Switchboard On-Demand: A Potential Game-Changer Solution for Solana Network's Congestion

If you've experienced Solana's performance slowing down during peak activity, you're not alone. Solana hit an All-Time High in the number of daily active addresses, and due to this increased traffic, many users have faced issues while trading on-chain. A significant cause of this congestion lies in how traditional blockchain oracles operate. Switchboard, a prominent oracle provider on Solana, believes it has a solution with its new Switchboard On-Demand offering.

y2kappa, Founder of Kamino Finance, reacted to Switchboard's announcement on Twitter: "Pull-based, on-demand oracles are what will solve a large portion of the congestion on Solana. Currently, everyone is locking and spamming transactions involving the same SOL or USDC oracles. With each protocol having their own cryptographically verified oracle, the hotspot goes away, and everything gets unclogged." 

How Traditional Oracles Contribute to Congestion

Traditional "push" oracles bombard the blockchain with constant updates of asset prices, whether the data is needed or not. All these updates create network traffic. When many users and protocols rely on the same oracles, it causes traffic jams on the blockchain, leading to delays and increased fees.

Switchboard's Solution: On-Demand Data

Switchboard On-Demand flips the model. Applications only pull data from the Oracle when they need it. Since prices are brought in with the user's transaction, they are always as live as possible. This eliminates the latency inherent in older oracles, which push prices as often as possible. This user-driven approach significantly reduces network load compared to the continuous updates of traditional oracles, potentially enhancing transaction speed and lowering costs for DeFi applications on Solana.

Switchboard On-Demand launched on Solana Devnet on March 25th, 2024, and testing and auditing are currently in progress.

Chris Hermida, Switchboard Co-Founder, shared his vision in an exclusive interview with SolanaFloor: "Switchboard is already the largest customizable Oracle network out there, securing over $1.7B. With On-Demand, Switchboard will be able to more quickly and cheaply bring any data on-chain. When we say anything, we mean anything - from price feeds to LLM results to real-world attestations and more." 

The Road Ahead

Switchboard On-Demand is a significant innovation in the Oracle space. Its success on Solana Devnet bears watching. If it proves itself on mainnet, it could reshape the DeFi landscape, enabling smoother, faster, and more affordable trading experiences even during periods of high network traffic.