The Empiric Network, a network of decentralized oracles built on StarkNet, a Layer-2 scaling solution, has attracted $7 million in a seed funding round.
Introducing Empiric Network, the zk-native oracle for the zk-future of blockchain:https://t.co/YeVoKcO1aE
— Empiric (@EmpiricNetwork) July 15, 2022
It was led by Variant, with data-processing partners Alameda, CMT Digital, Flow Traders, FTX and Gemini, the team behind StarkNet, StarkWare, and several other companies and business angels.
Empiric noted that blockchain oracles are necessary to provide smart contracts with external data. Traditional oracles are centralised and rely on autonomous infrastructure that delivers a final result without a way to verify. As a result, errors can occur, as in the case of Pyth in September 2021, when the platform’s Solana-based oracle showed an anomalous drop in Bitcoin’s price to $5402 — about 90%.
“To deliver on the promises of blockchains, it is necessary to build reliable oracles that are decentralised, transparent and, as a consequence, safe, like smart contracts. To do this, we need to move oracles on-chain, which until recently was too expensive,” the statement said.
Putting oracles entirely on-chain was made possible by StarkNet, based on ZK-Rollup technology, which cut transaction costs by three to four orders of magnitude and enabled on-chain computations, Empiric emphasised.
The project draws data from major players in the industry, most of whom joined the funding round. The team says that anyone can verify the numbers at any time. It is expected that the Empiric product will broaden information channels beyond price feeds, including, for example, risk, volatility and yield metrics.
The funds will primarily be used to hire new staff, CoinDesk reported, citing co-founder Karl Oskar Schulz.
Earlier in May, StarkWare raised $100 million at a valuation of $8 billion. The project has also developed another L2 solution — StarkEx.
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