Deviation Thresholds
Deviation thresholds are rules that trigger an oracle update only when the price of an asset changes by more than a specified percentage. This approach saves on gas costs by avoiding unnecessary updates when the price is relatively stable.
However, it also means that the price feed will not reflect very small movements in the market. The threshold must be carefully chosen to balance cost savings with the need for accuracy.
If the threshold is too high, the oracle might miss significant market trends, leading to stale price issues. If it is too low, the network becomes congested with frequent, unnecessary updates.
This mechanism is widely used in many decentralized finance protocols to optimize performance. It is a key part of the economic design of an oracle.
Developers must test these thresholds against historical volatility data to ensure they perform well under various conditions.