Before Ethereum. The Origin and Evolution of Blockchain Oracles

Before the advent of alternative blockchains such as Ethereum, the future of decentralization was all in the hands of Bitcoin. Together with Nakamoto itself, early developers were trying to leverage Bitcoin's potential to decentralize traditionally centralized applications. However, because Bitcoin was a decentralized machine, the available non-trustless oracles were considered unsuitable. Therefore, strategies had to be elaborated to solve the so-called oracle problem in the newborn scenario. By interviewing early developers and crawling early forums and repositories, this paper aims to retrace and reconstruct the chain of events and contributions that gave birth to oracles on Bitcoin. The evolution of early protocols, along with the difficulties encountered in their development, are also outlined. Analyzing technical and social barriers to building oracles on Bitcoin, the transition to Ethereum will also be discussed.

Automated summary

Before alternative blockchains like Ethereum emerged, Bitcoin held the future of decentralization. Early developers aimed to decentralize traditionally centralized applications using Bitcoin's potential, but faced challenges with unsuitable non-trustless oracles. This paper retraces the birth of oracles on Bitcoin by interviewing early developers and examining early forums and repositories, discussing the evolution of protocols and encountered difficulties. It also analyzes technical and social barriers to building oracles on Bitcoin and the transition to Ethereum.