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PancakeSwap today announced the integration of Chainlink Keepers on the BNB Chain mainnet to help secure its CAKE Prediction Market.
The new CAKE Prediction Market is similar to the BNB Prediction Market on PancakeSwap, which has turned out to be one of the most popular prediction markets. Using the CAKE Prediction Market, PancakeSwap users will be able to predict if the price of the CAKE token will drop or rise.
Before launching the CAKE prediction Market, PancakeSwap had integrated Chainlink Price Feeds to secure its prediction market and also integrated Chainlink VRF to power its lottery draws.
CAKE Prediction Market
In a nutshell, CAKE/USD Prediction Market is PancakeSwap’s product that allows its users to bet on whether the price of the CAKE token will go down or down. A user enters either “DOWN” if they think the price of CAKE will drop and “UP” if they think the price of CAKE will go up and then enters an amount of CAKE that they want to commit to the prediction.
Each prediction round takes about five minutes.
The price of CAKE for each prediction round is determined using Chainlink Price Feeds at the beginning of each round.
Chainlink Keepers and why PancakeSwap integrated it
Chainlink Keepers is a decentralized transaction automation tool that allows developers to automate how and when any smart contract function is triggered.
Developers specify predefined conditions and the Chainlink Keepers continuously check for when these conditions are met when the conditions are met Keepers trigger the smart contract’s function so that it autonomously executes.
For security purposes, Chainlink Keepers are secured by the same tamper-proof, Sybil-resistant nodes that help secure Chainlink Price Feeds transactions.
While PancakeSwap’s automated market maker (AMM) exchange can rely on user transactions to run their embedded logic, a majority of smart contracts require an external entity known as a “keeper” to trigger their execution when predefined conditions are met. These predetermined conditions could include time, a specific event occurring, or a result of a complex calculation among others.
By using Chainlink Keepers, PancakeSwap is able to automatically open, close, and settle prediction markers every five minutes. The Chainlink Keepers allow for the automation of these processes in a highly secure and decentralized way.
Chainlink Keepers are also more cost-effective compared to using centralized ‘keepers’ that require a DevOps team to monitor the conditions continuously. This means that users are able to access prediction markets at a reduced cost.
In summary, PancakeSwap choose Chainlink Keepers because they allow for decentralized executions, increased efficiency, enhanced security, and reduced costs.
Speaking after integrating Chainlink to their platform, the Head of Global Sales at Chainlink Labs, Tomasz Wojewoda, said:
“We’re pleased to see PancakeSwap integrate Chainlink Keepers to help securely automate the start, end, and settlement of prediction rounds. With the increased reliability and decentralization that Chainlink Keepers bring to PancakeSwap, users have stronger assurances that its prediction market will continue to function seamlessly.”
On the other hand, the Head Chef at Chainlink, Chef Snowball, said:
“We’re excited to have increased the decentralization, reliability, and efficiency of our prediction market by integrating Chainlink Keepers. Having previously integrated Chainlink Price Feeds and VRF, we’ve experienced the reliability of Chainlink first hand and can see why it’s the industry-standard decentralized oracle network.”
While the current PancakeSwap’s prediction markets are built on the BNB Chain and thus the need to integrate the Chainlink Keepers on the BNB Chain mainnet, PancakeSwap is also planning to support prediction markets on other blockchains in the future. Besides Chainlink Keepers is compatible with any blockchain.