Revolutionizing Fairness, One Roll at a Time. Switchboard Randomness Service (SRS)

Mr Enclave powering SRS

Imagine a world without chance: predictable games, rigged online lotteries, and unfair NFT drops. In today’s digital landscape, randomness plays a crucial role in ensuring fairness, security, and even fun. But within the deterministic realm of computing, achieving true randomness poses an interesting challenge.

In web3 applications, this challenge is particularly pressing. For provably fair gaming dApps to secure consensus protocols, unpredictable, unbiased outcomes are essential. Yet, traditional methods often fall short, leaving developers and users exposed to potential exploitation.

The Evolution of Randomness

Early attempts at blockchain randomness relied on methods like the latest blockhash, a readily available but easily gamed source. Recognizing these limitations, Switchboard introduced Verifiable Random Functions (VRF) on Solana in February 2022. VRF offered a significant upgrade, leveraging cryptographic proofs to guarantee the authenticity of randomness. However, its reliance on multiple transactions slowed down user experience and limited its adoption.

A Big Leap. Introducing Switchboard Randomness Service

Enter the Switchboard Randomness Service (SRS), a new approach that marks a big leap in randomness generation. With Switchboard V3 leveraging Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), SRS generates randomness within secure enclaves which drastically improves both user and developer experience.

1. Randomness Security: By generating randomness within secure enclaves, the randomness bytes cannot be tampered with nor revealed, retaining a form of verifiable randomness compared to the V2 iteration (verifying randomness values using compute-intensive cryptography).
2. Latency: By reducing compute-intensive cryptographic proofs, SRS only requires 1 transaction from request to settlement which significantly reduces latency to an average of 5 slots.
3. Costs: By requiring only minimal transactions for request and response/settlement, the costs of requesting randomness from our oracles have been reduced by 100x.

To our dearest developers, looking for a quick start on SRS? Check out our Github Repo Example to get you started immediately!

But the benefits of SRS go beyond improving developer experience, SRS aims to support a wide range of blockchain applications.

• Gambling. Provable random result of dice rolling, deck shuffling.
• Gaming. Provable random distribution of loot box or card pack opening.
• Art and Collectibles. Fair and transparent NFT mint mechanisms eliminate the possibility of insider access or bot manipulation.
• Decentralized Finance. Provable random distribution of rewards or yield such as a No Loss Lottery protocol.
• Governance. Fair and transparent allocation of roles or appointments.

The Future is Random and Secure

The Switchboard Randomness Service marks a step towards a future where randomness is not just unpredictable, but also secure and accessible. Its simplicity, efficiency, and security offer a powerful tool for developers to build applications that are not only engaging but also demonstrably fair and transparent. As SRS continues to gain traction, we can expect a wave of solutions that push the boundaries of what’s possible in web3.

Fortuna Leverages the Power of SRS

Fortuna, an on-chain gaming platform by Famous Fox Federation, recognized the limitations of existing randomness solutions, so they decided to partner with Switchboard and use our enterprise SRS solution to power Fortuna.

The advantages include:

Enhanced Security: Game outcomes are guaranteed fair and unpredictable thanks to randomness generated within secure enclaves. No more worries about rigged results!

Blazing-Fast Speed: Gone are the days of multiple transactions slowing down gameplay. This enterprise solution requires only one transaction, leading to smoother and faster experiences for players.

Cost-Effective: The streamlined nature of the SRS enterprise solution minimizes transaction and oracle incentive costs, benefiting both Fortuna and its users.

Fortuna’s gaming suite showcases the versatility of SRS. Take “TailSpin,” where players bet SOL to win SOL or any token listed on Jupiter Exchange.

If you are looking food a quick start on SRS you can check out our Github Repo Example

Don’t settle for predictable. Embrace fairness.

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