Introduction
We live in a world where chance is baked into our everyday lives; from the roll of dice in a child’s board game to the vast complexities of financial systems. Within all this unpredictability, we are both enthralled and liberated by randomness. It fuels industries, ignites the thrill in games, and stands as a guardian of equity in everything from visa lotteries to deciding who gets to eat the last piece of pizza. Although it permeates our daily lives, obtaining easily accessible and secure randomness on-chain has remained a major obstacle for Web3 developers, creating obstacles for both trust and innovation.
Randomness On-chain
We have just released a breakthrough on-chain random number generator that goes live today! This innovative protocol uses a ‘randomness beacon’ which generates an unbiased, unpredictable, and verifiable source of secure pseudo-randomness in a fully decentralized manner. The values are efficiently generated and impossible to predict until the protocol produces them. The source of randomness is created for every block and is not part of the block itself. This allows the random value to operate with a degree of autonomy from the blockchain's core operational processes, safeguarding the generated randomness from potential biases and manipulations, particularly those that could be introduced by validators.
The lack of effective, simple, and secure random number generators in Ethereum has introduced numerous workarounds that contribute to severe smart contract vulnerabilities, contestable outcomes and ultimately - lost funds. The blockchains that do provide randomness, often offer non-secure per-block random number generation natively within the protocol. Developers on these other chains commonly have to choose between using insecure random numbers available, designing their own on-chain solutions with weak security guarantees, or fall back to off-chain ‘randomness oracles’, such as Chainlink VRF or drand. Flow now ensures a built-in, secure and fraud-proof randomness that can be seamlessly integrated into smart contracts at no cost, enhancing security and bolstering trust in applications.
You can read about the technical specifics and join the conversation on the official Forum.
Harnessing Randomness in Web3 Innovation
Randomness has massive implications for diverse types of applications and industries, the following explore just a few examples of what can be unlocked on Flow as of today:
Randomness not only strengthens the foundation of digital trust but also unleashes a spectrum of possibilities, allowing developers and creators to craft experiences as unpredictable and vibrant as the everyday world we live in.
Conclusion
The introduction of the random protocol on Flow constitutes a substantial enhancement to critical Web3 infrastructure. It equips developers with an accessible and secure way to build smart contracts that rely on randomness while ensuring that they operate with impartiality. It unlocks new applications across billion dollar industries with massive implications for gaming, DeFi and NFTs, AI and autonomous systems.
Ready to get started? Play around with your own random number generator or explore the developer docs.
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