Please could you tell us a little about yourself and your role with Ontology?

Hi everyone, this is Andy Ji, Co-Founder of Ontology. I’ve been in the blockchain technology industry for a long time now. Having previously led the Blockchain group in Wanda (one of the top Chinese conglomerates), I’ve worked as Deputy Secretary-General of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Industrial Development Forum; as a director of Hyperledger; as a member of China’s delegation of ISO/IEC TC 307; and as a Deputy Director of the China Blockchain Ecosystem Alliance (CBEA).

Andy Ji, co-founder of Ontology

I’ve also participated in China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s blockchain white paper and blockchain standards-related work, I’ve led many blockchain community events, and I’ve written several books on blockchain including a blockchain development textbook.

Wow, that’s quite the curriculum vitae. For our readers that aren’t familiar with your current work, could you explain what Ontology does for its customers?

Absolutely. According to our official introduction, Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain and distributed collaboration platform. Architected in Asia with a team comprised of members from all around the world, Ontology’s unique infrastructure supports robust cross-chain collaboration and Layer 2 scalability. It also includes a suite of decentralized identity (DID) and data sharing protocols to enhance the speed, security, and trust that are fundamental to enabling enhanced global cooperation among businesses. These characteristics are particularly important for future global collaboration with on-chain and off-chain scenarios.

The former “high-performance public blockchains” means we can provide multiple >10K TPS (transactions per second) back-end chain clusters with enterprise class service level, which don’t even need to have any technical basis by leveraging ONT Toolkits. In this way, some traditional enterprises can transform and restructure their business. For the latter, “distributed collaboration platform”, we have the ONT ID — a digital identity for human, entity or even a machine device. ONT ID allows for the management of multiple sources of data, acting as a powerful passport for them to experience the services of a new high-tech world.

For those looking to learn more about what we do, take a look at our official website https://ont.io/ and our application https://onto.app/.

As you’re well aware, you’re far from the only impressive DLT project focused on digital identity and trust. What is it that makes Ontology stand out from the crowd? And who can use your services?

Unlike many of our competitors, Ontology has focused on identity (ONT ID) since the day it was founded. ONT ID is a decentralized framework that helps users control their data and identity. It was the first batch member of DIF, W3C DID specification, INATBA, and the ISO identity working group.

Existing internet-based digital identity systems have many weaknesses: they lack individual roles and have the problems of data oligopoly, fragmented sources of trust (without API to each other), difficulties in achieving accuracy in identity verification, identifying and managing IoT, assessing reputation comprehensively and in tracing content copyrights. Whereas ONT ID solutions provide unique advantages through multi-dimensional trust support based on fine-grained entities, data authentication, distributed data token management, access to multi-dimensional trust sources, control over personal credentials, and more.

As a result, we can anticipate the scenarios that include management of the multiple roles for every individual, offer self-sovereign management of user data, control over personal credentials, complete traceability of authorization and usage of on-chain data. To name just a few.

As for who can use ONT ID, we provide solutions for individual users, applications, developers, and verifiers. On our official website, you can find more detailed information as well as discover opportunities to try out our ONT authenticator, ONTO, and trust anchor product.

“Do I believe that the new crypto trend is incoming? Absolutely.” — Andy Ji

We know that it is a crucial part of your mission to enable mainstream blockchain adoption. For that to happen, attitudes will need to shift. Do you see that happening? And what do you see as the greatest hurdles in the way of widespread adoption?

We always attached great significance to the combination of and cooperation with mainstream industries and we are determined to achieve it. Personally, I view the biggest hurdle as trust. Namely, whether enterprises will trust blockchain enough to choose to transform. Once the enterprises are open to change, we will go a step further to society-level trust. As anger and disappointment with the centralized systems of the big monopolising companies builds, that’s when I think people may start to accept blockchain. Do I believe that the new crypto trend is incoming? Absolutely.

And what about your support for ONT staking. Has it proved a popular move and what have you learned from the experience?

ONT staking has been available on our official node website page for a long time. Now we have 52 nodes in total, among which 11 are consensus nodes. In our application ONTO as well as on other popular clients, users can choose the node and stake it. In my opinion, PoS is quite popular and has great advantages. In this way, each user can participate in the governance and ecosystem development easily through staking their ONT and receiving the corresponding ONG (Ontology Gas) awards.

We also try hard to provide a better experience of staking (and other functions) in ONTO. For example, the points system, wishing wall and ONT Red Packet (a way of giving gifts or bonuses to friends or relatives). Decentralization is the main feature of blockchain, so I think this kind of interaction can bring more responsibility and participation to our community members. Building these sorts of relationships allows us to better listen to our community in order to improve Ontology in all directions.

We learned that young developers are one of the most powerful groups for blockchain industries.

Currently, Ontology is in the process of getting more external organizations running candidate nodes to increase their stake and becoming consensus nodes. For example, our eco-projects in Korea, LATAM, and SEA are offering their token airdrop for node staking users. Our goal of this year is stuffed with 40 more staking nodes (ecosystem) from fast growing crypto regions.

We were impressed by your Global University Blockchain Workshop. What were the most valuable lessons that you imparted on the tour and what lessons did you learn from the experience?

Global University Workshop (GUW) was launched in the second half of 2019. We’re proud of it, but it’s only the start — we’re planning to continue into more continents.

In September 2019, we went to Seoul National University as our first stop, then to five top universities in the US (Princeton, Northwestern, Harvard, Cornell and the University of Chicago). While there, we delivered key courses and received some excellent feedback. We also took the opportunity to introduce the developers to our bounty program, which has been open to worldwide community members for more than two years.

A tweet from the successful Ontology Global University Workshop in November 2019.

What impressed us most is the dynamism and formidable interest in blockchain shown by the student developers. And we learned valuable lessons too. We learned that young developers are one of the most powerful groups for blockchain industries and strongly believe that they will contribute more to society’s trust of blockchain in the future.

Our next aim is to hold a workshop in Europe or Russia, and we are very much looking forward to meeting more developers in those locations. If anyone reading this interview is interested in taking part or learning more, here’s the link to Ontology’s online course: https://stepik.org/lesson/290621/step/1?unit=272113

It’s heartening to know that there are so many promising young minds with a keen interest in blockchain technologies. In which areas of the blockchain space have you found a significant lack of awareness and a need for further education?

I think the answer to that is the traditional industries. The world is changing, and the old way of working cannot meet the pace set by the internet’s lightning fast development. Existing problems and pain points are hard to solve, leading to a high cost of trust and collaboration. In this bottleneck phase it is essential to use innovative and trusted technological solutions which are decentralized, traceable and flexible. I suspect blockchain is the best of them all.

What exciting plans does Ontology have for 2020 and what do you hope to have achieved by the end of the year?

You’ve asked that question at the perfect time. We just announced our technical roadmap on social media, the Aristotle 2020. We’ll elaborate on all of the technological points individually over the coming months. All the while, we’re incubating several amazing projects, our documentation center and developer tools will be enhanced, and we’ll be providing the online courses we were discussing. These will allow developers to ‘get their hands dirty’ with blockchain development. Subscribe to our channels for upcoming announcements and take a look at what we’re planning.

Ontology’s roadmap for 2020

Looks like there’s a lot of exciting Ontology news on the horizon. What do you expect from your cooperation within the enterprise blockchain sector in the coming year?

We have now cooperated with enterprises from entertainment, finance, retail, communication and many other key industries. It’s my hope that Ontology tech and solutions can empower more real industries who can take advantage of the dual token mode to accelerate the circulation of in-working process. Between the different industries, the data can be shared and used in high efficiency.

Thank you so much for your time, your informative and detailed answers. We know that our readers will find them fascinating. One final thing, the classic interview question, where do you see Ontology in five-years’ time?

In five years, I believe you may meet Ontology everywhere. Imagine using ONT and ONG to pay bills, using ONT ID to acquire the data you want, storing your multiple digital assets in ONTO, as well as participating in staking. Then you’ll start to see our vision. We would like to make the world a better place using advanced technological solutions. And as a personal ambition, I hope we can replace EOS to become the favourite platform for Asian countries.