Today we are talking with Sasa Milic, the cofounder and coauthor of API3. Sasa studied computer science and statistics at University of Toronto, earning her Masters. She was most interested in theoretical computer science and AI. She went on to work as a software engineer as she moved on to New York in 2019. Being new to the area, she was looking for meetup groups. Also thinking about what to do with her finances, she decided to join a crypto group that discussed white papers every week. She found the technical details to be fascinating, especially when it came to consensus algorithms. She became increasingly interested in Oracle projects and the problems facing them. Not only that, but she looked into existing Oracle solutions and wasn’t completely satisfied with them. Sasa reached out to a group that was working on Oracle solutions about the problems she found, and they invited her to help them write the API3 paper.

Sasa describes Oracle as typically some piece of software that brings data onto the blockchain. The data that natively exists is who owns what, and you can trade coins with that data. But you also need trust to bring in data from the outside world. For anyone who’s truly interested in the technical aspects of an Oracle, there’s a great paper that came out, search SOK. It’s Concordia’s interpretation of it, really broken down.

When it comes to API3’s solution, Sasa uses the PigeonHole Principle. This can be described as if you had 9 holes and 10 pigeons, and you put a pigeon in every hole, one hole would have more than one pigeon. That principle is used to prove really complicated mathematical things. While sometimes redundancy is good, it’s not in this case. Having an extra pigeon in a hole just adds cost and weakens security. API3’s solution is the idea of a third-party Oracle. Sasa says getting data is easier and cheaper from the source instead of a third party relayer.

Sasa thinks the fascinating applications for API3 will come from hackathons. She says the best apps happen organically. If you’d like to learn more about API3, visit API3.org. They also have a Telegram channel, but suggest if people are really interested, to join their Discord channel where every Friday they have a community event where Sasa recommends some reading material, and then they have an open discussion about it.

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Divi is creating the world's first closed-loop, vertically-integrated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Much like Apple's ecosystem is anchored by iCloud, the Divi Project blockchain serves as the core of the Divi network of technologies. Thanks to a keen understanding of the divide that separates the mainstream from the crypto world, the Divi team is able to create solutions to the industry's biggest problem: adoption by non-technical users. Divi's user-friendly, one-click solutions aim to bring blockchain-based payments into modernity with great UX. In this podcast, we will cover all aspects of cryptocurrency, hot topics, and technology as worldwide adoption grows.