Once you've been on the chain for a long time, you've definitely come across the term "oracle." It's everywhere — almost every DeFi protocol's architecture relies on it. But to be honest, most people's impression of it is just: a tool that brings off-chain prices onto the chain. That's all.

Until recently, as the market evolved from an era of high volatility and strong conceptual narratives to a stage focused on stability and sustainable growth, I began to re-examine this infrastructure. During this process, I started to delve into the real issues with oracles — not just the superficial "accuracy."

Many projects tend to start by asking "What do I want to do," but truly worth pondering are projects that approach from the opposite perspective: where is the system most likely to break down?

The fundamental risk of oracles isn't just a single error, but rather: **when operating over the long term and being called frequently, are these deviations absorbed by the system, or are they amplified infinitely?**

Think of an oracle as a navigation system on a highway. A wrong turn now and then? Maybe just a few extra kilometers — no big deal. But when it consistently outputs deviations in high-frequency, large-scale scenarios, it’s no longer just an experience issue — it becomes a systemic failure.

In recent years, chain reactions triggered by oracle issues have been happening frequently: abnormal liquidations, exploited arbitrage mechanisms, protocol losses. Looking closely at these incidents, the real culprits are often not just how far off the prices are, but the lack of sufficient verification mechanisms and buffers at critical moments. That’s the area that needs rethinking and redesign.