Ontology + Bison Trails

Product Offering

Why Choose Bison Trails

Participate with confidence based on Bison Trails’ experience and expertise with Ontology. Ontology’s Triones Node infrastructure was integrated to the Bison Trails platform in early 2020, enabling enterprises to launch nodes effortlessly without compromising technical standards or service levels.

• Easily integrate crypto into your business via Bison Trails’ easy-to-use node infrastructure
• Create your own interoperable blockchain business solution to facilitate business-to-business transactions with speed, security, and trust
• Run Triones Nodes to participate in consensus
• Access data from the Ontology blockchain to analyze trends and build robust applications
• Delegate your tokens to Bison Trails’ non-custodial public Triones Nodes
• Manage participation with guidance and insights from our protocol specialists

The future of enterprise blockchain involves enabling businesses that help drive transactions to easily participate in both the security and profitability of the chain they’ve chosen. The Bison Trails and Ontology partnership puts in place the foundation to catalyze adoption of the technology.

Joe Lallouz, CEO of Bison Trails

We are excited to be the first customer of the Bison Trails and Ontology node infrastructure solution and look forward to continued growth with the Bison Trails platform globally.

Ash Egan, Partner at Accomplice

An introduction to Ontology

Ontology is a public blockchain focused on enterprise participation in secure, high-speed, globally distributed business-to-business collaborations. It is specifically aimed at allowing companies with little or no knowledge of cryptoassets to integrate blockchain technology into their business’ tech and data offerings.

Ontology primarily offers “self-sovereign ID and data” solutions; the protocol includes a suite of decentralized identity and data (DID) conventions to allow users to manage their own data, enable blockchain-based authentication, and to make inter-business distributed cooperation possible with enhanced speed, security, and trust. Ontology is optimized for layer 2 scalability and cross-chain collaboration, allowing enterprises to create their own interoperable blockchain business solutions.

The Ontology Foundation is the organization in charge of overseeing the growth and success of the Ontology network, in addition to conducting governance, distributing rewards bonuses, enforcing good behavior, and approving consensus nodes to join the network.

How to participate on Ontology

Ontology operates on the Verifiable Byazantine Fault Tolerance (VBFT) consensus algorithm, a combination of proof of stake validation with two other consensus algorithms: Verifiable Random Function (VRF), which ensures randomness in consensus, and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT), a trustless method of ensuring the network functions even in the presence of malfunctioning or malicious nodes.

There are two forms of nodes in the Ontology network, triones nodes and synchronization nodes. Triones nodes, also referred to as “bookkeeping nodes,” are participation nodes that take part in consensus. Synchronization nodes do not participate in consensus, instead synchronizing the blocks created by Triones nodes. DApp developers building apps on top of Ontology may choose to run their own synchronization node in order to create a local database of the blockchain that the dApp has direct access to, as opposed to querying a Triones node whenever data is needed.

The protocol’s consensus functions with two interconnected consensus networks, the Consensus Network and the Consensus Candidate Network. The Consensus Network includes all consensus nodes that are actively engaged in the consensus process, including generating blocks, maintaining the state of the ledger, and sending finalized blocks to the Synchronization Node Network. Nodes within the Consensus Network are randomly chosen to participate in consensus, and to earn rewards in exchange for doing so, either as a proposal node, verification node, or confirmation node. Whether they are chosen, and which role they will fill, is based on the VRF consensus factor randomly selecting nodes that were not a part of the last block’s production.

The Consensus Candidate Network are nodes that do not participate in consensus, but instead stay in sync with the Consensus Network and maintain a real-time copy of Ontology’s ledger in their own ledger. Participation in the Consensus Network is maintained using consensus management smart contracts, which keep the consensus node list updated along with enforcing the VBFT algorithm.

The active set, or the Triones nodes that are a part of the Consensus Network, are the top seven consensus nodes with the most ONT staked, both self-bonded and delegated. The delegated staking of ONT to an active candidate node is the primary mechanism for nodes to be moved from the Candidate Network to the Consensus Network; within the protocol this is referred to as being “voted in by user staking of ONT.”

The eighth through 49th nodes by ONT staked are part of the Consensus Candidate Network, and are eligible to be moved up to the Consensus Network if their staked ONT increases to put them in the top seven nodes. The minimum stake requirement to spin up a candidate node in Ontology is 10,000 ONT and 500 ONG. However, all nodes must also be separately approved by the Ontology Foundation off-chain in order to enter the network as a candidate node.

Delegation within Ontology is referred to as “user staking.” The minimum amount of ONT to delegate is 1 ONT, reduced from the 500 ONT requirement at mainnet launch to encourage more users to participate in securing the network and earn ONG rewards. Rewards are automatically distributed by the protocol and can be withdrawn by the delegator following a 24 hour ‘freeze’ period. The unbonding period to withdraw one’s ONT is one round, approximately 120,000 blocks.

Rewards on Ontology

Ontology functions with the “Triones Node Incentive Model,” also referred to as the Ontology Cost Model. This model includes system fees, a fee charged for using the system’s computing resources, and network fees, or the transaction fee paid when submitting a transaction to the chain. The network rewards are split 50/50 between the Consensus Network nodes and the Consensus Candidate Network nodes; as there is a 1:6 ratio of Consensus Network:Candidate Network nodes, the nodes actively engaged in consensus receive a significantly higher portion of rewards than those that are candidates.

Additionally, for the first three years of the network’s operation the Ontology Foundation will be distributing 10 million ONG per year to the top 49 nodes in the network (those nodes included in the Consensus and Candidate Networks). The Foundation bonus is distributed proportionally to the amount of ONT staked to each node. It is up to each node operator’s discretion how much of the bonus they may choose to share with those users who have delegated stake to their node.

Node operators in Ontology can set two separate fee sharing ratios for those who have delegated to their node; one on their self-bonded stake and another on the delegated stake. For example, say a node operator sets their fee-sharing ratio for their initial (self-bonded) stake at 90%, and the fee-sharing ratio for their delegated stake at 40%; the operator will receive 90% of the transaction fees and released ONG generated (proportionally) by their self-bonded stake, and 40% of the transaction fees and released ONG generated (proportionally) by the ONT delegated to their node. Per this example, if 30% of their node’s stake is self-bonded and 70% is delegated, then they will retain 90% of 30% of their rewards as well as 40% of 70% of their node’s rewards, retaining a total of 55% of all rewards earned by the node.

Risks of participation on Ontology

If a node is identified to be acting maliciously in Ontology it is “blacklisted,” meaning that it can no longer participate in consensus. Blacklisting is an off-chain action controlled by the Ontology Foundation. There are no network metrics that will blacklist a node by default; the condition for blacklisting is malicious behavior as determined by the Foundation.

Two consensus rounds after being blacklisted, the blacklisted node is removed from the network and any self-bonded stake on the node is detained by the protocol. Delegation is not subject to loss in Ontology (other than the loss of potentially earned rewards), as any delegated stake on the node is returned to its owner before the blacklisted node is removed from the network. Blacklisted nodes can appeal to the Foundation’s network administrator; if the appeal is approved the node is brought back online and its detained, self-bonded ONT is returned to the node.

Governance on Ontology

There is no on-chain governance within Ontology. All network upgrades and protocol changes are initiated and determined by the Ontology Foundation, and are released to node operators in order to update the network.

Why run Ontology nodes with Bison Trails?

• Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure Security: As one of the most trusted names in the blockchain infrastructure industry, we have best-in-class security augmented by information, application, and incident management policies.
• Easy-to-Use Platform: We designed an intuitive user experience that is surprisingly simple given the complexity of the underlying technology. Our platform’s automatic node management workflow frees our customers from the worry of constantly checking or managing their active participation. We also keep our customers in full control.
• Infrastructure and Protocol Engineering Experts: We’re node, participatory infrastructure, and protocol experts. We test all software, infrastructure, and protocol upgrades on our own infrastructure first ensuring any breaking issues are caught well before propagating changes to our customers’ infrastructure.
• Protocol Knowledge: Our dedicated protocol specialists keep Bison Trails’ customers up-to-date about changes to the validator ecosystem. They provide advice, insights, and guidance that arms our customers with critical information to better manage their participation.
• Premium Provider: We are the world’s premier multi-cloud, multi-region infrastructure provider specializing in permissionless participatory networks.
• Custodian Agnostic: As a non-custodial infrastructure provider, we can work with you to participate in Ontology regardless of your custody solution.