Switchboard Oracle Protocol - Complete Integration Guide

The definitive guide for integrating Switchboard - the fastest, most customizable, and only permissionless oracle protocol on Solana.

What is Switchboard?

Switchboard is a permissionless oracle protocol enabling developers to bring custom data on-chain with industry-leading performance:

• Price Feeds - Real-time asset pricing with pull-based efficiency
• Oracle Quotes - Sub-second latency without on-chain storage (90% cost reduction)
• Surge - WebSocket streaming with sub-100ms latency
• VRF Randomness - Cryptographically secure verifiable random functions
• Prediction Markets - Market-based forecasting data

Key Statistics

• Secures $1B+ in on-chain volume
• Used by Kamino, Jito, MarginFi, Drift Protocol
• 2-5ms latency with Surge pricing
• 90% cost reduction vs traditional oracles

Core Principles

Principle	Description
Speed	2-5ms with Surge, 400ms standard - industry-leading for DeFi
Cost Efficiency	Pull-based feeds eliminate constant streaming costs
Permissionless	Deploy feeds instantly without approvals
Security	TEE (Trusted Execution Environments) prevent data manipulation

Integration Approaches

1. Oracle Quotes (Recommended)

Direct oracle-to-program data flow without on-chain storage:

• Sub-second latency
• 90% cost reduction
• No write locks (parallel reads)
• Stateless design

2. Traditional Feeds

Classic pull-based feed updates:

• Feed account maintenance
• Cranking operations
• Good for simple use cases

3. Surge (Real-Time)

WebSocket streaming for high-frequency applications:

• Sub-100ms latency
• Persistent connections
• Ideal for trading interfaces

Program IDs