Building a Better Oracle on Arweave: AMA with Redstone’s Marcin Kaźmierczak

Oracles are all about providing data, so what better blockchain solution for an oracle exists than Arweave? Arweave is fast, permanent and gasless, making it a more reliable and cheaper alternative to incumbents like Chainlink, which are built on Ethereum.

RedStone’s architecture has seen huge improvements in recent months owing to the team’s innovation around SmartWeave efficiency and flash storage. On top of that, the team looks to soon launch a native token and further expand its network of RedStone nodes.

We hosted an AMA session with RedStone’s head of growth, Marcin Kaźmierczak, on permablog. Here’s how it went:

Are there any plans to add other sources to RedStone outside of price data? What about geo/political/meteorological data too? (MgQb7JyDnBnkWAWOlO9I1QGeSwXsswywutGEEPD05lU)

Yes we’re planning to add other sources. Technically it’s feasible already. First we would like to see suggestions of use cases from developers and community to decide what type of data to implement next. If we see partners with requests for any specific type of data we’ll start working on an implementation.

How can I buy a RedStone token? (JG5TR-qlw3LIcx8zQJpKh9d18Z6vNzmAm1SqrTUxJZU)

RedStone token is not listed for Public Sale, so you cannot buy it yet. We want to make sure our voting scheme, rewards for providing data and disputes mechanisms are designed in a scalable way utilizing RedStone tokens. We will share more info about the release of our token in the coming months.

What are the benefits of running my own redstone-node? (IITJU2A9dbKFq-7nbmX-kupVEc8IkwvwehZNGFUL9jo)

Data provider, who sets its own RedStone node, will charge fees from Data Users via our token. Price structure and fees, we leave to the market forces entirely – the providers and users will decide if it’ll be subscription / per request fee / other model. In the early stage of the market, we plan to subsidize both Early Data Providers, as well as Early Users with RedStone tokens. The details are still discussed and will be publish on our Website, Discord and Tweeter once finally defined.

I loved the Loot tutorial , are there plans for more? (eopAj8idE1-L0C-ZvI0G7vKtPhF_oqIlKvr09uUH2Oc)

We saw a huge interest in the Loot topic, so we plan the next tutorials. For now, we focus on further development of RedStone Contracts, but we’re always happy to get suggestions from our community. If you have any ideas just let us know on our Discord channel -> https://discord.com/invite/PVxBZKFr46

Hi. What kind of hardware, at a minimum, do you recommend for running a Redstone node? Also, do you need to know coding of any type in order to do so? Thank you! (jarXrNBjOtHUN9g43qIkWl1IXi9z0oZBpIClHzVlLVM)

It’s enough to have 512mb RAM, a fairly simple processor for about 1GHZ and it’s good to have quite a lot of space for storing logs around 30GB / month, however this is optional. You don’t need to code yourself but it’s beneficial to read and understand the instruction, as well as perform some basic DevOps tasks, i.e. modification of configuration in JSON files or using CLI. However, if you want to extend capabilities of your node with let’s say connecting custom data sources, you need to code changes yourself. In the future we’ll bring a user-friendly interface for connecting custom sources, so that the process is simple, fast and without coding.

Does RedStone aggregate (for example) the price of BTC from many different sources in order to provide the data? What APIs are you relying on for the data, and how can you be sure they’re not the part of the system which is being gamed? (mCGluRn1EHS41hKqNrWonV-pTkNyducWqoyYIUXTJ9c)

Yes, we aggregate the price of BTC from 42 sources (as of 02.10.2021). Then, we use our scheme for discarding invalid data information and abnormally skewed data to provide the final user with a median. We rely on various APIs from crypto exchanges and other organisations. Thanks to our approach of sourcing data from numerous sources, dismissing outliers and ArGue dispute mechanism we protect our data feeds from using gamed data -> https://app.redstone.finance/#/app/token/BTC

I’ve been following RedStone for few months and I admire efforts to make data decentralised and accessible. Your approach is different than other projects on the market, seems scalable to me. Can I help you somehow with promotion and spreading around a world about RedStone? (bhsS3t3yVtuGoGmWew4O6VsFoB3qmgpPiTCtbQelb6E)

Thanks for kind words, we do our best to keep up the high standard of delivered products 🙂 In the future we’ll announce Community Building incentives rewarded with RedStone token. For now, if you’re interested in helping out with spreading the world around, let us know on Discord!

Why you chose Arweave as the blockchain for RedStone? (mm5ZR7PYLVo-4F-YIT_yupSuTMKprAI0f1AA9GsShfI)

Arweave’s Permaweb is optimised for cost-efficient data storage. When choosing from various chains we assessed the scalability possibilities and fit for Oracle infrastructure, ending up with Arweave as the top choice. Then we were welcomed with helpful Arweave’s core team and dedicated projects operating in its ecosystem, so we knew from the beginning it’s the good choice.

What’s the origin of RedStone? Why did you guys start working on a new Oracle? (gA2wAHnMKSS1wNirKgsEGiQSyIiXDxW87sUsp5TF2KQ)

Our Founder, Jakub, has been involved in the blockchain ecosystem for 4 years already. He participated in multiple hackathons and won a few of them, i.e. ethLondon, NYBW or ethOnline. For protocols he designed there was a need for reliable and custom data, which wasn’t offered by the current data-sourcing projects. Seeing limitations of Oracles based on Ethereum and the potential for DeFi expansion with freedom requesting pricing data feeds, he decided to start working on a new Oracle project. That’s how RedStone (previously Limestone) came to existence utilising many innovative concepts to bring Oracles of new generation to multiple chains – including Ethereum, Avalanche or Polygon.

Where RedStone takes data from? (BTXxU9wJjWn-7BHpIbhWueh4GEc6PkzM4szHc8A78MQ)

Our Oracles protocol takes data from many various data sources including Crypto exchanges, DEXes, APIs from financial organisations. As of 02.10.2021 we receive pricing data feeds from 62 sources which can be seen on our WebApp in the Sources section -> https://app.redstone.finance/#/app/sources

How many sources RedStone has right now? Are there any plans to increase this number? (r_qniGNQ__THoQZld4esKUY2CiS3qnUWAxxo6YR0dQ8)

As of 02.10.2021 we receive pricing data feeds from 62 sources which can be seen on our WebApp in the Sources section. Naturally, as we want to be a reliable data source we will keep increasing the number of data sources -> https://app.redstone.finance/#/app/sources

Our next AMA guest will be Pianity. See this AMA in its original, permanent form on permablog. ????