Critics grumble as YieldWars makes use of AP election name as an oracle

Following the Related Press’ name earlier as we speak that President-elect Joe Biden had gained victory over incumbent Donald Trump within the U.S. presidential race, the 174 year-old group — which has been protecting elections since 1848 — subsequently printed their name on the Ethereum and EOS blockchains, triggering at the least one prediction market end result. 

Nevertheless, some have expressed skepticism concerning the validity of utilizing such a name as an oracle, elevating broader questions on certainty and determinism in sensible contract-based prediction markets. 

On Oct. 15, 2020 Everipedia — the for-profit encyclopedia and blockchain firm — introduced they might be supplying knowledge signed with cryptographic proofs that the info got here from the AP to EOS and Ethereum with the usage of infrastructure supplied by the Chainlink oracle community. 

“We can be making historical past as the primary to straight signal AP’s race calls and publish for blockchain use,” stated Everipedia VP of Enterprise Growth David Liebowitz in a press launch. 

Following the announcement YieldWars, the gamified yield farming and aggressive prediction market platform, launched a Trump/Biden prediction market utilizing the AP knowledge as an oracle. The market attracted over $250,000 in bets in simply two days. 

In an interview with Cointelegraph, one of many nameless co-founders of YieldWars, Owl, stated that Everipedia’s collaboration with the AP was a pure selection:

“When researching the choice(s) extra, it grew to become clear that it was our greatest possibility. AP is kind of arguably essentially the most trusted information outlet on the earth and being an nameless mission, we knew that to ensure that individuals to belief us we would have liked a definitive supply.”

Nevertheless, critics — a lot of whom look like supporters of Donald Trump’s claims that the election has not been definitively determined — have argued that the AP is inadequate as an oracle. 

Mentioned one Twitter consumer, 

“Let yourselves down there, placing falsehoods on the blockchain as reality is a harmful highway, he might go on to win it, however recounts and court docket proceedings are in motion, so how can or not it’s on the blockchain as reality.”

One other consumer, sporting the moniker “cryptoilet,” requested, “So am i able to additionally write onto the blockchain that i’m President now?”

Owl, nevertheless, thinks that future races and predictions markets will have the ability to supply a extra sturdy assortment of oracles, ideally quashing these complaints:

“Sooner or later, I envision there being a number of oracles like AP and I predict within the subsequent election that we’ll see that. Having plenty of trusted oracles settling markets ought to settle just about all disputes.”