While oracles remain a critical component of Web3 infrastructure, they are increasingly becoming a bottleneck in ensuring data integrity. As exchanges, auditors, and decentralized applications scale toward on-chain data adoption, particularly for real-world assets (RWAs), stock markets, and AI outputs, traditional oracles are failing to keep up. These shortcomings have already resulted in billions of dollars in losses from manipulated or unverifiable data.
zkDatabase by Orochi Network is designed to solve these exact problems as a Verifiable Data Infrastructure powered by Zero-Knowledge Proof. zkDatabase enables trustless data ingestion, transformation, storage, and query, empowering decentralized applications with data they can verify, not just trust.
The Oracle Problem - Fragile Trust and Repeated Exploits
Oracles bridge the gap between off-chain and on-chain environments. They provide smart contracts with data on asset prices, reserve ratios, AI predictions, and sensor inputs. However, traditional oracle systems are plagued by major flaws:
Centralized data sources make them vulnerable to manipulation.
No cryptographic proof of correctness for data used in smart contracts.
Single points of failure in aggregation logic or data feeds.
Flash loan vulnerabilities and attack vectors leveraging low-liquidity pools.
According to Chainalysis, in 2025, Oracle manipulation remained a dominant vector in DeFi exploits, contributing to a broader total of $2B+ in DeFi losses, such as KiloEx ($7M) – Price manipulation across Base, BNB Chain, and Taiko via oracle access control flaw. Demex/Nitron ($950K), Deprecated vault allowed manipulated redemptions. Dexodus ($291K) – Exploited stale signed price data on the Base network.
Case Studies of Oracle Manipulation in Recent Years
BonqDAO on Polygon used the Tellor oracle to fetch the price of the WALBT token. An attacker manipulated the price feed by staking only 10 TRB and inflating the value of WALBT, minting over 100M BEUR and liquidating user positions, total damage: $120 million.
Root cause: No TWAP mechanism, reliance on a single data source, and no verifiability.
Source: ImmuneBytes
Attackers manipulated the price of sUSDE via Curve pools, which fed into the oracle system. This led to inaccurate pricing and massive bad debt. A follow-up exploit cost another $3.7M.
Root cause: Oracle relied on DEX price data without safeguards or verification mechanisms.
Using ERC‑4626 vault logic, attackers executed a "donation attack" through flash loans, manipulating the exchange rate of wUSDM, which Venus used as collateral.
Root cause: Lack of ZKP-bound exchange rate verification and no flash-loan resistance.
Summary of Major Oracle Exploits
Protocol | Damage | Oracle Issue |
|---|
| BonqDAO | ~$120M | Single-source, no TWAP, unverifiable price updates |
| UwU Lend | ~$19.3M | Manipulated DEX pricing without verifiability |
| Venus / Mountain | ~$717K | Flash loan manipulation in vault pricing |
Why Traditional Oracles Are Fundamentally Broken
Despite upgrades and decentralization, most oracles still fall short in four key areas:
No verifiable proof that the data is correct or untampered with when brought on-chain.
No defense against manipulation, such as time-weighted averages or threshold guards.
Lack of end-to-end verifiability across the full data pipeline (from ingestion to usage).
Increased exposure to flash-loan exploits, especially in low-liquidity or cross-chain settings.
Chainalysis and other security research groups have emphasized that oracle manipulation is one of the top attack vectors in DeFi, and it’s growing in sophistication.
Introducing zkDatabase: Verifiable Data Infrastructure for Web3
What is zkDatabase?
zkDatabase is a Zero-Knowledge-powered data infrastructure developed by Orochi Network, designed to serve as a zk-Data-Availability (Layer 1 DA). It enables developers to fetch and use structured off-chain data on-chain with cryptographic proof of validity.
How zkDatabase Solves the Oracle Problem
End-to-End Verifiability
The entire data pipeline—from ingestion, transformation, and storage to query- is covered by succinct Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). This enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to verify data independently, eliminating the need for trust in off-chain systems.
zk-data-rollups
Structured data is compressed into verifiable rollups, with proofs that guarantee every state transition. These rollups serve as immutable snapshots, preventing manipulation and reducing bandwidth for on-chain verification.
Resistance to Flash-Loan Exploits
Because every transformation or pricing logic change is tied to a ZKP, attackers cannot exploit short-term price manipulation through flash loans without invalidating the proof.
Domain-Specific Use Cases
Real-World Assets (RWA)
Reserve ratios, collateral backing, and audit trails can all be proven on-chain with zkDatabase, reducing reliance on unverifiable attestations.
Stock Market Data
Price feeds from multiple markets can be rolled up and verified without reliance on centralized financial APIs or oracle aggregation logic.
AI Outputs
Model predictions and data transformations can be traced and proven through zk pipelines, ensuring no tampering in ML-inference layers.
IoT and Sensor Data (DePIN)
zkDatabase can securely ingest real-world signals and compress them into on-chain verifiable proofs, which is essential for supply chain and automation use cases.
Conclusion
The Oracle problem has persisted for years, costing billions and undermining trust in DeFi and beyond. Traditional oracles, even when decentralized, fail to offer cryptographic assurance, leaving smart contracts vulnerable to manipulation and error.
As a Verifiable Data Infrastructure powered by Zero-Knowledge Proofs, it ensures data isn’t just delivered, it’s proven. From RWA and stock feeds to AI and DePIN, zkDatabase enables a future where oracles are no longer points of failure, but pillars of trust. 
