multiparty oracles.

These can take the form of pure multisigs, or some kind of onchain aggregator contract. In both cases, they rely on a closed set of reporters to agree or vote on a on a common result, often off-chain or through proprietary coordination systems.

So when compared to the noracles, this model offers some degree of trust mitigation and at least it puts some more checks and balances in place before garbage gets into your contracts.

This model often offers no real verifiability, still relies on named entities, corporate partnerships, curators, and pretty much trust and reputation at multiple levels.

If anything goes wrong, any remedy or any enforcement happens on the phone, not onchain, because there’s no real cryptoeconomics involved — there’s no such thing as slashing.

Some relevant examples are:

• Early versions of MakerDAO, Augur, Gnosis, Curve and many other popular protocols.
• Pretty much every utility in the ChainLink offering, where there’s a closed set of whitelisted and KYCed node operators who interact through an aggregator; either onchain or through their rather opaque offchain reporting system.

So, I’m very sorry to bring you bad news here: everything out there using ChainLink probably falls into this category just as well, and may be subject to the same vulnerabilities and risks.

Again, from the perspective of “who secures the oracle?”, in this case you are not trusting a single actor, but rather a collective or a committee. But the integrity of the data still depends on those behaving as expected, and largely piggybacks on their reputation and on the ability of some central “curator” to decide who belongs in those committees.

#2 Decentralized Oracles

Finally, you have proper decentralized oracles.

I only include in this category those oracles that truly live up to the same security standards as the blockchains they serve. They must not introduce any single points of failure or any additional trust assumptions.

Once you post a query to a decentralized oracle, you can rest assured that:

• You will timely get a response.
• This response is a true representation of the data that you wanted.
• It hasn’t been tampered with or manipulated in any form by any actor involved in process — be it the nodes that conform the oracle or the data sources themselves.

This is also the only category of oracles that will pass the “walkaway test”. If the team behind your oracle disappears tomorrow, will it still work? Will it stay secure? If the answer is yes, ok, that’s what we’re talking about. If your oracle requires some “babysitting”, well, it’s time to find a new one.

And here’s the nice thing about decentralized oracles: they’re not about the “who secures the oracle?”, but rather how they do it. Data integrity will not come from trust or reputation, but rather from the specific mechanisms and the incentive design that they implement for leveraging trust mitigation and accountability, all in real time, at a protocol level, and protected by cryptoeconomic guarantees (staking, slashing, etc.)

In the Web3 world, “protocol-level peace of mind” is the ultimate form of peace of mind—and the only one that really works.

There are a number of different projects building oracles that I can confidently put in this category. Of course, as far as I can tell, none of them are perfect to this date, and there are always some trade-offs and compromises. But — despite having very different designs and properties — some of those that come quite close are probably:

• Tellor
• UMA
• And obviously, the Wit/Oracle

Meet The Wit/Oracle (aka Witnet protocol)

Anyone who looks at the design, implementation and track record of the Wit/Oracle can acknowledge that it is indeed the most sophisticated, complete and proven embodiment to date of what I mean by decentralized oracle.

But the Wit/Oracle didn’t exactly come out of nowhere — is rooted in classic literature on game theory, incentive design and more in particular, focal points; as well as on research from other builders who have pioneered decentralization in the blockchain space. Some of the strongest influences are:

• The Strategy of Conflict (T. Schelling, 1960)
• Schellingcoin (V. Buterin, 2014)
• Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network (J. Benet et.al., 2014)
• Truthcoin: Peer-to-Peer Oracle System and Prediction Marketplace (P. Sztorc, 2015)
• Algorand (J. Chen et.al., 2016)

All this research lead to the publication of the original Witnet Whitepaper in 2017. This rather dense and technical paper came to describe an oracle whose integrity was powered by the concept of crowd-attestation.

Crowd-Attestation Oracles

A crowd-attestation oracle is based on a completely open and permissionless network of validator nodes.

Every query that you send to a crowd-attestation oracle is randomly assigned to a subset of validators. They will resolve your query independently, and then commit to that result through a cryptographic commitment.

Once those eligible validators have submitted their commitments, there’s a reveal phase where the commitments are validated, and the revealed values get aggregated into a single data point that will get reported back as the true result of your query.

Most importantly, if a validator’s committed and revealed value matches that of the majority, it will earn a reward paid by the requester. On the contrary, validators who are found to be outliers get immediately slashed.

The beauty of this design is that it builds trust mitigation at every single layer. First by sourcing the data from multiple sources, filtering outliers, and aggregating them together; then also applying similar filtering and aggregation techniques to the reported data points that the validators revealed; to finally arrive to a single result that nobody in the process was able to manipulate.

The Wit/Oracle Chain And The $WIT Coin As Public Goods

All this mechanism is made possible by the Wit/Oracle chain — a one-of-a-kind, single-purpose, Layer-1 oracle chain.

While this Layer-1 chain really resembles Bitcoin in its minimalist design, it features transaction types and data structures that are extremely tailored and optimized for the oracle use case. The commitment and reveal scheme that is core to the crowd-attestation mechanism is truly a first-class citizen of this chain.

There are good reasons for the oracle to run on its own appchain, not only from an efficiency perspective, but also to achieve sovereignty and independence from any smart contract platform in particular.

However, this chain independence does not hinder access to those data-hungry smart contracts — on the contrary, it made it even easier to integrate the oracle with more than 50 EVMs, where smart contracts can conveniently and natively post oracle queries, even paying with their own native token.

Support for non-EVM chains like Solana is also on the table. Additionally, we also explored support for the Polkadot ecosystem through our own Substrate pallet, although more recently we are leaning towards integrating with PolkaVM.

All ot this wouldn’t be possible without the incentivization provided by the $WIT coin — anyone can spin up a validator node at any time and start to earn it right away through staking. No permission or whitelisting needed.

And most importantly, this type Proof of Stake is what I like to call useful staking, because in addition to receiving some yield (the APY is close to 20% as of writing), by running a validator you are contributing to the security of the chain, to the security of the oracle, to the security of the projects that are using the Wit/Oracle in production, and therefore to the security, reliability and the future of the broader Web3 ecosystem as a whole. You become part of a decentralized public good.

Why Securing The Oracles Matter

At this point, you may think that I’m just exaggerating and that I’m claiming that decentralized oracles are needed because I have a fetish for decentralization (which I obviously have, of course). But that’s not the only reason.

The truth is that shit happens. It has happened in the past, and it will happen again.

If I was asked to cover in detail all the crypto protocols that got their users’ money stolen because of attacks on their oracles — or because they weren’t using oracles at all — it wouldn’t take me another 10-minute Medium post, believe me that it would be closer to a Bible-long report.

When we look at those “oracle hacks”, the most immediate impact was monetary loss, but there’s also reputational damage. Users lose their money, and the founders behind a certain protocol lose their credibility.

But that’s not where the story ends.

When we look at Web3 we have this beautiful layering and interconnection between protocols and dApps. The famous “money legos” enabling all kind of composability among protocols.

So when a protocol pays little attention to their oracle policy they’re not only shooting themselves in the foot, but also creating systemic risk. Because the wrong execution of a certain protocol might have an impact on other protocols that rely on it.

We as builders need to be aware about all of this, and act responsibly. Because in those hacks that we’ve seen in the past, that monetary loss and reputational damage very easily spread like wildfire across the whole ecosystem, and dragged the adoption of Web3.

We Can’t (Afford To) Look Away

When I started working in this space some 10 years ago, I remember that we had the vision that crypto would serve as the technological and economical foundation for the future. Infrastructure for freedom.

During these years… we had a hell of a great time! We made some money (and lost some money) with ICOs, DeFi, NFTs, memecoins, and all the funny things that this space brings.

But all of that fun, maybe got us distracted from one key fact:

We can’t look away from infrastructure.

I’m talking oracles, but also JSONRPC providers, validator nodes, hardware wallets — all kinds of infrastructure that we often overlook, that we give for granted.

I totally get it, oracles don’t make the headlines. No one becomes a “KOL” on Crypto Twitter discussing data integrity. Oracles are not “degen enough”.

But oracles are a key piece of blockchain infrastructure. And when infrastructure breaks — then everything breaks. Your dApp, your DAO, your lending protocol, your stablecoin — it all collapses like a house of cards.

Remember: we cannot afford to look away from infrastructure only because it’s boring. Sometimes, it’s the boring stuff what makes the magic possible. Sometimes it’s the unsexy that matters most.

A Brighter Future For Web3

But hey, it’s not all bad news. There are actually very positive signs right now in the space, where more and more builders are starting to take oracles and infrastructure seriously.

Talks on these topics are now taking the main stage (I even presented this myself at Web3Summit!). We are seeing L1s and infra projects turning the heads of VCs again. Projects like PoolTogether and many others are embracing the Wit/Oracle in a smart move towards improving the reliability and unstoppability of their decentralized applications.

So there’s hope. There’s a bright future ahead for Web3. I think that we are still in time to build the Web3 that we were promised. But only if we dare to also build — and use — the oracles that it deserves.

From where I stand at the Witnet project and the Witnet Foundation, we have always been committed to this vision of radical technologies that set us free.

We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of that movement. And our hope is that more organisations and builders join us in this journey to make a safer, brighter future for Web3.

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The Oracles Secure the Data — But Who Secures the Oracles? was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Witnet’s next Advocate Sprint is live! Running from July 23 to August 20, and this time, we’re going deep.

In our previous sprint, we saw a wave of energy and creativity from across the community. But this time, we’re raising the bar. Welcome to the Witnet Advocate Sprint: Technical Edition → a hands-on challenge designed for developers, node runners, and true Web3 tinkerers.

Whether you’re a seasoned Witnet contributor or just getting started with the protocol, this is your chance to build your skills, earn rewards, and help strengthen one of the most unique decentralized oracles in the space.

🧠 What’s Different This Time?

This sprint is designed for real contributors → not copy/paste wizards. Tasks require practical interaction with the protocol, meaningful insights, and original contributions. Expect to run code, dive into nodes, explore the blockchain, and help others learn with you.

We’re focused on:

✅ Practical integrations
✅ On-chain experimentation
✅ Video walkthroughs & written guides
✅ Real use cases of staking, randomness, and price feeds
✅ Developer-level engagement

🏆 Rewards Breakdown

The rewards are real money, with a $300 total prize pool for the highest 5 XP.

• 🥇 1st Place: $125
• 🥈 2nd Place: $75
• 🥉 3rd Place: $50
• 🏅 4th Place: $25
• 🎖️ 5th Place: $25

👉 In case of a tie: If multiple participants earn the same XP in a prize tier, the rewards will be combined and split equally.

For example:

• Player 1: 1000XP
• Player 2: 1000XP
• Player 3: 1000XP
• Player 4: 900XP
• Player 5: 900XP

The reward would be the following: Players 1, 2, and 3 would each receive ($125 + $75 + $50) ÷ 3 = $83.33 Players 4 and 5 would each receive $25.

🔎 Note

Some previous tasks remain open, but XP rewards are reduced to encourage new, high-quality content.

All submissions must meet our quality guidelines:

• Original, Witnet-focused, and on-brand.
• No duplicate submissions.
• Manual review by the Witnet team.

For any questions, join our Discord or Telegram group — we’re here to help!

Website | X | Telegram | Discord | LinkedIn | Newsletter | YouTube | Reddit

New Advocate Sprint → New Depth: Technical Edition was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On June 17th, 2025, Gate.io announced the delisting of $WIT among 40 other coins and tokens. This announcement came with no prior notice to the Witnet Foundation, any explanation, or any opportunity to address whatever issue motivated this drastic move from the Gate.io team — just a public update on their blog, long after the decision had already been made.

The truth is: centralized exchanges have never been an ideal access point for $WIT. Between regional restrictions, inflexible KYC processes, and opaque listing criteria, they’ve done a poor job at helping new users enter the Wit/Oracle ecosystem.

So no, this delisting won’t make $WIT less accessible.

In fact, real access to $WIT is about to get much better.

Embracing Web3: ERC-20 $WIT Is Coming

We’re thrilled to confirm that we’re preparing to launch an ERC-20 version of $WIT, making it fully compatible with Ethereum and the broader EVM ecosystem.

Proposals for building an official ERC-20 wrapper of $WIT have been on the table for a while, but only over the last months these have gained widespread support among community members and developers alike.

What was a happy idea little over one month ago, is now becoming a reality, with a tentative release date set in late July.

The main deployment will happen on Ethereum mainnet, but the ERC-20 $WIT contract is designed to be Superchain-compatible — meaning it’s designed to work seamlessly across Base, Optimism, and other L2s in the growing Superchain network.

This ensures that $WIT will be:

• Easily tradable on DEXes like UniSwap or SushiSwap, without borders or centralized approvals.
• Bridgeable to major L2s, where fees are low and activity is increasingly high.
• Composable within dApps and DeFi protocols, powering all kind of use cases and leveraging the liquidity of those ecosystems.
• Available wherever builders are building and traders are trading — across Ethereum and the L2s shaping the future of Web3.

This isn’t a workaround. It’s a leap forward. ERC-20 $WIT is how we bring the power and mission of the Wit/Oracle protocol to a broader, permissionless audience.

Lessons From a Humble L1

Let’s be honest: $WIT is a native coin on its own layer-1 blockchain. That comes with huge long-term upside, but also with very real short-term challenges.

The upside? As the base asset of a decentralized oracle network, $WIT directly benefits from the fat protocol thesis — value tends to accrue at the base layer when protocols offer real, verifiable utility. And that’s exactly what we’ve been building since 2017.

But the downside? Integrating L1 coins into centralized exchanges is hard. For a lean, community-driven project, it’s costly, risky, and often unrewarding.

In hindsight, chasing CEX listings early on may have been a case of trying to fly before we could walk.

With ERC-20 $WIT, we’re walking straight into the heart of Web3.

On the Practicalities of the Gate.io Delisting

If you still hold $WIT on Gate.io, here are the key dates and actions you need to take:

• Trading will be halted on June 24, 2025 at 03:00 UTC.
• Deposits are already disabled.
• Withdrawals will remain open for one month after trading is stopped.
• $WIT is still available on other CEXes (MEXC, Bitmart and HitBTC).

We strongly encourage all users to withdraw their $WIT coins as soon as possible. Once the withdrawal window closes, access to your funds on Gate may be permanently lost.

Our recommendation is to move your coins into myWitWallet — a lightweight and convenient $WIT wallet developed by the Witnet community.

MyWitWallet supports full control of your coins, staking operations, and gives you a safe, simple experience for managing your $WIT; and it’s available on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux.

Meanwhile, Witnet Keeps Growing

No matter what happens with centralized platforms, the Witnet protocol is thriving:

• Wit/2 staking is live and flourishing, with more than 25% of the total supply already locked into staking.
• Wit/2.1, with delegation and improved slashing, is nearly here.
• The Wit/Oracle is powering real-time data, randomness, and external APIs on more than 50 EVM-compatible chains.
• Adoption is growing across DeFi, gaming, and real-world use cases.

And we’re just getting started.

What’s Next

ERC-20 $WIT is more than a technical milestone — it’s a strategic unlock.

It puts $WIT:

• In the hands of more users.
• In the toolkits of more developers.
• In the markets where liquidity is thriving.
• In the protocols where utility is rewarded.

The Witnet community is still here. The Wit/Oracle is still here. $WIT is still here. And soon, it will be everywhere it needs to be — borderless, programmable, and deeply integrated into the future of Web3.

Let’s go make it happen.

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This post contains forward-looking statements regarding planned upgrades, protocol enhancements, and future developments of the Witnet network. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections, which are subject to change due to technical, economic, and governance considerations. While the Witnet developers are committed to executing this roadmap and continuously improving Witnet, the timing and scope of future releases may evolve based on real-world learnings, market conditions, and community feedback. Nothing in this post should be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Stakeholders are encouraged to conduct their own research and participate in governance discussions to stay informed about the latest developments.

The Future of $WIT: From De-listings to De-Fi was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re excited to share the launch of the Witnet SDK, designed to make it easier for developers to integrate with the Witnet decentralized oracle network.

The SDK is designed to simplify key tasks like managing wallets, staking, building and simulating oracle queries, and reporting notarized data to smart contracts. It empowers developers to build decentralized applications that rely on secure and verifiable external data.

🧰 What’s the Witnet SDK?

The Witnet SDK simplifies and speeds up development on the Witnet blockchain, giving developers a smoother building experience. With a few simple commands, you can:

✨ Create HD-wallets to manage and transact with $WIT coins.

🔗 Stake and withdraw $WIT into and from Witnet validators.

📝 Build and test oracle queries for all kinds of data sources and use cases.

⚡️ Simulate the resolution of queries locally and at no cost.

🔒 Notarize query results on the Witnet blockchain.

📦 Report verified data into EVM-compatible smart contracts.

🧑‍💻 Monitor dynamic information about the Witnet P2P network.

🌍 Explore public data on the Witnet blockchain.

🔑 Generate stake authorization codes for the soon-to-be-introduced delegated staking.

🔌 Easy Setup, No Barriers

Getting started is simple — you don’t need to run your own Witnet node, stake $WIT, or pay any fees to use the SDK. Everything is open-source under the MIT license, so it’s fully accessible and developer-friendly.

For those who want even more control, you can always run your own Witnet nodes — it’s permissionless, and the requirements are surprisingly low. Validators can even earn rewards that help sustain their node infrastructure.

🛠️ Key Packages

The SDK comes with several packages, including:

✅ @witnet/sdk: For Javascript/Typescript developers wanting to interact directly with the Witnet blockchain.

✅ @witnet/sdk-solidity: For solidity devs integrating Witnet’s notarized data into EVM-compatible smart contracts.

✅ @witnet/sdk-price-feeds: For fetching and reporting price feed updates, even subsidized ones provided by the Witnet Foundation.

🌐 Ready to Build

The new Witnet SDK empowers developers to integrate reliable, decentralized data into their Web3 projects — from DeFi apps to DAOs and everything in between. Whether you’re staking, building oracles, or pulling on-chain data into smart contracts, Witnet’s got your back.

Stay tuned for upcoming tutorials, demos, and deeper dives into each package!

👉 Learn more and get started in the official documentation.

Let’s build the future of decentralized data together! 💪🚀

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Witnet SDK Launch: Empowering Oracle Development & PoS Staking was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

🚀 Ready, Set, Oracle: SDK Sprint!

Wit/Oracle is proud to announce the Witnet SDK Release Sprint, our first full sprint for Season 5 — a one-month sprint running from June 16 to July 16. This sprint is all about developers, but creative contributors still have plenty to do!

🛠️ What’s the Focus?

• Witnet SDK Release: This sprint spotlights developers, with tasks dedicated to using and testing the Witnet SDK .
• Chain Guardian: Contribute directly to the network by: Setting up myWitWallet, Running nodes, Staking $WIT.
• Creative Tasks: Social media tasks continue, but XP rewards will be lower than during the kickoff session. High-quality content is required — no low-effort posts or duplicate X threads from the same participant! All submissions will be manually reviewed by the Witnet team.

💡 Pro Tip: Get creative! Explore Medium blogs, demo videos, memes, photos, or any other format that aligns with Witnet’s brand.

🗓️ Stay on Your Toes!

🚨 Keep an eye on our X (Twitter) page — we may drop time-limited tasks during the sprint. Stay tuned so you don’t miss the opportunity to earn bonus XP!

🏆 Rewards Breakdown

This time, the rewards are real money — with a $300 total prize pool for the highest 5 XP.

• 🥇 1st Place: $125
• 🥈 2nd Place: $75
• 🥉 3rd Place: $50
• 🏅 4th Place: $25
• 🎖️ 5th Place: $25

👉 In case of a tie:

If multiple participants earn the same XP in a prize tier, the rewards will be combined and split equally. For example:

• Player 1: 1000XP
• Player 2: 1000XP
• Player 3: 1000XP
• Player 4: 900XP
• Player 5: 900XP

The reward would be the following:

• Players 1, 2, and 3 would each receive ($125 + $75 + $50) ÷ 3 = $83.33
• Players 4 and 5 would each receive $25

💪 Want the prize pool for yourself?
You have to fight your way to the top! A quick reminder: creative tasks are open daily to claim, so you can create multiple pieces of content about Witnet to earn additional XP and secure your spot on the leader board! 🚀

🔎 Note

Previous social media tasks remain open, but XP rewards are reduced to encourage new, high-quality content.

All submissions must meet our quality guidelines:

• Original, Witnet-focused, and on-brand.
• No duplicate submissions.
• Manual review by the Witnet team.

For any questions, join our Discord or Telegram group — we’re here to help!

🔗 Related Information

Stay updated and get the resources you need:

• 📣 Witnet Advocate Program Season 5 Announcement
• 🎯 Zealy Quest Board
• 🐦 Witnet X Page
• 💬 Discord
• 📱 Telegram

🏁 Get Ready to Sprint!

Let’s make this SDK sprint the best one yet — with developers leading the charge and creators adding the spark. Stay sharp, stay creative, and stay tuned to our X for time-limited challenges! 💪

Advocate Season 5: Code, Create, Conquer (SDK Sprint) was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Whether you’re a developer, content creator, designer, translator, or just a Web3 enthusiast, there’s a place for you in this fast-paced challenge.

👉 Join the game → zealy.io/c/witnet

🆕 What’s Different This Season?

This isn’t just another round of tasks — Season 5 is a race.

• 🏁 June 1 — 10: Kickoff Sprint
• 🛠️ June 17 – July 17: SDK Sprint
• 🎯 XP-based tasks on Zealy, open to everyone
• 📊 Real-time leader board
• 🏆 Top contributors get rewards and recognition
• 🔄 Dynamic quests drop throughout the sprint

You’ll complete tasks, earn XP, and climb the ranks — all while helping grow and strengthen the Witnet ecosystem.

💡 Why You Should Join

• 🧠 Contribute your skills — from tech to art, content to community.
• 🏆 Win prizes for being among the top XP earners.
• 🌐 Connect with like-minded advocates and developers around the globe.
• 🔥 Shape the future of a decentralized oracle network.

Season 5 is open, competitive, and community-first — exactly how Web3 should be.

🛠️ How to Get Started

1. Go to Zealy → zealy.io/c/witnet
2. Complete missions — from memes to dev tools, blog posts, and more
3. Earn XP and track your progress on the leader board
4. Watch for surprise quests and new tasks throughout the week

And don’t worry — we’ve kept the Super Advocate role alive, with returning champions getting an early XP boost!

📣 Want the Full Details?

Check out the full program announcement here:

👉 Witnet Advocate Program — Season 5 Announcement

Catch the full demo from the May Wit/Call to see how it all works.

🎯 TL;DR

• 📍 zealy.io/c/witnet for tasks and leaderboard
• ✨ Open to everyone
• 🧠 Tasks for all skill sets
• 🏆 Rewards for top contributors
• 📲 Follow @witnet_io and join Discord to stay updated

Let’s build, create, and compete — together.

See you on the leader board. 🏁

• Website | X | Telegram | Discord | YouTube | LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the Wit/Oracle Newsletter for the latest updates!

Ready, Set, Oracle: Advocate Program Season 5 Starts! was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We just wrapped up our May Wit/Call, and as always, there’s plenty of exciting news to share. From global events to protocol milestones and community updates — let’s dive into what happened this month! 👇

🌍 Spreading the Word: Witnet Around the World

May was another big month for outreach and ecosystem visibility. Our team had boots on the ground across North America and Europe! ✈️

🍁Toronto Highlights:

Marcus represented Witnet at three major Web3 conferences:

🔹 Futurist Conference

🔹 Consensus

🔹 Community Meetups around Toronto

A fantastic opportunity to engage with innovators, builders, and protocol enthusiasts from around the globe!

Central Europe Spotlight:

Tomas and Ha Anh represented Witnet at ETHPrague and ETHBelgrade, where they engaged directly with the Ethereum developer community and broader Web3 builders.

It was a great opportunity to:

🔹 🤝 Share ideas with fellow oracle teams Brenda at Tellor

🔹 🌍 Chat with builders from World Chain and Celo

🔹 🧠 Explore collaborations around decentralized infrastructure and data integrity

The energy at both events was high — and the conversations even better!

🧑‍🚀 Community Vibes: Advocate Program Season 5 Incoming

The wait is almost over! 🎉

We’re kicking off Season 5 of the Advocate Program — powered by Zealy — on June 1st.

Get ready for:

• 🎮 New quests and engagement mechanics
• 🏆 Bigger rewards
• 🗓️ A special kickoff session to launch the season

👉 Want the details? Check out our Announcement

📱 myWitWallet 2.0.2: Stability Update

A fresh release is live!

We’ve rolled out myWitWallet 2.0.2, bringing important bug fixes to improve your staking experience:

• ✅ Fixed issues related to Priority Fees
• 🧰 Continuing to work on Windows desktop compatibility

As always, we appreciate your patience while we smooth out the final kinks! 💻

🔧 WIP Highlights: Stability and Scaling

Here’s what’s cooking on the technical front:

• 🛠️ Fixing a bug with staking from a single withdrawer to multiple validators
• 💻 Progress on Windows desktop release — nearly there!

🌐 Website & Tools: Fresh Features Rolling Out

We’re making it easier to stay informed and get involved:

🕸️ witnet.io

• 🧭 New Advocate Program countdown and activations
• ⚙️ Improved navigation for community tools and resources

📊 feeds.witnet.io

• 🧱 New layout in progress to better organize price feeds
• 🆕 A “Latest Updates” widget to keep you in the loop

⚙️ Wit/2 Progress: Key Milestones Reached

Big news from the protocol layer:

• 🧨 Superblock voting bomb defused!
• New activation date: July 4 @ 12:25 AM UTC
• 🆕 Wit/2.0.9 was released smoothly and on time
• 📄 A new document outlines V2.1 requirements, as we:
• Define specs
• Formalize the implementation roadmap

Witnet continues its march toward a more powerful, scalable decentralized oracle protocol!

📈 Network Stats: April 2025 Snapshot

🚀 Looking Ahead

From wallet upgrades to protocol resilience and growing global awareness, the momentum continues to build. With Season 5 of the Advocate Program, the community has more ways than ever to get involved.

Thanks for joining us — and as always…

Together, we’re building the decentralized future! 🤝

🔥 Stay connected and keep exploring:

• Website | X | Telegram | Discord | YouTube | LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the Wit/Oracle Newsletter for the latest updates!

May Wit/Call Recap: Global Outreach, Wallet Upgrades, and What’s Next for Wit/2! was originally published in The Witnet Oracle Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.