Chronicle Protocol Welcomes New Members

Bitcoin Suisse, Steakhouse Financial, and Block Analitica are joining Chronicle Protocol’s decentralized validator network, the major oracle provider, as announced on Thursday.

Chronicle secures about 23% of the total value locked on Ethereum, a move aimed at enhancing the ecosystem’s security and resilience against oracle hacks or technical failures in the DeFi community.

“Like all decentralized Oracle networks, Chronicle Protocol operates on the trust assumption that no more than 50% of the validators or node operators are malicious,” stated Chronicle. “However, if a bad actor or group controls over 50% of the validator nodes, they can manipulate the information reported by the Oracle network, effectively creating a backdoor into the funds of the DeFi projects the Oracle secures.”

“By only inviting reputable and proven actors to validate the network, Chronicle can offer an extra ‘proof of reputation’ layer of security on top of the innate security properties of distribution and decentralization,” the organization added.

Oracles serve as entities that connect blockchains to the outside world, enabling smart contracts to execute based on external data inputs and outputs.

Chronicle is the preferred oracle provider for major DeFi projects, including Sky (formerly MakerDAO), Anemoy, and M^0. The project originated in 2017 as part of MakerDAO’s “oracle team” to secure DAI’s predecessor, SAI, before being spun out four years later. The Chronicle protocol was first launched on Polygon zkEVM.

The protocol’s blockchain-agnostic oracle tool, called Scribe, utilizes Schnorr signatures, enabling multiple parties to co-sign a message to reduce gas costs. It also features built-in fraud proofs allowing users to dispute prices and malicious acts.

Data validators for Chronicle include Infura, Etherscan, Gnosis, Gitcoin, Argent, MakerDAO, and dYdX.

The protocol secures over $8 billion worth of funds, with MakerDAO accounting for nearly $5 billion and Spark for $3.4 billion. It is also utilized by Euler V2, M0, and KEEP Network, among others.