Layer 1 blockchain
Ontology ticker ONT
Summary
Ontology runs VBFT, which its docs describe as combining proof of stake, a verifiable random function (VRF) and Byzantine fault tolerance. Node owners register nodes and ONT holders add stake to them through the built-in governance contract; by Ontology's node guide the 15 nodes with the most stake are consensus nodes and up to 343 are candidate nodes, and the list is recomputed each 60,000-block round. For each block a VRF value taken from the previous block orders nodes from a stake table; proposal nodes propose, verification nodes vote for the highest-priority proposal, and confirmation nodes confirm the result. Contracts run as built-in native contracts, NeoVM, WebAssembly and an EVM, all paying gas in ONG. 12578111226
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainIndependent proof-of-stake chain whose mainnet has run since 30 June 2018 with its own consensus nodes; it does not settle to another chain. Its node software is Ontology's own Go implementation, which runs built-in native contracts, NeoVM and WebAssembly contracts and, since a March 2022 upgrade, an EVM with chain ID 58, all paying gas in ONG. ONT is the staking and governance token.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Proposal, verification and confirmation nodes are picked in a VRF-derived order from a stake table built from each node's stake and the network's governance policy, so selection follows stake and policy, not a uniform draw. The genesis configuration had seven consensus nodes; Ontology's node guide now names the top 15 by stake. A designated administrator in the governance contracts can blacklist nodes, update the consensus configuration and trigger an early consensus-list update; since mainnet height 8,600,000 candidates register themselves when they meet the minimum stake and a slot is free.
- Fork choice
- No open weight-based chain selection: blocks are confirmed by votes of VRF-selected consensus nodes, and the docs say fewer than one-third of consensus nodes may be faulty. The docs also say forks remain possible when the network is split; each node then weights the forks by the VRF-derived node priority and follows the higher-weighted one. Block production was suspended from 31 August to 2 September 2026 during a security review and resumed with node v3.1.5.
Qualifications
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other. Ontology's own terms: an independent public chain run by the Ontology Consensus Engine (VBFT), with ONT for staking and governance and ONG for gas, whose own Go node runs native contracts, NeoVM, WebAssembly and EVM contracts side by side.
- Finality · Partial. Recorded as other. Ontology's own terms: VBFT, in which VRF-selected verification nodes vote on proposed blocks and confirmation nodes confirm the final consensus result. The docs describe fast state finality with fewer than one-third of consensus nodes faulty, and say forks remain possible when the network is split. No automatic slashing was found, so this is committee finality, not stake-backed economic finality.
- Slashing · Partial. No automatic penalty for double-signing or downtime was found in the governance contract. Its administrator can blacklist a node, which, per the code comments, forfeits the node's whole initial stake and part of the stake users authorized to it, and bars it from registering again.
- Governance administrator · Applies. The governance contract checks a designated administrator's signature before approving or rejecting candidates, blacklisting or reinstating nodes, updating the consensus configuration and global parameters, and forcing a consensus-list update before the regular round ends. Who holds that key today was not verified.
- Token decimals · Applies. At mainnet height 13,920,000, the v2.3.5 upgrade applied in March 2022, ONT went from 0 to 9 decimal places and ONG from 9 to 18. The old integer transfer method still works and a transferV2 method carries the new precision; some older Ontology pages still call ONT indivisible.
- Ong supply · Applies. After an October 2025 vote of Triones nodes, the v3.0.0 upgrade cut ONG's cap from 1 billion to 800 million (a burn enabled from mainnet height 19,500,000) and stretched release to about 19 years at 1 ONG per second. Ontology says 80% of new ONG goes to ONT staking rewards and 20% plus transaction fees to a permanently locked ONT-ONG liquidity pool.
- Network pause · Applies. Block production stopped from 31 August to 2 September 2026. Ontology's team said its daily security check found a potential concern, later described as malicious attack activity that did not involve user assets; the network resumed with node v3.1.5.
- Evm compatibility · Partial. The Ontology EVM (mainnet chain ID 58, testnet 5851) runs Solidity contracts beside native, NeoVM and WebAssembly contracts, supports a listed set of Ethereum JSON-RPC methods, and uses ONG as gas. The v3.1.2 upgrade added four newer opcodes (PUSH0, BASEFEE, MCOPY and transient storage), and Ontology notes this is not the whole opcode set of any single Ethereum upgrade.
- Block interval · Contested. Ontology's glossary says a block about every 6 seconds, while its node-staking docs and the node README say 1 to 30 seconds: about 1 second when transactions are waiting and 30 seconds for an empty block. The node's default setting is 6 seconds. No interval was measured for this profile.
- Tps · Contested. The only throughput figure is a design claim from a table of consensus designs in Ontology's docs, without a published method; it is kept in the classified claims list and is not an observed rate.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Security
- Gives up
- Open block production. By Ontology's node guide only the 15 nodes with the most stake take part in consensus, and a designated administrator in the governance contracts can approve or reject candidates, blacklist nodes (forfeiting their stake), update the consensus configuration and force an early consensus-list update. In August and September 2026 Ontology's team, working with validators, suspended block production for about two days during a security review. Who operates the consensus nodes, and how stake is spread among them, was not verified.Ontology's docs describe VBFT as scalable and hard to attack because VRF selection is hard to predict, and its homepage stresses high performance and low cost. The docs tolerate fewer than one-third faulty consensus nodes; no automatic penalty for double-signing was found, so the stake-at-risk side of the security argument rests on the administrator's blacklist power.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 34101118Anyone can run a sync node from the open-source Go node. The repository's candidate-node guide, written in Chinese and undated, gives a minimum of 4 CPU cores, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB SSD. The v3.x releases ship a prebuilt binary only for Linux on AMD64; other systems build from source. The FAQ offers syncing only from Ontology's whitelisted seed nodes to avoid compromised peers. Current chain size was not measured. Joining consensus needs at least 10,000 ONT, a 500 ONG registration fee and a top-15 stake.
- Throughput claims
- Theoretical peak: 3,000 tx/s 12Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.The figure appears as 'more than 3,000 tps' for VBFT in a table of consensus designs in Ontology's docs and its 2018 VBFT introduction, with no method, window, hardware or network assumptions. The same table gives a confirmation sample time of 5 to 10 seconds measured on Ontology's testnet, not mainnet. The node's default cap of 60,000 transactions per block is a configuration limit, not a measured rate. No observed mainnet rate was classified for this profile.
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | No hash-time-locked or other trust-minimized swap mechanism was documented for Ontology. NeoVM, WebAssembly and EVM contracts could host one, but none was reviewed. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not assessed. ONT ID documents can carry attributes and service endpoints on chain, the node code has an activation height for ONTFS, a file-storage feature, and Ontology describes a data exchange framework (DDXF); whether any of these lets readers find an on-chain commitment, fetch the data and check it on mainnet today was not verified. 619 |
| Light clients | Unknown | Not assessed. Nodes serve Merkle proofs for transactions through the REST interface, and the FAQ offers syncing only from Ontology's whitelisted seed nodes, but no light client that checks consensus-node signatures was found in the reviewed docs. 1718 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer on Ontology was found in the reviewed sources; absence was not verified. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Ontology runs built-in native contracts (ONT, ONG, governance and ONT ID), NeoVM contracts, WebAssembly contracts and an EVM for Solidity contracts; native accounts can also be multi-signature accounts of up to 16 keys. Beyond multi-signature thresholds, spend conditions live in contract accounts. The v3.1.2 upgrade added four newer opcodes to the EVM. 6151629 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not assessed. The built-in ONT ID contract lets a self-managed ONT ID name other ONT IDs, with a signature threshold, as a recovery group that can add or remove the identity's authentication keys if the owner loses the private key. That restores control of an identity, not of funds: ONT, ONG and token balances sit in ordinary addresses that the recovery group does not control, so it does not meet part (b), which requires regaining control of the funds. No way for a sender to cancel, delay or reclaim a payment (part (a)) was found, and contract-based options were not reviewed. 1920 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup anchored to Ontology was found in the reviewed sources; a 2022 monthly report mentioned work on a rollup EVM executor, whose outcome was not checked. 24 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | ThiniZiSwap (Ontology EVM), UniFi (Ontology EVM) | DeFiLlama lists iZiSwap and UniFi exchanges on the Ontology EVM with little value locked at review; the largest Ontology-listed protocol there is Wing Finance, a lending platform, not an exchange. Ontology's December 2025 tokenomics change pairs ONT and ONG into liquidity tokens that are then burned, but the post does not name the venue. Operators, audits and liquidity depth were not reviewed. 2533 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Neither Circle's USDC contract list nor Tether's supported-protocol list includes Ontology, and no other issuer-native stablecoin was found. 3435 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No algorithmic stablecoin on Ontology was found in the reviewed sources. |
| Bridges | Unknown | No working route to another chain was confirmed. PolyBridge, which Ontology's EVM guide names for transfers from Ethereum, stopped when Poly Network ended all its services on 30 September 2024, per its own notice; DeFiLlama lists Poly Network and Multichain on Ontology with no value locked and flags both sites as dead. The Ontology Bridge is not counted: per Ontology's glossary it converts OEP-4 and ORC-20 tokens and moves ONG between A-addresses and 0x-addresses on Ontology itself. Other third-party routes were not searched exhaustively. Risk: A bridged token is only as sound as the bridge that issued it; PolyBridge no longer operates, so any token it issued on Ontology can no longer be redeemed through it. The Ontology Bridge between the chain's own native and EVM sides depends on Ontology-run contracts and its web app. 13233233 |
| Block explorers | First-partyOntology Explorer | Ontology runs the Ontology Explorer, which it calls its trust verifier, for blocks, transactions, ONT IDs and contracts, with a documented Explorer v2 API. No independently run explorer was reviewed. Explorer data is provider-indexed and can lag the chain. 2122 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinLedger (through OWallet) | See custody rows: Ledger's Ontology page routes users to OWallet, Ontology's desktop wallet, and Trezor states that it does not support Ontology. 363840 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryOWallet, Ontology's desktop wallet, signing with the Ledger ONT device appSame as native: Unknown | Can: Connect a Ledger Nano to OWallet to send and receive ONT and review and sign transactions on the device, per Ledger's Ontology page Can: Use a Ledger Stax or Ledger Flex with OWallet, supported since OWallet v0.10.2 (September 2025) Cannot: Manage ONT inside Ledger's own wallet app: Ledger's Ontology page points only to OWallet as a compatible third-party wallet Cannot: Adjust the gas price when signing with the ONT Ledger app: OWallet v0.10.4 (January 2026) says the app does not support it yet and asks Ledger users to stay on the older OWalletLedger's published cryptoassets list (13.56.0) has an Ontology entry with device app name ONT and a unit of 8 decimal places, which matches neither ONT's 9 nor ONG's 18; a list entry alone does not show support inside Ledger's own wallet app. Whether ONG, staking and EVM accounts work through this path was not tested. 36373940 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage ONT on a Trezor: Trezor's Ontology page says Trezor does not currently support OntologyTrezor's page asks users who used Ontology with Trezor before to contact support. OWallet's README says it will connect with Trezor, but no current Trezor path was found; using a Trezor with the Ontology EVM through a general EVM wallet was not reviewed. 938 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Ontology yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Reviewed Sep 29, 2026 Next review due Oct 9, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Mainnet block production paused for a security review, then resumed with v3.1.5
On 31 August 2026 Ontology suspended mainnet block production after its daily security check found a potential concern. On 1 September it said it had found malicious attack activity that did not involve user assets and would upgrade the network. On 2 September it announced that the mainnet had resumed and told sync nodes to upgrade to v3.1.5.
- Implementation:security remediation and network upgrade completed, per Ontology
- Release:ontology v3.1.5 released 2 September 2026
- Activation:mainnet resumed on 2 September 2026; a REST read on 2026-09-29 showed the chain producing blocks
Sources: Ontology News — Ontology Mainnet Emergency Pause for Comprehensive Security Review (external site) · Ontology News — Ontology Mainnet Pause: Security Update and Network Upgrade (external site) · Ontology News — Ontology Mainnet Has Resumed: Sync Nodes Required to Upgrade to v3.1.5 (external site) · Ontology (GitHub) — ontology v3.1.5 release (external site) · Ontology — Ontology public node REST: current block height (read 2026-09-29) (external site)
-
Node v3.1.2 adds four newer opcodes to the Ontology EVM
Ontology released node v3.1.2, which it described as security optimisations plus four EVM additions: PUSH0, BASEFEE, MCOPY and transient storage (TSTORE and TLOAD). All mainnet nodes had to upgrade before block height 20,800,000, which Ontology estimated for 21 August 2026. Ontology noted that these are four specific additions, not the complete opcode set of any single Ethereum upgrade.
- Implementation:shipped in ontology v3.1.2
- Release:released 29 July 2026; upgrade mandatory for all mainnet nodes
- Activation:scheduled for height 20,800,000; the chain was past that height on 2026-09-29
Sources: Ontology News — Ontology MainNet v3.1.2: Four Ethereum Opcodes Arrive on the Ontology EVM (external site) · Ontology (GitHub) — ontology v3.1.2 release (external site) · Ontology — Ontology public node REST: current block height (read 2026-09-29) (external site)
-
Minimum gas price cut from 2,500 to 500 after a node vote
Ontology put a cut of the mainnet minimum gas price to a node vote from 6 to 9 January 2026, and on 22 January said the new minimum of 500, down from 2,500, was live. OWallet v0.10.4 changed its default to 500 and warned that the ONT Ledger app cannot yet adjust the gas price.
- Proposal:node vote held 6 to 9 January 2026; Ontology reported it as successful
- Implementation:network setting changed, per Ontology; the announcements name no node release
- Release:OWallet v0.10.4 updated its default, released 22 January 2026
- Activation:Ontology said the new minimum was live on 22 January 2026; not checked on chain
Sources: Ontology News — Ontology Gas Price Reduction Now Live On MainNet (external site) · Ontology News — Gas Price Reduction Governance Vote Now Live (external site) · Ontology (GitHub) — OWallet v0.10.4 release (external site)
-
ONG's cap cut from 1 billion to 800 million by the v3.0.0 upgrade
After Triones nodes voted from 28 to 31 October 2025 (117 million votes for, none against), Ontology shipped v3.0.0, which burns 200 million not-yet-released ONG from mainnet height 19,500,000 and releases the rest at 1 ONG per second over about 19 years in total. On 19 December Ontology said the cap change was live on mainnet. It also said 80% of new ONG goes to ONT stakers and 20% plus fees to a permanently locked ONT-ONG liquidity pool.
- Proposal:approved by Triones node vote, 28 to 31 October 2025
- Implementation:shipped in ontology v3.0.0
- Release:v2.7.0 for consensus nodes and v3.0.0 for all nodes, released 27 November 2025
- Activation:Ontology said on 19 December 2025 that the cap is live; the burn is enabled from mainnet height 19,500,000; supply was not read from the chain
Sources: Ontology News — ONG Tokenomics Adjustment: ONG Is Now Capped at 800 Million (external site) · Ontology News — ONG Tokenomics Adjustment Proposal Passes Governance Vote (external site) · Ontology News — Ontology MainNet Upgrade Announcement (external site) · Ontology (GitHub) — ontology v3.0.0 release (external site) · Ontology (GitHub) — Commit 60be4c5: burn 20% ONG (external site) · Ontology News — Letter from the Founder: Ontology's MainNet Upgrade (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Ontology through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- How many consensus nodes are active today, who operates them and how stake is spread among them were not read from the chain; the top-15 figure comes from Ontology's node guide.
- Who holds the governance administrator key, and whether it is a multi-signature account, was not verified.
- Ontology's posts do not say what the August 2026 attack activity was or how v3.1.5 addressed it, and the v3.1.5 release notes list no changes; no post-incident report was found.
- The v2.7.0, v3.0.0 and v3.1.2 release notes are brief; their consensus changes were read only from commit titles and Ontology's announcements.
- Storage for a current full node was not measured; the 500 GB SSD figure is an undated minimum from the candidate-node guide.
- The 80% staking and 20% liquidity split of new ONG and the permanent liquidity lock come from Ontology's announcements; the venue and the code path were not verified.
- The account-system change and EVM-side ONT ID creation that the November 2025 founder's letter called upcoming were not checked.
- Whether ONTFS, DDXF or ONT ID attributes meet the data-publication definition on mainnet today was not researched.
- No atomic swap, channel, rollup or light client was found for Ontology; absence was not exhaustively verified.
- No live bridge between Ontology and another chain was confirmed; bridge plans in Ontology's 2024 and 2025 roadmaps were not traced to a launch, and the Ontology Bridge web app renders only in the browser.
- The Explorer v2 API's base URL is not given in Ontology's docs, so it was not read.
- Whether OWallet with a Ledger handles ONG at 18 decimals, staking and EVM accounts was not tested.
- Block intervals were not measured; Ontology's docs give about 6 seconds in one place and 1 to 30 seconds in another.
- Ontology's docs disagree on the minimum gas limit for transfers (30,000 in the exchange guide, 20,000 as the node's default), and the unit of the gas price was not confirmed.
- Staked-ONT totals and node counts come from Ontology's own posts and node documents, not from a chain read.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 29, 2026 Next check due Oct 29, 2026.
- Consensus Mechanism (VBFT) (external site)
- VBFT Introduction, version 1.0.0 (external site)
- ontio/ontology repository and README (Version 2.5.8 header) (external site)
- ontology releases (external site)
- common/config/config.go (master): mainnet VBFT genesis configuration, default ports and block time (external site)
- common/constants/constants.go (master): token decimals, supply, release schedule, chain IDs and activation heights (external site)
- smartcontract/service/native/governance/governance.go (master) (external site)
- smartcontract/service/native/governance/method.go (master): candidate registration (external site)
- OWallet repository and README (external site)
- Candidate node deployment guide (Chinese): minimum hardware (external site)
- Sign Up to Run an Ontology Node (external site)
- Consensus Round (external site)
- Glossary (external site)
- EVM & Token Decimals Upgrade (external site)
- Types of smart contracts (external site)
- Web3 API (external site)
- Restful API Reference (external site)
- FAQ: Ontology Nodes (external site)
- Method Specification for Ontology (did:ont) (external site)
- ONT ID Contract API (ONT ID 2.0) (external site)
- Discover Ontology (external site)
- Explorer v2 API (external site)
- EVM contract wallet setup (MetaMask and PolyBridge) (external site)
- Ontology Monthly Report, March 2022 (external site)
- ONG Tokenomics Adjustment: ONG Is Now Capped at 800 Million (external site)
- Ontology Mainnet Has Resumed: Sync Nodes Required to Upgrade to v3.1.5 (external site)
- Ontology Mainnet Emergency Pause for Comprehensive Security Review (external site)
- Ontology Mainnet Pause: Security Update and Network Upgrade (external site)
- Ontology MainNet v3.1.2: Four Ethereum Opcodes Arrive on the Ontology EVM (external site)
- ONG Tokenomics Adjustment Proposal Passes Governance Vote (external site)
- Commit 60be4c5: burn 20% ONG (external site)
- Poly Network stories feed: Notice of Complete Termination of Poly Network Services (11 September 2024) (external site)
- DeFiLlama protocols API (Ontology and Ontology EVM entries) (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- Ontology Wallet (external site)
- @ledgerhq/cryptoassets 13.56.0 currency list (external site)
- Ontology wallet (external site)
- OWallet v0.10.2 release notes (Ledger Stax and Flex support) (external site)
- OWallet v0.10.4 release notes (gas price 500; Ledger app note) (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding