2025 Year-In-Review

Overview

As 2025 draws to a close, Tellor reflects on a transformative year. After a rigorous period of building, it was finally time for Tellor’s standalone oracle chain, Tellor Layer, to be unleashed into the wild. Mainnet was finally deployed in Q3 and hasn’t looked back since, solidifying its role as a cornerstone of data resilience. Co-founders Brenda Loya and Nick Fett led the charge through thought-provoking talks, articles, deep dives, emphasizing censorship resistance, and the challenges of coming to consensus on subjective data. This year-in-review chronicles the milestones that defined Tellor’s exciting new chapter.

Q1: Building Foundations

Tellor entered the year with momentum, sending Layer off to audit —a pivotal step in securing and refining the protocol’s core infrastructure. This prompted a “Security 301” article, which underscores proactive vulnerability mitigation as the best defense for protocols like Tellor.

February amplified Tellor’s voice in the DeFi discourse. Nick delivered a compelling talk at DeFi Philly, titled “Digital Markets as Our New Overlords” exploring the downsides of pure market structures in crypto. Brenda followed suit at ETH Zurich, presenting “Building the Foundations of a Decentralized CPI” (Consumer Price Index), highlighting the oracle’s role in real-world economic data. The month was accentuated with the Chickamauga Testnet launch, Tellor’s first public testnet, inviting testers to probe its reporter and validator mechanisms. Tellor wrapped February at ETH Denver, with the highly anticipated Dynamo Challenge, where people could stop by the booth and record their grip-strength on-chain. The demonstration allowed passers-by the ability to seamlessly interact with Tellor Layer, prompting curiosity and deeper discussion.

Development accelerated in March. The ‘Tellor Block Explorer’ frontend went live, giving a user-friendly window into monitoring the blockchain in action. On the thought-leadership side of things, the team published “A Three-Layered Approach”, outlining Tellor’s unique strategy for solving the oracle problem, and “Tellor x AI”, which explored how oracle data intersects with AI narratives, positioning Tellor in the conversation of the emerging tech.

Q1 set the tone: relentless iteration on Tellor Layer, paired with global evangelism to educate builders on the importance of censorship resistant data.

Q2: Testnet Triumphs and Ecosystem Expansions

April marked a sprint toward maturity. Tellor’s second testnet, Palmito, opened to the public for broader stress-testing. The “Using Tellor” article demystified integrations for developers, covering workflow and use cases. The Relayer frontend launched, enabling real-time monitoring of data relayed from Layer to other ecosystems. The team then went out to ETH DC II, dubbed “Crypto Capitol”. This event was hosted by the DCDAO, of which Brenda is a steward, giving Tellor visibility and a finger on the pulse in the U.S. capitol.

May and June spotlighted Brenda’s international footprint. She spoke at ETH Prague, soaking in the “unmatched energy” of Europe’s builder scene and appeared on the Epicenter Podcast episode “Ethereum Renaissance,” alongside Ethereum luminaries on L1 scaling and L2 fragmentation. At ETH Belgrade, she advocated for long-tail assets and the oracle best practices to tackle them safely. And to close the quarter, she spoke at DappCon Berlin, with a talk on scaling oracles for L2s & beyond.

Q2 was about scaling outreach and tools, transforming Tellor from a team primarily in build-mode into one ready to go out into the spotlight.

Q3: Mainnet Momentum and Strategic Integrations

July ignited with Brenda in Cannes at ETHCC, followed by her Stable Summit talk on how low-liquidity trades cascade into $500K liquidations—underscoring an oracle’s shock-absorption needs. Most notably, the Saga protocol announced its integration of Tellor as the primary oracle for its evm ecosystem, enabling censorship-resistant data feeds for its DeFi applications.

August stole the show: Layer Mainnet was finally live and open to the public. A highly anticipated moment that executed seamlessly, which was a testament to the meticulous testing and iteration by the engineering team. Nick also travelled out to the big apple for EthGlobal’s “ETHNY”, networking and stirring his creative juices by submitting his rollup project that temporarily forks if you have oracle uncertainty called “SchrodingerRollup”.

September featured Nick’s deep dive with Joseph Schiarizzi, the architect behind Nerite protocol, dissecting stablecoins like Liquity and non-USD backed innovations. The month also entailed fine tuning Tellor Layer with governance proposals for things like decreasing the minimum tip amount and extending the non-expedited voting period.

Q3’s mainnet launch and Saga integration propelled Tellor into substantive production, forging its path in a multichain world.

Q4: Governance, Growth, and Global Gatherings

October’s Governance Proposal #7 funded the first round of Mainnet rewards; a crucial next step in maturing the chain. Along with the SagaEVM chain integration came 2 new users, Colt and Mustang, which leveraged Tellor’s feeds for stablecoin minting and CDPs. These integrations, with Tellor Layer still only a couple months old, spoke volumes to the excitement around this latest iteration of Tellor.

November buzzed with education and events. Nick’s deep-dive shorts unpacked oracle failures in yield-bearing assets, fork choice risks from stablecoin dominance, and UNI’s fee switch implications, which tied into tokenomics history. The team then set out to Argentina for Devconnect where they sponsored a booth at the inaugural DefiConnect, a super-complex of defi specific summits where Brenda paneled and spoke about the need for better oracle security in defi compared to tradfi.

Looking Forward: Oracles as the Backbone of tomorrow’s Crypto Multiverse

2025 was Tellor’s year of convergence: technical feats, like launching a standalone oracle chain, met a slew of educational content and integrations, all fueled by the core team’s global advocacy. From Berlin to Buenos Aires, Tellor didn’t just build—it conversed, iterated, and integrated. As we eagerly set our eyes on 2026, continuing Tellor Layer’s momentum whilst nurturing it to full maturity, it’s difficult to resist a quick glance at the rearview mirror of 2025 and feel proud of the journey thus far. Stay tuned on X and join us for the road ahead!