July 2, 2020: Woodstock Fund, a multi-asset investment fund focused on early and growth-stage Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) startups and blockchain projects today announced that they will operate a delegated-proof-of-stake node for Band Protocol’s decentralized oracle network.
Blockchains and decentralized applications are unable to communicate outside their native network and require an Oracle, a data layer for Web 3.0 applications, to do so. Band Protocol enables smart contracts to securely connect to external data sources and APIs in a reliable and decentralized manner, powering applications ranging from decentralized finance protocols such as lending and stable coins to prediction markets and also gaming platforms.
Himanshu Yadav, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Woodstock Fund said, “We are excited that Woodstock will be first India focussed BandChain validator node that will power the data layer for our investment portfolio and other public decentralized networks and applications.”
“Alongside a portfolio of leading blockchain projects such as Elrond Network, Holo, Marlin Protocol, Casper Labs – Woodstock has been a long-term supporter of Band Protocol as a private investor and strategic partner to help expand its global footprint, especially into the rapidly growing Indian blockchain ecosystem. Band token has also been recently listed on one of the largest Indian exchanges WazirX,” he added.
“Woodstock operating a validator node on BandChain will allow the Indian and global community to contribute to the BandChain decentralize oracle network under a trusted and reliable entity,” said Band Protocol CEO Soravis Srinawakoon. “This will open the doors to a truly global permissionless data layer that supports all blockchain applications and smart contract platforms.
On June 10 2020, Band Protocol released BandChain, an independent blockchain with cross-chain compatibility that is built specifically for oracle computations and to accommodate user-defined requests in a scalable manner and in real-time. Anyone can use Band Protocol to create a fine-tuned decentralized oracle that queries data in a permissionless environment from any Web 2.0 APIs and sends it to smart contracts in a verifiable yet secure manner.
The decentralized oracle network is operated by validators who retrieve data from specified sources and aggregate them into a deterministic, single value for smart contract usage. Secured by delegated-proof-of-stake, validators, who are chosen to fulfill data requests based on stake-weight, are required to stake or lock-up BAND tokens in order to contribute to the curation of data in return for a portion of data request fees and inflationary revenue for producing blocks on BandChain.
With the exponential growth of decentralized finance, reliable oracle solutions such as Band Protocol are critically important to ensure that the millions of dollars locked up in protocols are secured. Similarly to Chainlink, it will be interesting to see how Band will grow alongside the ever-growing world of decentralized finance and smart contract platforms.