What is Witnet?

Source: https://witnet.io/about

Introduction

Witnet is a decentralized oracle network (DON) that connects smart contracts to the real, off-chain world. Broadly speaking, it allows any piece of software to retrieve information published at any web address at any point in time, with complete and verifiable proof of the information's integrity, without blindly trusting any third party.

The Witnet protocol achieves this by permitting a network of computers to act as a "decentralized oracle" that retrieves, attests and delivers information to smart contracts, with no single point of trust.

In recent years, blockchain technology has promised to revolutionize business through "smart contracts" that, unlike paper contracts, are impossible to breach.

These smart contracts are simple programs, coded to automatically control the transfer of assets between two or more parties, and can be run in a trustless manner. Once deployed, no one can stop them from doing exactly what they were programmed for. They obey their own source code, and censorship is impossible.

This is a really powerful idea. If you can write a smart contract that:

1. implements the logic of an agreement, and 2. automatically executes the clauses of the contract (e.g. transfer an asset from Alice to Bob depending on the outcome of an event);

then you have a contract that is capable of enforcing itself and leaves no room for contestation.