Field note · 18 July 2025
Oracle feeds on Solana: publishers, intervals, and staleness
Lending protocols lean on oracles. The words around them describe trust and timing, not magic numbers.
Oracle in DeFi means a data feed brought on-chain — usually asset prices. Pyth and Switchboard are common on Solana. Learners first meet oracles when a lending app shows collateral value that updates without a trade occurring.
A publisher submits prices; confidence intervals accompany Pyth quotes. Wide confidence suggests uncertainty. We teach readers to expand the detail row on dashboards that hide this by default.
Staleness flags appear when a feed has not updated within an expected heartbeat. Protocols may pause borrows when staleness exceeds a threshold. The vocabulary links risk parameter docs to UI warnings.
TWAP (time-weighted average price) smooths manipulation on some perp markets. It is not interchangeable with spot oracle price. Mixing the two when reading liquidation rules produces false confidence.
Aggregation on Switchboard describes how multiple sources combine. Learners preparing for Kamino or Marginfi sessions should know whether their market uses one feed or a composite.
We add oracle terms to custom team glossaries when sample documents mention loan-to-value without defining the price source. The definition belongs beside the ratio, not in a separate appendix nobody opens.