Most people when mentioning oracles think of the concept of "price feeding," as if it’s just a small supporting role in the DeFi ecosystem. But looking at the 2024-2026 time window, you'll find that oracles are actually being pulled in different directions simultaneously by three forces.

First, the product innovation in prediction markets is accelerating. These projects need to determine the outcomes of real-world events — the problem is that events often have fuzzy boundaries and are not simply black or white. Second, the logic of RWA (Real World Asset on-chain) is shifting from "telling a story" to "providing audit reports, evidence chains, and compliance interfaces." The data forms are expanding from mere price figures to include contracts, bills, registration records, images, logistics tracking, and the entire set. Third, the rise of AI Agents is changing the way on-chain data is consumed — no longer just smart contracts reading a single data point, but agents understanding the world, reasoning, and then feeding conclusions back to contract execution.

Looking deeper, these three directions share a common underlying demand: **explainability**. It’s not just about giving you an answer, but about presenting the complete logic behind why the answer is valid.

From this perspective, APRO, I think, has at least set the right direction. It treats unstructured data as the core battleground, leveraging LLMs’ understanding capabilities within a network architecture that can be repeatedly verified and constrained. An authoritative analysis organization summarized its architectural approach: a three-layer structure — judgment layer, submitter layer, on-chain settlement contract — combining AI analysis capabilities with traditional verification mechanisms, allowing applications to access both structured and unstructured data.

Why is this design important? Because applications like prediction markets and RWA are often not about "lacking a data point," but about "lacking a complete data chain" — the need for full traceability from raw information to final conclusion.