Origin of Switchboard
Switchboard gets its name from the early days of phone networks, where operators would shuffle
telephone lines around a 'switchboard' to complete a circuit and forward a dialer’s call to the
next hop in the circuit.
Similarly, Switchboard, our oracle network is responsible for how external data gets updated
and routed through a blockchain until it reaches its appropriate destination.
What is an Oracle?
Blockchains do not have the capability of directly relaying information from off-chain to on-chain.
Hence, enter oracles, a gateway between blockchain and real world data.
An oracle is not the data source, it is an infrastructure layer for querying, verifying
and authenticating external data sources; which is relayed to the blockchain for a smart contract
to read and carry out necessary course of action for its intended product.
What makes Switchboard different?
Switchboard is permissionless. From a developer's perspective, you customize, build and manage
your own data feeds where all of which can be done from Switchboard's Publisher.
No friction, no contact, build permissionlessly.
Use Cases
With the power of off-chain data being brought on-chain, Switchboard has plugged into mulitple verticals
to build blockchain based applications today, such as:
- Determining the current price of an asset for collateralized lending
- Determining the state of a tracking number to auto settle funds on arrival
- Determining the current standings of the MLB for fantasy sports rankings
Find out more use cases and integrations here
We are only scraping the surface of blockchain technology and we're excited to see the future use cases
plugged in by Switchboard!
