→Watch the full AMA on YouTube

Ontology held its MainNet launch 1st anniversary AMA at 11:00 on July 24, 2019 (UTC). Jun Li, Founder of Ontology, and Andy Ji, Co-Founder of Ontology, answered questions from the community during the live AMA. The questions from the community covered Ontology’s roadmap, dApp ecosystem, cross-chain solution, ONT ID, interoperability, etc. Below is a summary of the AMA.

The transcript has been slightly edited for readability.

Questions & Answers:

1. Is Ontology’s development lagging behind the roadmap in its white paper?

Jun Li: Actually, we have achieved all the milestones following the roadmap in the white paper last year. As we reviewed the 2018 white paper, we found that Ontology is the only public chain project that has launched MainNet on schedule.

And in the development of some core technologies, such as sharding, cross-chain and multi-layer solutions, we are even ahead of the schedule and achieved much more beyond our white paper and roadmap.

This month, we released 3 new white papers, including the Ontology Framework White Paper, the Infrastructure White Paper, and the Trust Framework White Paper.

2. I know that the rewards for dApp developers on the Ontology platform are very good. Is dApp market one of the goals of Ontology in the near future?

Andy Ji: Ontology is aiming to build a blockchain network capable of serving all businesses. dApp market is a great container of new crypto users. Now we are focused on games, DeFi, and the attention economy (like content platform, live streaming, and advertising trade). We will continue to explore more high-quality cases and launch products that can be widely adopted. By the way, we highly value our dApp developers. That’s why we launched the dApp incentive scheme.

Moving forward, we will help more developers to empower our community and ecosystem, for instance, in fund-raising, marketing or listing on the exchange.

3. Why is Ontology’s cross-chain solution better than that of Polkadot and Cosmos?

Jun Li: We cannot say better. We have developed specific functionality or features which will make the use and application of blockchain protocol easier for different scenarios or situations. For example, currently most blockchain protocols focus on asset exchange, but in real business, there are many different business processes. The whole process may involve different steps and different chains. You will need protocols to complete transactions and business processes. The solution uses the Ontology blockchain as the main chain and supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous blockchains. It allows interaction between the main chain and side-chains, and also between side-chains.

Just as our slogan “Ready for All Businesses” says, our cross-chain protocols will support more different scenarios, traditional real businesses, instead of digital asset exchange only. This is why we wanted to design a cross-chain protocol for that.

If you are interested in more details, you can check our cross-chain articles on Medium and the multichain design paper on GitHub. Our TestNet has already launched, you can also try to build some applications on it.

4. How is Ontology’s globalization strategy going? Is Ontology planning to do compliant business in other countries?

Andy Ji: To be honest, Ontology is a real global community-driven project.

Right now, our communities cover 18 languages and our fans are able to find the Ontology base at any corner of the world. In the United States, Europe, and South Korea, we have set up full-time local teams. Moving forward, we will further expand markets and influence in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and other fast-growing regions. We will continue to promote our services and products in the near future.

In the past year, we have traveled all around the world. We co-hosted a hackathon with Microsoft and held events in Tokyo, Seoul, Saigon, Singapore, and Jakarta. In Europe, our journey covers cities like London, Amsterdam, Dublin, and Madrid. In North America, we have also seen footprints of Ontology developers in Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.

We are planning to enter the Japanese and US compliance markets. We have cooperated with Gumi, a Japanese publicly listed company and kept contact with JVCEA and JFSA. I hope we will see the top public chain in Asia — Ontology, being listed in the Japanese market.

Meanwhile, many of our co-builders in the US are big companies that will help Ontology enter the US market. We have discussed with the biggest US exchange for a year. I hope we can move forward with the US and Japanese regulators in the near future.

5. We know Ontology is working on a distributed identification protocol. How does Ontology’s solution prevent user data from being abused by Internet giants like Facebook, Google, and Snapchat?

Jun Li: Unlike other projects who have a lot of dApps and build their identity solutions based on them, Ontology thinks that identity solution should be at an infrastructure level or as a functionality. We built the Ontology DID — ONT ID, a DID protocol. dApps can use its protocol directly. Decentralized identification enables users or individuals to control their own identity and verification information directly. Based on that, you can link different data sources by yourselves. The data sources can be from centralized data source verification providers and also from decentralized platforms like owners of social networks or of personal data. The difference is that all your personal data will not be on the blockchain. The data will be kept in their original source. You have the control of whether to send data to specific users or peer-to-peer every time you want to use the data.

The benefit for this is that you can not only have your data kept in their original source but also meet the regulatory requirements such as GDPR. The platform should not collect the data directly. You should let users take control. That is a new model for users to control their own identities and data as well.

This is a new solution compared to Internet giants like Facebook. We believe that the DID protocol will be widely adopted in the next phase.

6. Is ONT going to have interoperability with other public blockchains, if so, who are they? Will we be able to see a multi-token supporting ONT wallet?

Andy Ji: Certainly Yes. We have already supported multiple native coins and different tokens in our ONTO wallet. We have just released ONTO 1.0.0. The new ONTO supports multiple native coins and tokens, including all ERC-20 tokens. More assets will be added in the future (both tokens and NFT assets). In our plan, BEP-2 tokens with Binance Chain, Kakao Klaytn, Facebook Libra coin, and Bitcoin are all on the way. I believe ONTO will become the best-integrated asset/identity/data decentralized one-stop client. Do take a look at our ONTO wallet.

7. When upcoming big events like LTC halving take place on August 6, 2019, or BTC halving takes place in 2020, miners’ reward blocks are cut in half, which will lead to rising coin prices as the demand increases. What does ONT have in mind for this issue? Is there any intention in the future for the value of the coins to be increased, as well as for the benefit of the holders?

Jun Li: Token economy is quite important for the whole ecosystem, not only for the usage (utility token) but also for the token’s long-term value to show your care for your investors. Ontology has its own dual-token model, including ONT and ONG, similar to NEO’s dual token model. ONT is used for governance (the supply is fixed) and ONG for utility (fixed supply also with recycling usage). All consumed ONG will be rewarded to ONT holders. ONG is the utility token of the network and is used for token transactions, network storage, deployment and execution of smart contracts, and use of other network resources. ALL spent ONG will be returned to ONT holders again under a recycling model. The incentives for ONT holders will increase when there are more dApps, asset exchange, and smart contracts.

ONT’s fixed supply will help keep its long-term value. ONG’s recycling process also helps keep its value stable and the gas fee low which will be beneficial to dApp developers and ecosystem partners.

Compared to other token economies, Ontology’s dual token model is one of the best models. I hope that more and more people can understand the value behind the token.

This model makes sense as the demand for ONG leads to higher demand for ONT, and the value of ONT will increase as it is being adopted by more and more businesses.

8. I’d like to ask a question about the Ontology ecosystem. There are few high-quality decentralized applications on blockchains today. I’d like to know what Ontology’s focus is when it comes to dApps on its platform?

Andy Ji: As I mentioned, now we are focused on games, DeFi, and the attention economy (content, live stream, and advertising trade). Ontology is aiming to improve user experience and performance and lower the barrier for newcomers. For example, the new ONT ID login feature will be integrated into dApps and wallets and linked to Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat account so you can easily log in with your Facebook ID or WeChat ID, and generate your first digital wallet. And dApps can run layer-2 state channels to reduce transaction costs. They can even pay the transaction fees for users, so it will help users to move from traditional services to new blockchain services. We would invite more traditional users to try their first blockchain service in our wallets and on Ontology’s platform.

9. Could you share more technical details about (not only the strategic cooperation you recently announced) your plan to work together with NEO? Any plans for NEO 3.0 and ONT? And in which aspect such as atomic swaps will NASH / NEX project be involved?

Jun Li: This is the new cross-chain protocol Ontology and NEO are working together to develop. Actually, the project is more than that. We call it the next-generation Internet (NGI). It will integrate with decentralized storage and the cross-chain protocols and also other asset management as a whole infrastructure.

For the technical part we just mentioned, the new protocols will support not only asset exchange but also all kinds of different cross-chain business processes. Unlike the other cross-chain solutions which require you to use a specific framework to build your protocols or blockchain, we can integrate with different existing blockchains without changing their protocols. They can integrate with existing protocols and even blockchain systems in the future.

We will release the first version of the white paper in Q3. And in Q4, we will launch the TestNet. Also, we will have more partners joining the ecosystem. We will build a larger ecosystem for the cross-chain platform far beyond Ontology and NEO. So we want to build an ecosystem using different cross-chain protocols. They can support DEX and other business scenarios. We believe that based on our technical prowess of both Ontology and NEO and other capabilities, the cooperation and ecosystem will be more successful in the next phase. We also welcome more partners to build the cross-chain platform together.

10. What business scenarios can Ontology support now? In which industries can we see the mass adoption of Ontology’s technology in the near future?

Andy Ji: Our new slogan in 2019 is “Ready for All Businesses”. So Ontology aims to become the new fundamental architecture for the new digital economy. Will we do everything? The answer is NO. As I mentioned earlier, we focus on games, DeFi, and the attention economy.

We tried to implement some use cases for some specific scenarios, but some experimental projects have failed. We were trying to bring some traditional business models to convert into the distributed business models, but some projects failed because they cannot find a good design for the token economy.

We won’t stop. We will keep bringing real adoption to the whole industry. For example, we have developed a loyalty-points program for Fosun Group, and our Korean core partner MovieBloc will launch a content distribution platform with 812 million users.

We have already issued our fully regulated stable coin with PAXOS. For the next step, DeFi will be our focus. So we will provide debit card and wealth management products to our end users. We will try our best to lower the barrier and build a real Inclusive financial ecosystem. Thus, we can engage more traditional users to try our blockchain services in our ONTO wallet and bring more value to the whole ecosystem.

11. How does Ontology solve the problem of scalability with sharding mechanism?

Jun Li: Sharding is on the infrastructure level. Ontology has just finished the first sharding implementation and you can check our Sharding TestNet with reference to our technical white paper. It will improve the scalability in our MainNet infrastructure, which is Layer 1. Another kind of scalability is multiple-layer, in layer 2 or state channels. Multiple layer will also impact the decentralized level, so we need to find some balance in that. You can deploy different applications and assets. We will keep improving it.

Ontology offers a highly-customized modular framework. You can consider Ontology as an enterprise-level public blockchain. We have a basket of scalability solutions. You can choose the sharding, the layer-2, and the side chain.

If you are an enterprise, you can customize your product and we will offer you any scaling solution based on any requirements you have.

12. What is the ONT future development plan? In the process of developing ONT is it difficult to be where you are today? Does ONT now meet formidable opponents? If so, does ONT have any plans to solve it?

Jun Li: The Ontology strategy can be divided into two parts:

1) Technical and infrastructure level. Just as we have mentioned, we have already made good progress in scalability on different levels, sharding, multiple-layer, and cross-chain. 2) Ecosystem and real business. Just like our slogan, “Ready for All Businesses” implies, we have created the bridge to link different real businesses in different situations, even in different legal systems, such as the decentralized identity — ONT ID, and the decentralized data exchange protocol — DDXF. In the next phase, the reputation system will also be put in place. We already have many business engagements with different industrial partners from enterprise and financial institution to new start-ups.

We have built our local teams in Korea, the US, and Europe. Globalization is also a very important strategy this year and we will focus on technical infrastructure and ecosystem to try to build more dApps for different industries and scenarios.

13. Is your team considering coming up with a DEX which will use ONG for payment? Just like BNB in the case of Binance?

Andy Ji: We already have the ONT DEX, our initial version of our decentralized exchange. We will keep improving the user experience and bringing more assets onto the ONT token. We have launched our cross-chain collaboration platform with NEO and more and more public chain leaders and projects will engage in this network, so we will bring a real cross-chain platform onto our ONT DEX. You will see more and more real native tokens on our ONT DEX. It will offer a much better and smoother user experience than the Binance DEX. Right now, the Binance DEX is slow and you have to issue your token on the Binance chain. We will have a much more powerful platform.

14. As you can see the slogan “Ready for All Businesses” on the Ontology’s new website, what have we done to implement this slogan?

Jun Li: Currently the Ontology infrastructure and protocol can support almost all kinds of decentralized services in different industries. The Ontology team is more focused on the infrastructure level and technical development. The majority of the Ontology team members is specialized in technical engineering and protocol design with technical or blockchain background. We are not a professional team that can cover all different industries, that’s why we welcome professionals from different industries in different regions or countries to build decentralized services or dApps on Ontology. We will provide technical and ecosystem support, as well as incubation support which will include funding, marketing, and community cooperation for those dApps or services developed on Ontology.

Just as Andy has mentioned, the MovieBloc project from Korea is one of the online media applications which is incubated by us. While they are experts in their own media industry, Ontology provides the technical and marketing support so that they can focus on what they are good at. You can just focus on the business operation as we take care of the rest for you so you can easily build your own decentralized services. That’s what “Ready for All Businesses” means.

15. What are some milestones to look forward to? What do you predict the largest challenges will be in the future? How do you plan to address them?

Jun Li: In the past year, the challenge was mostly on the technical side, as we mentioned, scalability, stability, and security. We have already overcome or come up with solutions for some of the challenges. In the next phase, the biggest challenge in the near future would be real adoption, which means enabling one or more services or applications to use blockchain. As mentioned above, we need to work with more partners from different industries. This is quite challenging for any team, especially a technical-oriented team. However, we have already built a strong business development team, a solution team and a product management team, all of which can not only help provide better products but also enable more business cooperation in different industries. This challenge is not only for Ontology but also for the whole blockchain industry. But we will try our best to bring more blockchain adoption for real businesses.

Andy Ji: There are so many dApps on Ethereum, EOS, and TRON. However, we saw that most of the users are not 100% real users. The lack of users is a common problem facing the whole industry. Ontology aims to lower the barrier in order to engage more traditional users. Right now, the whole industry only has a small group of crypto guys. We have to educate more people from traditional industries. The Facebook Libra project will help educate these people about the definition and benefits of crypto and we will strive to engage more people from traditional industries.

16. When do you think we can use ONT as a trading currency in any country around the world?

Andy Ji: Now we are providing a series of products to support payment scenarios. We have already signed partnerships with some retailers and partners in the OTA like Price Line. You can book hotels and flights on Price Line and get some discounts via ONT payment or OEP-4 PAX payment. You can use our services to pay the retailers so you can buy Starbucks or Luckin coffee very easily. We will promote our services to people all around the world. At the moment, we are focusing on promotion in some specific regions like Southeast Asia. If we can meet the requirements of the local regulations or policies, we will also promote in Europe and the US market. We will keep improving our services. After that, we will provide a gateway to converting fiat into cryptos. You can then use ONT to enjoy different types of services.

17. Looking back on the day when you guys started Ontology, are you happy and satisfied with the progress you’ve made so far?

Jun Li: Yeah, definitely. I am not only just satisfied, I am very proud of our whole team and the whole ecosystem, considering all the things we have achieved so far. If you look back on the past two years, Ontology has almost met all the milestones, both in technology and ecosystem development. We have kept our promises from our first day. So I am so proud of our project, our team, and our communities. I’m very happy about this, and we will keep sticking to our promises in the next year and beyond.

18. Is ONT expanding its ecosystem in the Vietnamese market? If so, are you planning to cooperate with the large enterprise or cooperation in Vietnam?

Jun Li: Definitely yes. One of the advantages that Ontology has is that we actually do a lot of cooperation and engagement with large enterprises, especially in China. We have considerable experience and we have very good solutions and a good business development team. We can also use these capabilities to support businesses in different countries. We believe that many enterprises in different countries want to use blockchain frameworks and technology for different scenarios. Maybe in the initial phase, most public chains wanted to build their own permissioned chains or other different kinds of solutions.

But the Ontology framework and protocols can support this very easily with low and even no cost. In the future, they can also easily integrate into public chains very quickly. So I think the Ontology solution and technical services will be a very good choice for those enterprises. We are willing to support enterprises using our blockchain framework and technology. If you are interested, you are welcome to contact us.

19. Do we have any plans for expansion and marketing penetration strategy in other promising continents like Africa?

Jun Li: Currently we are more focused on Asia, Europe, and the North American market. Africa is also a large market. We want to do more community-led marketing work or business development work. If any community member or contributor is willing to do some contribution in Africa for Ontology, you are welcome to contact us and we will support you with resources, rewards, etc. We would love to have more community members to join us.

20. Will part of the ONT be used for staking?

Andy Ji: To celebrate the 1st anniversary of Ontology’s MainNet Launch, we’ve just talked with the core team and decided to stake 37,500,000 ONT, 3.75% of the total ONT supply and 100% of the ONT amount unlocked for the core team in 2019, into the consensus nodes. The decision shows the core team’s confidence in the project and the belief that Ontology will become a top-tier blockchain project in the world. It will be a good step for ecosystem development.

Jun Li: Tokens allocated for Ontology’s core team have the longest lock period comparing with other public chain projects, which is four years. This staking shows our confidence in the project and our promise to build a long-term project. The team’s benefits will be linked to the Ontology project. We hope this will also bring more benefits to the community.

21. Do you have any plans to work with other public chains in the future besides NEO?

Jun Li: Yes definitely. Just as I have mentioned, this will be an open protocol. Ontology and NEO are the initial organizers or coordinators for this protocol. In the near future, hopefully, there will be more members to join the open protocol. It is open to everyone and all kinds of blockchain projects. We will welcome more partners to join this protocol.

Andy Ji: Some regional public chain leaders like Tomochain and Icon have already agreed to join us. We will find more regional public chain leaders to engage in the TestNet. It’s time to collaborate with regional public chains and become a real network for the next generation Internet.

Jun Li: This open protocol is different from other kinds of protocols which may be just a marketing event or announcement. Based on the engineering capability of Ontology and NEO, we have promised to work out the technical paper and its implementation. The cross-chain open protocol will be released very quickly, and we will develop a real application based on that as well. We are looking forward to it.

22. What will Ontology be looking for when investing in other ecosystem projects?

Jun Li: Ontology has a fund for that part. Since we have some ONTs allocated to our ecosystem partners, our investment in those ecosystem partners will bring more users to Ontology and help expand Ontology’s ecosystem influence. In the future, we will continue to support our ecosystem partners. If you have more projects coming that are based on the Ontology ecosystem, we would be happy to provide funding support.

23. What steps are taken to facilitate the adoption, since the simplicity of the user interface is as important as the technology?

Jun Li: Yeah, of course, one thing that you can see in the year is that our focus will be more on the protocol and industrial products. For the APIs, SDKs, and protocols, we have built more user-friendly and easy-to-integrate protocols so that dApps and even other systems can use Ontology protocols easily.

To have a better understanding of the product, you can check ONTO which has already become an open digital asset management client or wallet. We also support Ethereum tokens as well. In the future, we will support more and more different tokens. You can manage all your assets in ONTO, which now only supports digital assets, owner identity, data exchange, cross-chain, DEX, and other DeFi services as well. We will build one of the best clients for individual users in terms of digital assets management and identity data management. Our product and services will become much better in the next phase.

24. How do you intend to reach out to the current dApp developers from different platforms?

Andy Ji: Right now, we are drawing some developers from other platforms such as Ethereum, EOS, etc. We also educate some traditional developers to user our Punica or other toolkits to easily convert traditional Apps to dApps. We have several ways to bring more developers to become dApp developers. We also have the dApp incentive schemes to support dApp developers in terms of funding, marketing, and operation. In the future, we will have a win-win model with developers and become a real global tech community. That’s our goal in 2019.