Five Years in the Making: The Story of OWN Infrastructure

Ontology’s ongoing mission to deliver Web3 to the people

The Ontology Team

Published in

OntologyNetwork

6 min readNov 27, 2022

Time is a great writer and will give everyone the perfect ending.
- Chaplin

If you had to describe the fifth year of Ontology’s deep dive into the Web3 world, it’s hard to see past the “OWN Infrastructure” as one of the most important achievements. Like the smooth indent on a rock, resulting from years of dripping water, Ontology has steadily been carving out its Web3 ecosystem. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary, we invite you to join us on a recap of Ontology’s journey to build the infrastructure necessary to make Web3 accessible to all.

Foundation of the public chain platform

The high-performance and scalable underlying public chain is the foundation of the entire ecosystem and directly affects the subsequent trust ecosystem construction. Therefore, since its inception, Ontology has focused on building this underlying infrastructure, building a universal platform, and developing the first batch of smart contract blockchains with an identity system.

Summary of major technical events:

In 2017, Ontology released the first phase white paper;
In 2018, Ontology MainNet version 1.0 was launched successfully;
In 2019, Ontology launched its own sharding design;
In 2020, Ontology MainNet version 2.0 was officially launched;
In 2021, Ontology started developing Ontology EVM;
In 2022, Ontology EVM was officially launched.

In the background of these major milestones, Ontology has developed the Triones consensus system and introduced a new consensus mechanism, the VBFT algorithm, to optimize network TPS while ensuring security. Ontology MainNet version 2.0 integrates Layer 2 technology, based on Optimistic Rollup methods, provides scalability for the network to further increase network speed.

Today, Ontology’s mature construction of the underlying public chain has reached maturity. It has successfully built itself into a high-performance, low-cost blockchain platform that continues to provide a building platform for decentralized applications (dApps).

Building the Identity Protocol

Ontology’s original intention and vision has always been to build the infrastructure and tools for Web3 based on decentralized identity and data solutions. Therefore, the construction of identity and data-related protocols has been a central theme throughout. The OWN (Ontology’s Web3 Network) Infrastructure represents the corresponding protocol layers around this identity and data core.

In 2017, Ontology joined DIF (Global Decentralized Identity Alliance), an authoritative organization in the field of decentralized identity (DID).

In 2018, the Ontology DID specification was incorporated into the specification group by the Internet authority W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

In 2019, two Ontology standard proposals were approved by the well-known technical society IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

In 2020, Ontology launched the on-chain self-management credit scoring system OScore.

In 2021, Ontology launched the ONT ID identity framework suite, ONT Login and ONT TAG.

In 2022, the Ontology OWN Infrastructure further optimized the identity protocol layer and continues to provide a full set of protocols and tools based on ONT ID, including but not limited to:

Ontology VC SDK series DID tools, which includes 2 categories in 2 development languages and a total of 4 sets of tools;
Mercury, a secure, trustless, communication protocol for Web3 applications;
ONT Login, a trustless universal authenticator for websites and applications;
ONT TAG, the decentralized solution for online identity verification.

At present, these can be smoothly connected to various blockchain networks and Web2/Web3 applications, saving the time and cost of identity system development for developers.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to building its own decentralized identity specification, Ontology also continues to build suitable identity solutions for other public chain projects, such as Ethereum, NEAR, NEO, Tron, Klaytn, BNB Chain and Polkadot, deploying cross-chain decentralized identity solutions to further expand the decentralized identity ecosystem.

Applications Land on Ontology

Nothing represents Web3 better than the applications that are built on it. When designing Web3 infrastructure it is essential to remove barriers for developers and users alike, ensuring accessibility. The OWN Infrastructure has been designed, built, and continuously improved to make the building of applications as easy as possible.

In 2018, Ontology built ONTO Wallet to provide users with a multi-chain digital asset management tool, whilst integrated Web3 dApps to provide users with a comprehensive, and barrier-free, the experience of the blossoming Web3 environment.

In 2019, the Web3 Gateway ONTO Wallet integrated the ONT ID to provide users with decentralized identity registration. Ontology also provided the OScore reputation system for Wing Finance, the first cross-chain DeFi project integrating credit elements, assisting them in successfully creating an undercollateralized lending function, and provided strong support for credit products on the platform through the credit evaluation module.

In 2020, Ontology and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler Mobility reached a partnership to jointly develop MoveX, the first blockchain-based platform for the automotive and transportation industry, and successfully released the “Welcome Home” app.

2021 was Ontology’s “harvest year”. Following years of sowing the seeds of success, Ontology reached cooperation with multiple web application platforms, both Web2 and Web3 native, including the global freelance market leader MicroWorkers and the next-generation music streaming platform ROCKI, using the ONT ID identity framework for users, providing secure and trusted decentralized login.

At the same time, Ontology ONT ID provided the Web3 reputation protocol Orange with trusted identity data based on self-sovereignty, and based on this provided accurate reputation reports and more solutions for Web3 individual users, communities and projects.

In 2022, in order to realize the large-scale application of network and decentralized identity solutions, Ontology set up a special fund of tens of millions of dollars, and jointly held a hackathon with DoraHacks, the largest developer community in Web3, bringing more developers to work on applications built on the Ontology infrastructure.

As of today, the number of ONT ID users has exceeded 1.6 million, making it one of the most widely used decentralized identity solutions in the Web3 field.

Compatible, Interoperable, and Symbiotic

Web3 is heading towards the interconnection of a plethora of chains. Compatibility and interoperability are the inevitable choices of decentralization, and the same is true for OWN Infrastructure. To achieve this:

In 2019, Ontology launched the first cross-chain TestNet — Wasm TestNet;

In 2020, Ontology launched multiple virtual machines and supported three smart contracts: native, Neo, and Wasm;

In 2021, Ontology started to develop EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and launched the TestNet;

In 2022, the EVM virtual machine officially launched on the Ontology MainNet.

So far, the Ontology public chain has become the public chain platform that supports most types of smart contracts and has achieved seamless interoperability with the Ethereum platform, providing developers with a more familiar and friendly development environment.

At the same time, the decentralized identity solution built by Ontology can be seamlessly integrated into different applications and platforms. User identity and behavior data can be stored on the local client or trusted cloud platform and can be logged into and migrated from different platforms with the ONT ID.

Based on this, Ontology OWN Infrastructure will realize the seamless flow of users, applications, and data between different platforms, and meet the necessary conditions for the interconnection of Web3 chains.

Continuing Moving Forward

Taking “decentralized identity” as an edge and supporting it with technical strength, Ontology is building its own world in the turbulent Web3 universe and also building a performance stage for a group of enthusiasts who love decentralized identity and pursue network security and privacy protection.

Five years have passed, and Ontology has completed the module construction and combination of OWN Infrastructure. Today, the stage is quite large, and there will be further performances of wonderful things that belong to Web3. However, we cannot stop there. Ontology will still stick to its original vision and mission, continue to provide infrastructure and landing applications for the Web3 trust ecosystem, and finally achieve a trustless and credible decentralized world.

The future of Web3 is bright, and the required building of a trust ecosystem is inevitable.

For the next five years, we look forward to being with you in the ever-improving and prosperous Web3.

About OWN Infrastructure

OWN (Ontology Web3 Network) Infrastructure is a series of blockchain protocols and products that provides the much-needed tools to create an interconnected, interoperable global blockchain ecosystem. The infrastructure is bringing trust, privacy, and security to Web3 applications through decentralized identity and data solutions.

Aimed at allowing Web3 developers to quickly build Web3 applications, saving them from creating basic functions from scratch, OWN includes the Ontology blockchain, ONT ID framework, and more. Individuals can also seamlessly and quickly access Web3 through products such as ONTO Wallet.

About Ontology

Ontology, the project bringing trust, privacy, and security to Web3 through decentralized identity and data solutions.

Ontology provides trusted access to Web3, allowing individuals and enterprises to rest assured that through blockchain and digital identity solutions, users and their privacy come first. Based on the premise of openness and trust, the Ontology Web3 Network (OWN) is providing the tools to create an interconnected, interoperable global blockchain ecosystem.