Having worked in DeFi development for several years, my deepest takeaway is: choosing the wrong oracle solution can truly ruin a project.

In the early days, our team relied heavily on Chainlink. It’s well-known, with a solid security track record, but the operational costs are outrageous. Every month, I’d see the bills bleeding out—just the gas fees for continuously pushing data on-chain often hit four figures in USD. The key issue is that in many cases, such high update frequencies are unnecessary, but with the push model, you have to use it entirely or not at all, and the money still burns.

The most memorable incident was the black swan event last October when the wstETH price reported a 25% error. It nearly caused millions in protocol losses, and the team worked overnight to rescue the situation. Looking back now, I still break out in cold sweat.

The turning point came when someone recommended APRO. Mainly focused on the Bitcoin ecosystem, its core feature is the Pull model—on-demand calls and pay-as-you-go. Honestly, I’ve heard many so-called "XX killers" in this space, so I didn’t take it too seriously at first. But their approach indeed solves a pain point: you only call for data when needed, and only pay then.

With a trial mindset, we conducted two weeks of real testing. The result? It’s fantastic.

The most direct benefit is cost. Previously, using Chainlink cost us a fixed $20,000–$30,000 per month—no negotiations. After switching to APRO, the cost dropped to below $8,000. The savings were fully reinvested into product iteration and marketing, which is hugely meaningful for small teams and early-stage protocols—you no longer need to sustain a "safe" oracle solution that drains your budget continuously. Instead, you can flexibly allocate resources based on actual business needs.

This on-demand model could have even greater implications for optimizing the entire DeFi cost structure.