Steakhouse is upgrading the oracle architecture of our Prime BTC and ETH related markets on Ethereum mainnet. Previously, cbBTC markets used a single BTC hardcoded Chainlink feed on the collateral price, with no fall-back price. While a cbBTC depeg remains unlikely, hardcoded oracles have proven to expand risks during such events. Going forward, we are improving those markets using a MetaOracle: a primary feed paired with a standard Chainlink backup on the exact collateral, with automatic fall-back if the two diverge beyond a deviation threshold.
The primary feed is a Chainlink SVR feed. SVR adds an optional private transmission path on top of a standard Chainlink Price Feed that routes each update through a sealed-bid auction where searchers bid for the right to backrun liquidations first, and the winning bid proceeds are split between the protocol using the feed and the Chainlink Network.
If no bidder wins within the delay time limit, the update is released to the public mempool on the standard path as a fall-back. If the private route fails or times out entirely, the SVR feed automatically reverts to the standard Chainlink price after a configurable delay.
What is upgraded with SVR Oracles
Play field for liquidators. Spamming the mempool to land a liquidation is inefficient and operationally risky. Professional capital avoids such strategies, preferring to engage through an SVR solution
More deterministic liquidations. SVR oracles make the liquidation path more deterministic and bring in better-capitalized participants. We view this as an improvement to the safety of our markets.
Safety fall-back mechanics
The migration to oracles using SVR feeds doesn’t add additional dependencies. Two fall-back layers sit underneath the SVR routing:
MetaOracle-level fall-back. For markets where the collateral is not directly covered by an SVR feed (anything beyond BTC/USD and ETH/USD), we wrap the SVR feed in a MetaOracle against a standard Chainlink backup for the exact asset:
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Primary feed: SVR BTC/USD or SVR ETH/USD (plus quote-side feeds where applicable).
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Backup feed: standard Chainlink feed on the specific collateral (cbBTC/USD, WBTC/USD).
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Deviation threshold: 2% (200 bps). If primary and backup disagree beyond this, the MetaOracle switches to the backup automatically after the challenge period.
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Challenge timelock: 2 hours.
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Healing timelock: 8 hours.
SVR-level fall-back. The auction has max delay time to get a bid or release rule. If no one bids, the feed publishes on the standard path. If the private route fails entirely, the feed reverts to the standard Chainlink price after a configurable delay. Price availability is never dependent on the private route working.
Impacted markets
All deployments are on Ethereum mainnet. LLTVs in parentheses.
SVR oracle adoption will progressively extend to other chains, with Arbitrum and Base markets to follow