The purpose of an Evaluation Oracle

How an Evaluation Oracle works

1. Accesses the claims in a Cell-node database, for which it is authorised.

2. Reads the claim data.

3. Uses external information sources to triangulate and predict the odds of claim attributes being true-positive.

4. Opines on whether the claim meets pre-determined criteria for approval

5. Enriches the claim with additional information, such as data transformations and expert opinion.

6. Issues a cryptographic proof based on the analysis and approval status

Oracles in the Internet of Impact

Oracles in the context of the Internet of Impact are trusted digitally-enabled services that operate on stateful data to perform Precision Functions (P-functions).

The 10 P-functions of Precision Impact

1. Proofing through evaluation and verification of claims

2. Prediction by determining statistical probabilities and forecasts

3. Personalisation of interventions and responses

4. Prescription to program deterministic interventions and responses

5. Planning support to make decisions about interventions and responses

6. Proposing how to configure interventions and responses

7. Prevention through relative risk calculation and alerting

8. Protection through threat detection and proactive response

9. Profiling to identify patterns of attributes and features

10. Participation by enabling humans in the loop

Users employ ixo Oracles to provide these functions on their data. This helps optimise the outcomes, risks and financial results of cyber-cellular organisations, projects and investments.

Types of Oracles

Oracles are categorised into different namespace types, to help identify the their general purpose. Whilst oracles are all the same entity class, some security and technical characteristics can differ, depending on the oracle type.

For instance, a Treasury Oracle must be listed in the genesis record of an ixo-SDK blockchain. This type of oracle has the privileged capability to programmatically mint, burn or transfer a specific token on the network.

Oracle Trust Model

Web of Trust

Each oracle has a digital identifier (DID), with one or more verifiable credentials. These credentials are issued by other entities that have a high trust rating, serving as Trust Seeds. This creates a stateful trust graph, based on cryptographic proofs, which can be independently extracted by any Internet of Impact user who wishes to verify that an oracle can be trusted.

Trust rating

Trust must be earned over time. The performance of each oracle is recorded in the blockchain record. For a given oracle, a user can determine from the oracle's transaction history how many services the oracle has provided, to how many different users. They can also see any disputes against the oracle, which were upheld against the oracle provider.

Bonded stake

Oracle service providers may be required by the users who employ their oracles, to place a security deposit into escrow, in order to perform services. This performance bond is a risk assurance mechanism for the users of an oracle service. The bond can be slashed if the terms of a Service Execution Agreement are not upheld, when a dispute is adjudicated against the oracle provider.

Future topics

• Oracle launchpad and innovation bonds

• Oracle development toolkit

• Jupyter Notebooks for designing and training oracles

• Federated learning on a Cell Node network

• Oracle credentialing