Ontology (ONT) has joined the crypto space less than 2 years ago with the launch of its mainnet at the end of June 2018. Since then, it has managed to climb the market cap ranks to be #29 at the time of this writing. While gaining fast adoption, Ontology is setting itself apart from comparable blockchains.

The Ontology

Ontology coin has its ties to the NEO coin as it originally launched as a token on NEO's blockchain prior to the launch of Ontology's mainnet where they were later swapped for the native ONT coin.

Not only was Ontology a token a NEO's blockchain, the company and founders behind the project are also the same ones that founded NEO.

The Chinese tech firm Onchain is behind both NEO and Ontology. Interestingly, Ontology did not have an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and instead did an airdrop on the NEO blockchain.

The Ontology blockchain is very similar to NEO with a 2 coin system but Ontology was created for businesses and government organizations to integrate blockchain and use the system for procedure protocols, data distribution, distribution of an identity system, and commodity distribution.

Verifiable Byzantine Fault Tolerance (VBFT) consensus algorithm was introduced by Ontology combining the functionalities of multiple consensus algorithms such as Proof of Stake (PoS), Verifiable Number Function (VRF) and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT).

Ontology allows for multiple blockchains to be created atop of the Ontology blockchain. This allows businesses and governments to have their own blockchains and own set of governing rules instead of using a single public blockchain.

Co-Founder of Ontology Jun Li explained in a Sydney NEO meetup presentation:

They [businesses] have a lot of requirements. They want their own blockchain with their governance model. Privacy is another concern for businesses as well since businesses usually don’t want to reveal all of their data publicly, especially data that’s proprietary or has to be private to stay compliant with consumer protection laws. Indeed, this is a big reason that many businesses have shied away from Ethereum or even Onchain’s NEO project, which are both fully public blockchains.

Read the Whitepaper for full details.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Advantages: Simple entry for businesses: Ontology will be ideal for businesses of all sizes as no prior knowledge of blockchain technology is required.

Ontology will be ideal for businesses of all sizes as no prior knowledge of blockchain technology is required. Great team: OnChain, the company behind Ontology, have had great success in the blockchain industry already with their NEO project.

OnChain, the company behind Ontology, have had great success in the blockchain industry already with their NEO project. Limitless potential: The number of industry sectors that would benefit from the Ontology coin is endless.

The number of industry sectors that would benefit from the Ontology coin is endless. Unique consensus: The VBFT consensus model used by Ontology is unique, combining both speed and safety. Transactions in the thousands per second are hoped to be possible.

The VBFT consensus model used by Ontology is unique, combining both speed and safety. Transactions in the thousands per second are hoped to be possible. A bridge between real and virtual: The Ontology blockchain will allow the digital economy to connect with the real-world economy, across multiple blockchains. Disadvantages: Strict country of origin: Ontology operates in one of the strictest nations for crypto regulation – China.

Ontology operates in one of the strictest nations for crypto regulation – China. Early days: Although the ONT token has great potential, the project is still in its very early days. -BitDegree

Growth

Naturally with the success of NEO, Ontology saw similar success and growth as more crypto exchanges began adopting the coin in past and recent months. In August of 2019, we have seen the likes of Coinbase and Crypto.com list Ontology and Ontology Gas (ONG) on their exchanges. Ontology now is supported by the vast majority of exchanges with many trading pairs.

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ontology#markets

The Paxos Standard (PAX), a regulated USD stablecoin was launched on the Ontology blockchain.

PAX was launched on September 10th, 2018, with the approval of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), unlike Tether and other stablecoins that are registered Money Services Businesses (MSB). It is the first regulated USD stablecoin that ensures open auditing, asset safety, and is supported by a large number of exchanges, making it a stable “digital dollar” in every sense of the term, unlike Tether, which cannot guarantee its token is always worth $1. All the deposits in USD are kept in independent accounts of FDIC insured banks registered in the US to ensure the safety of PAX tokens. Monthly audits of PAX are done by top US audit firms to ensure the amount of USD in the accounts is consistent with the PAX in circulation. -The Ontology Team

Ontology has been partnering up with many projects and other blockchains working together to spread blockchain adoption across industries.

In September of 2019, social video platform Vid announced its partnership with Ontology to build a blockchain-based streaming service. The official Vid app is actually going live tomorrow February 29, 2020.

Back in November 2019, Ontology announced its partnership with a recently hyped new project Chainlink "to bring data-driven smart contracts to backend business models".

Earlier back in March of 2019, Ontology partnered with Moviebloc to decentralize the movie industry and earlier this month had their token swap for the MovieBloc (MBL) token on the Ontology mainnet.

MovieBloc is a platform for creators that will receive revenue share and other benefits that are run by the South Korean company that developed the KMPlayer, Pandora.tv.

More recent news in growth for 2020:

Ontology invests in bloXroute to develop a Layer 0 scalability solution and Blockchain Distribution Network (BDN).

Member of the Libra Association, Bison Trails, is integrating support for Ontology Triones Node infrastructure to allow for seamless deployment of nodes for enterprise companies.

Micro-tasking service MicroWorkers is bringing micro-jobs to Ontology's blockchain.

Co-Founder Jun Li shared the 2020 roadmap for Ontology and covers some of the strategic plans and upcoming features.

The original roadmap was divided into 3 main sections: Socrates (2018), Plato (2019), and Aristotle (2020). Aristotle will be focused on the chain network rather than the trust ecosystem part of the Ontology ecosystem.

Cross-chain : Include the Relayer Chain, will realize the cross-chain between BTC, ETH and ONT;

: Include the Relayer Chain, will realize the cross-chain between BTC, ETH and ONT; VM : Include the Multi-VM and Wasm-JIT;

: Include the Multi-VM and Wasm-JIT; Layer 2 ;

; Oracle ;

; ONT ID 2.0 and DDXF 2.0 ;

and ; Anonymous Transaction ;

; ONTFS (Ontology File Storage);

(Ontology File Storage); On-chain voting.

Not even 2 years old, Ontology has managed to dive right into the crypto space and gain the attention of many in the community. While the launch during the bear market may not have been the best time, they have managed to rank within the top 50 coins by market cap among the thousands of coins on the market. We'll have to see how they progress towards the future but with Aristotle 2020, some exciting upgrades are looking to push this coin higher in the ranks.