secondary title

How did you first discover blockchain and cryptocurrencies?

In 2013, I co-founded a mobile ad tech project called Gimbal as COO. We have a fantastic employee there who is also probably the least effective member of the Gimbal team. No matter what we were discussing, he would steer the conversation to Bitcoin. Eventually, mostly to appease him, some of us went to a bitcoin meetup in Santa Monica. The room was hot, loud, packed with a diverse audience, and the enthusiasm and interest there really caught my attention. After the meetup, I started exploring the technology and became very interested in the idea of ​​decentralization and Bitcoin. At the time, I didn't foresee a career in Bitcoin or blockchain. The application of the technology appears to be primarily aimed at construction financial products. I had just escaped Wall Street and had no intention of returning to finance.

secondary title

Can you share the origin of the Umbrella Network project?

I first learned about oracles and the problems they solve in 2017 or 2018 when I attended a Meetup sponsored by Augur. Augur is a trustless decentralized prediction market platform and was one of the first Ethereum applications to build an oracle. Joey Krug, co-founder and developer of the project, explains the unique problem Aurur solves with their oracles. The open-source smart contracts that make Ethereum so powerful require data from off-chain sources. The integrity of these smart contracts depends on the off-chain data being free from manipulation.

secondary title

What is the overall vision of Umbrella Network?

secondary title

Umbrella Network provides a decentralized oracle service, can you explain to our readers what an oracle is?

When traditional centralized applications need data, they typically pull it from external data sources via APIs. For example, suppose a centralized lending platform requires the spot price of BTC/USD to calculate borrowers’ collateral requirements. To find out the price, their app would contact the Coinbase Digital API or other source and retrieve that data for use in their app.

However, unlike centralized applications, blockchain applications and smart contracts cannot access off-chain data. As a result, they cannot access bitcoin's price through the APIs traditional applications use.

secondary title

Why are decentralized oracles the best way to access off-chain data?

First, it is important to clarify what true decentralization means in the context of oracles. For example, Chainlink's system is technically decentralized. It has about 21 nodes on its network. However, Chainlink’s oracle solution requires trust from participants. In that system, Chainlink belongs to a centralized power that sanctions the oracles they choose to join the network and rejects other oracles. Chainlink users must first trust that Chainlink has chosen the correct data provider, and second, since it is a proof-of-authority system, users must trust those providers that Chainlink has granted them permission to do.

secondary title

Umbrella Network uses Merkle trees to bundle multiple transactions into a single node. Can you briefly explain what a Merkle tree is and how this solution is cost effective?

secondary title

How do you see the development of DeFi in the next 5 years?

secondary title

Is there anything else you want to share about Umbrella Network?

We are very pleased with the development of Umbrella Network so far, and we are honored to participate with developers, validators and our strategic partners. We are very much looking forward to the mainnet launch and the continued expansion of the community-owned oracle solution.