The prediction market sector has gone from obscurity to a monthly trading volume surpassing hundreds of millions in just a few years. Behind this rapid industry expansion, a fundamental challenge has always loomed overhead—how to ensure that the data fed into the oracles is both fast and sufficiently accurate?

Real-world cases are the most convincing. Last month, during a critical NFL playoff game, a controversial call in the final three minutes caused a direct score reversal. Traditional oracles responded with a 15-second delay before syncing the result to the chain, and this time gap became a gold mine for arbitrageurs. Several prediction platforms fell into the trap; some people continued betting even after the outcome was decided, resulting in platform losses of tens of thousands of U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, some platforms adopted newer data solutions, reducing the delay to just 3 seconds, effectively closing the arbitrage window.

Why is there such a significant difference in speed? The issue isn't with the blockchain itself but at the data source. Traditional solutions take a convoluted route: fetching data from third-party APIs → verification → then on-chain, with many intermediate steps. Sports data providers have adopted direct connection models, establishing direct partnerships with official data sources like ESPN and NBA. Once data is generated, it is immediately transmitted to the chain via encrypted protocols, eliminating many middlemen, and naturally reducing latency.

Recently, this season, the coverage of sports data has expanded considerably—NFL, basketball, football, boxing, rugby, and badminton are all included. Comparing several high-profile matches, the performance differences among various oracles are quite evident. The new generation can maintain an average update speed within 4 seconds, a critical metric for risk control on prediction market platforms.

What does this improvement mean? It elevates the fairness of trading. Users no longer need to worry about being sniped by arbitrage due to network delays, and platforms no longer risk crashes under heavy traffic. For prediction markets to truly become mainstream applications, data accuracy is just the foundation; speed is the key to doubling platform trustworthiness.