At Vanguard, we’ve never been more bullish about the long-term fundamentals of Crypto.

This year, we’ve seen huge development on the Ethereum platform, which has made it faster, greener and more competitive with existing financial and trust platforms.

To give a sense of scale…. the latest upgrades to the network look set to achieve 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) compared to the current 20 to 100 TPS.

Visa’s maximum limit is 65,000 TPS.

These upgrades have been in the pipeline for the best part of a decade and the scale and promise of these developments will soon be recognised by the wider market – which could set a rocket under the price.

Introducing “Oracles”

That will be good news for Ethereum.

But it’s also great news for certain smaller higher-risk coins that tend to suffer during bear markets, and take off during booms.

Just this week, Michael at the Crypto Trader’s Academy topped up on one of these coins.

I won’t reveal the name of the coin – that would be unfair on CTA subscribers.

But it’s a coin I’ve held for three years and it have invested again recently recently.

This is an “oracle” coin.

And I thought I’d explain this clever invention today to give you a sense of what development is happening in crypto and how crypto and blockchain technology could underpin and support a huge amount of economic activity by the end of the decade.

What exactly is an “oracle”?

Well essentially, it’s a way for a blockchain to interact with the outside world.

A crypto oracle is a trusted source of data that feeds information to a blockchain so that it can execute an instruction automatically.

For example, imagine if you wanted to bet that Man City will win the Champions League in a few weeks time.

You could place a bet with a crypto market place.

And on the date of the final, an oracle could scrape data from public websites, or from the BBC, or FIFA, to confirm the event.

And then it could pass that confirmation to the blockchain.

The contract would execute and you would receive your winnings.

There would be no need for a human to intervene.

The oracle verifies the authenticity and accuracy of the bet before sending it to the smart contract.

The smart contract can then use this data to execute its terms.

And this idea of automatic contracts, based on real world outcomes is enormously exciting.

Because it’s not just sports betting…

Major industries could benefit from combining oracles and smart contracts to track asset prices, weather information, supply chains, and much else besides.

A world of humming sensors

Supply chains systems, for example, can use crypto oracles to automate the tracking and verification of goods.

As they move through the supply chain, they could provide data at each stage on the location, temperature, and other attributes.

That would be useful for companies who are struggling with supply chain issues in the wake of the pandemic.

Insurance companies could use crypto oracles to provide data on weather events or accidents, which can trigger insurance claims.

Carbon emissions could be monitored and if they go too high, companies could then be automatically fined.

Oracles provide a way for crypto projects to interact and keep adapting to the real world.

And as I said, the market could be enormous.

After all, we are surrounding ourselves with sensors and devices that interact with the world.

Your phone, for example, is full of sensors.

Wherever you go each day it can detect events or changes in your environment in, eg, light, temperature, pressure, motion.

And they also track changes in our behaviour.

The simplest sensors are little more than digital pedometers, counting out your steps each day.

More sophisticated sensors measure heart rate, breathing, skin temperature and perspiration.

Soon we will use sensors to track changes in our environment for smart vehicles, smart meters, robotics, and conversational objects of every variety.

We are heading towards a world where an increasing volume of communication happens, not between humans, but between machines, devices and sensors.

And we may need blockchain technology to store that data and keep track of it all.

In that scenario, oracles could relay credible information about the real world back to the blockchain, with enormous potential returns for the companies and projects that are developing this technology.

The Key Takeaway

As the next bull cycle approaches, it promises to provide a much lower cost and trusted platform for transactions for every variety.

Almost anything that requires third party guarantors such as financial instruments, legal documents, ticket purchases are up for disruption.

We’ll need machines to automatically keep track and record what’s going on.

And “oracles” could be part of the smart inventions that will help that happen.

The oracle coin that Michael bought this week could really take off.

If we see a massive bull market, in his view there’s no reason to think that some of this coins won’t climb 10X from here.

If you haven’t invested in your first crypto yet, don’t delay. Get yourself setup here right away.

We believe this technology will power a new internet and become the new means of transacting information.

Not just money, but data in general.