What is Oracle Divergence?
Oracle divergence is how far an individual price feed sits from the consensus of the feeds tracking the same asset, measured per source against the mean of the live feeds. A tight cluster means the print is trustworthy. One feed drifting past the threshold means that source is suspect — not that the asset has moved.
Also called: oracle divergence · price feed divergence · oracle disagreement · consensus threshold
Formula
divergence_i = |price_i − avg| ÷ avg × 100
avg = mean of the live feeds for that asset (stale or zero feeds excluded)
Consensus is treated as strong when max(divergence_i) ≤ 0.3%
Reading divergence honestly
Divergence measures disagreement, not error — it does not say which feed is wrong. One source drifting while the rest hold together usually points to a stale publisher, a thin venue, or a feed that has stopped updating. Every source moving together is a real price move. The discipline is to exclude dead feeds from the average rather than letting a zero or a frozen print drag the consensus toward a number nobody is trading at.
Divergence versus premium
Divergence compares price sources with each other. NAV premium compares the traded price with the value of the underlying. They answer different questions and move independently: feeds can agree perfectly on a price that sits well above NAV. A desk needs both — consensus to decide whether to trust the number, premium to decide what it means.
Frequently asked questions
What level of oracle divergence is normal?
Sub-0.3% across independent feeds is an ordinary, tight cluster for a liquid asset. Divergence that persists beyond that is a data-quality flag to investigate before it is treated as a market signal.
Does divergence mean a token has de-pegged?
No. Divergence is disagreement between price sources; a de-peg is a sustained gap between the token price and NAV. A feed fault can look like a de-peg on a single-source dashboard, which is exactly why more than one source is read.
Where this shows up live
On the desk
Source precedence and staleness rules
Every figure on those pages carries its source and as-of time. Nothing is shown when the upstream is unavailable.
Related terms
- Multi-Oracle Pricing — Multi-oracle pricing values a tokenized asset by comparing several independent price feeds — such as Pyth, Chainlink, the issuer's published NAV, and the on-chain market price — instead of trusting one source.
- De-Peg & Tracking Error — A de-peg (or tracking error) is when a tokenized asset's price drifts away from the value of the share or fund it represents.
- Attestation — An attestation is a signed statement by a named party that a specific fact was true at a specific time — reserves held, a price observed, an identity verified.
More in Pricing
De-Peg & Tracking Error · Mint & Redeem · Multi-Oracle Pricing · NAV Premium & Discount · Net Asset Value (NAV) · Redemption Gate
Informational only · not financial advice. See the live numbers on the data desk, the sourcing rules in the methodology, or the day's stories in the newsroom. · ← All glossary terms