Blockchain applications of today are severely limited by the range of use cases they can serve. Each blockchain application can only access the state via public interfaces on the same chain. Without access to the real world data, blockchains cannot be used for prediction markets, insurance, litigation, governance or any other coordination problem that is currently dependent on social institutions and corporations.
This is also known as an oracle problem. While many attempts at solving it have been made, the current solutions are too expensive and brittle to be useful at scale.
Sourcing the data is done by Paralink Nodes through Paralink Query Language (PQL). PQL allows one to query SQL databases, access web API's, scrape websites as well as access state from other blockchains. Additional robustness is achieved with PQL validation, aggregation and interpolation rules for merging information from different sources. The PQL definitions describe the ETL process to be executed by Paralink Nodes and are immutably stored and accessed via IPFS. This allows developers to add custom data sources and post-processing rules in a permissionless way.
Paralink Network introduces the Oracle Feeds feature, which allows other chains on the same relay chain to continuously receive a piece of external data. The Paralink Network blockchain acts as a single access point for various data feeds provided by the external Paralink Node oracle service. The data feeds are defined by the Paralink Query Language definition file and stored in the IPFS file system. The Oracle Feeds utilizes the XCM message scheme to communicate between chains. Other chains can register to receive the feeds data updates periodically. The data feeds are chain-wide and can be used by users in, for example, the ink! Contracts. The feed provider must maintain a sufficient staking balance to be able to submit the feed updates. Due to the sheer volume of updates, the Oracle Feeds feature is limited to the approved chains. Paralink is built using Polkadot and its Substrate stack.
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Polkadot is built to connect private and consortium chains, public and permissionless networks, oracles, and future technologies that are yet to be created. Polkadot facilitates an internet where independent blockchains can exchange information and transactions in a trustless way via the Polkadot relay chain.
Polkadot makes it easier than ever to create and connect decentralized applications, services, and institutions. By empowering innovators to build better solutions, we seek to free society from its reliance on a broken web where its large institutions can’t violate our trust.
We believe that Polkadot is the optimal platform for our protocol due to its fundamental design principles. Cross chain interoperability and scalability are the two key components for making Paralink secure, scalable and economically viable.
