The text explains the critical role of smart contracts and oracles in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, highlighting how Chainlink Price Feeds have become the most widely used source of secure on-chain price data. Smart contracts manage user funds based on both internal logic and external data provided by oracles, which are essential for triggering on-chain events such as asset liquidation or portfolio rebalancing. Chainlink Price Feeds ensure data quality and security through a multi-layered aggregation process involving data sources, node operators, and the oracle network itself, making them resistant to manipulation and downtime. These feeds aggregate data from premium sources and use decentralized node operators to maintain high reliability and security, resulting in a trusted mechanism for DeFi applications to execute transactions based on accurate and tamper-resistant price information. Consequently, Chainlink's infrastructure supports a significant portion of the DeFi landscape, ensuring contracts execute as expected and enabling applications to scale securely.