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January 14, 2020
Frederick Blockchain Startup Aims to Enable Censorship-Resistant Finance on a Global Scale
FREDERICK,
Md.— Tellor, a Frederick based blockchain startup, is working to
improve upon Ethereum, the world’s leading programmable blockchain, by utilizing
proof-of-work miners to complete smart contracts.
Tellor,
a member of technology-focused incubator and accelerator Frederick Innovative
Technology Center, Inc. (FITCI) in Frederick’s ROOT Building, has amassed 3,000
total members across social media and communication channels. In 2019, they
received an investment from Binance Labs, as well as a grant from the global
blockchain software company ConsenSys to enable Tellor to further build out
from Ethereum’s ecosystem.
Ethereum’s
most utilized programs are finance-related, termed Decentralized Finance
(DeFi). DeFi hosts transactions on a blockchain acting as a public ledger that
stores information about transactions including the date, time, and amount
transferred. This shows who participates in transactions allowing anyone to see
what has taken place on the blockchain—creating a transparent and
censorship-resistant financial system. Smart contracts can be written on top of
blockchains that allow reliable financial transactions (i.e. bets) without
third parties, saving time, conflict, and money.
Tellor
has pointed out that while DeFi is censorship resistant, blockchains are
disconnected from the real world. The finance-related programs and their smart
contracts on Ethereum cannot access information that is not already on the
chain, mainly the real time price of cryptocurrency at any given moment. This
forms a data availability issue—programs need outside data providers to supply
data that allow them to properly execute transactions.
Until
now, the decentralized smart contracts had to rely on data coming from a
centralized source. Tellor is an oracle (a provider of off-chain data) that
decentralizes the data supply for Ethereum applications. Tellor does this by
incentivizing a worldwide network of people to compete to update the data
points on the chains. The incentive is created by Tellor’s own token, 1000 of
which are required as a deposit and used as insurance that the numbers input by
the competitors are correct. The competition is through Proof-of-Work (PoW)
contracts. The system requires that miners compete to solve a difficult puzzle
in order to earn the right to input the requested data on the blockchain. PoW
contracts ensure that the system remains decentralized and serve as a mechanism
that keeps the system secure.
The Tellor team includes CEO Brenda Loya, CTO Nicholas Fett,
and CSO Michael Zemrose. “Brenda, Nick, and I, are a
core-values focused team and that’s what lead us to build what we are building,
which plays a key role in enabling unstoppable applications. DeFi is only the
beginning. Bridging the real world to decentralized autonomous networks, i.e.
blockchains, has very powerful possibilities,” Co-Founder Zemrose said of their
work.
Tellor’s
oracle currently works on Ethereum while the team is actively building out alternate
chain solutions for “Version 2” of Tellor. This will allow Tellor to maintain a
decentralized system that works on a variety of blockchains across the globe,
filling a crucial gap in the cryptocurrency and smart contract market and
paving the way for a truly decentralized and censorship-resistant financial
system.
“The
work that Tellor is doing is very important for the tech and cryptocurrency
markets. We are incredibly proud to call them a FITCI member and we can’t wait
to see where their accomplishments take them,” Kathie Callahan Brady, CEO and
President of FITCI, said about the company.
For
more information visit http://www.tellor.io.
