Upon Launch, TRON Oracle JustLink Faces Immediate Criticism

Mike Dalton

Oct. 31, 2020

Bridge Oracle claims JustLink has stolen ideas and copied its code.

Upon Launch, TRON Oracle JustLink Faces Immediate Criticism

Key Takeaways

JustLink has gone live on TRON as the blockchain's first and official oracle platform.
Oracles like JustLink are designed to handle price data for exchanges and blockchain apps.
Competing projects and their communities claim that JustLink borrows code and concepts from existing work.

Though CEO Justin Sun called the project TRON’s first-ever oracle, JustLink draws many of its ideas from a previously built oracle on the TRON network called Bridge Oracle.

JustLink Launches on TRON

Developers in TRON’s DeFi ecosystem can use JustLink oracles to retrieve cryptocurrency-related data such as lending prices, stablecoin exchange rates, derivative prices, and market estimations.

That data can, in turn, be used in various blockchain projects, such as decentralized exchanges (DEXes) and synthetic asset platforms.

JustLink oracles will be powered by node providers, who must stake JST tokens as collateral. If the nodes provide incorrect information, the network will penalize node operators and refund the service that requested the data.

The project has compared itself to Chainlink, which is mainly being used by Ethereum-based DeFi projects at the moment. Chainlink (LINK) is currently the largest oracle token by market cap.

Bridge Oracle Backlash

The announcement has been met with backlash. Hassan Golmohammadi, CTO of another TRON-based oracle called Bridge Oracle, has complained about TRON’s endorsement of JustLink.

Hi Justin, we started a year ago to plan the first oracle system on the tron network, but it wasn't for justlink.. but for #bridge_oracle.

we had several chat with your team including roy liu, will be nice to chat with you to discuss about this matter because that was our idea.. https://t.co/DZb4Qi2Ddm

— Sina Estavi (@SinaEstavi) October 30, 2020

He claims that Bridge Oracle was the first oracle on TRON. He also claims that his company discussed marketing with TRON’s team and that JustLink stole aspects of Bridge Oracle’s platform. Though other commenters have sided with Golmohammadi’s complaints, it is not clear that those complaints have any legal merit.

Meanwhile, the Chainlink community has found mentions of Chainlink’s LINK token in JustLink’s code– suggesting that JustLink actually borrows heavily from Chainlink rather than Bridge Oracle. Chainlink and Bridge Oracle are both open source projects, meaning that JustLink can use their code with proper attribution.

Even if JustLink is technically in the right, critics will likely see the service as evidence that TRON is highly derivative, especially with past controversies around whitepaper plagiarism and code borrowing.

Neither the TRON Foundation nor Just Network has replied to Crypto Briefing’s request for comment.

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