Oracles

The price oracle is a web server (or group of servers) that responds to requests for a “Price Quote”, or a signed attestation to the Bitcoin / USD exchange price for a given moment in time. Each quote includes a UTC time-stamp, plus the exchange price for that timestamp. Users can request a quote for the latest price, or for a historical price (by providing a time-stamp).

In addition, each request will include a “threshold” price. This threshold price is provided by the user, and used (by the oracle) to generate a unique secret key. This key is hashed and returned to the user along with the price quote.

This protocol is designed for the price oracle to trigger stop-loss events within the DUCAT protocol, without requiring any knowledge of the protocol or its participants. This event is triggered through the use of a cryptographic hash (in Bitcoin Script), and revealing the secret pre-image when a threshold condition is met.