An oracle that is always in agreement with what the average coin-holder believes is superior to an oracle which is always correct with reality. Oracles should ultimately be measuring what the average coin-holder believes.
I think this statement to be incorrect. The futarchy market itself can adequately determine what the wisdom of the crowd to be. What an oracle does is determine weather they are, in fact, correct. In other words an oracle is a way of getting accurate data onto the blockchain from an outside source until such a time that the blockchain would serve that need as well.
What Zach has described is what I understand to be a âbeaconâ, which might be an advertisement of a crowdsourced opinion or a warning that you are far off from the favored position.
A Beacon can listen for Oracle statements and make decisions on them.
Interesting view. I guess I agree with it but how many things are there (that people would predict on upfront) where the âaverage coin holder believeâ is (after the fact) still different from the fact.
By the way âfactâ or âcorrect with realityâ implies that there is such a thing as âabsolute truthâ - I donât think that this exists.
I agree with mkoeppelmann. Talking about âcorrect with realityâ is nonsense, because it isnât measurable.
Instead we should discuss the average belief of distributions of users.
It seems to me that the distribution of users whoâs opinion most matters is the distribution of coin holders.
If we use the distribution of betters, then whichever side is selling shares cheaper will win. It would be bad.
If we use a subset of the coin holders, then it will be possible to bribe the oracle to cheat.
The distribution of coin holders is the only distribution of users whoâs opinion we can use as an oracle.
and by coin holders you mean the blokchain coin (ETH) or the Gnosis tokens?
Since a oracle is Gnosis independent and should be used for all contracts on a chain it should use ETH in my opinion. And that is to some degree what the ulatimate oracle does: https://forum.gnosis.pm/t/the-ultimate-oracle/61
Ideally we would be measuring all the value on the blockchain instead of just one of the currencies. But practically, I donât think we can know the relative prices of currencies accurately enough.
In Devcon2 final morning session, Thomson Reuters sees themselves playing a role in Oracles and Iâm thinking Gnosis would be a great place where those Oracle statements could be weighed and measured on the blockchain by what I think of a beacon.
A beacon might claim: âwhat has been stated is a fact today or the best of the facts, but here are the odds of that fact changing tomorrowâ. Beacons could also suggest what to do with certain facts.