Ontology (ONT)
Ontology ranks #85 of 484 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #491: 406 of the 490 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 499 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 48% are tokens, 44% are claims on other assets, 7% are memecoins and under 1% are NFT collections.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | A · 66/100 · provisional, B to A |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #85 |
| Rank counting claims | #491 |
| Market capitalisation | $41M |
| Price | $0.0412 |
| Circulating supply | 1,000,000,000 ONT |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | VBFT (PoS) |
| Ledger type | Multi-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
Market figures from the 10 November 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
CoinSpectrum Grade (Source)
A — 66 out of 100, provisional (from 9 of 10 sections, 10 November 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 55 to 74 (B to A).
| Section and criteria | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Consensus | 9.1 | average of 2 criteria |
| By leader (its largest chain's market cap) (Source) | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| By family (all its chains' market cap) (Source) | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Supply | 7.5 | the supply scale times 0.9, and a point for a fixed cap that holds |
| Supply (21 million scores 10) | 8.3 | no fixed maximum; 1 billion in circulation |
| Distribution | 5.7 | average of 3 parts |
| Holder concentration (Source) | – | Not yet measured |
| Active addresses | – | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 0 | 100% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. All 1B ONT were minted in the genesis block (2018) and the supply is fixed and indivisible: 28% institutional partners, 25% ecosystem fund, 15% core team, 12% community, 10% NEO Council, 10% technical community rewards (CoinGecko total 1B). source |
| Fundraising (share sold) (Source) | 7.2 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 28% of supply sold. The 28% institutional-partners bucket (280M ONT) was sold in the Q1 2018 private placement (reportedly ~$0.20/ONT); the NEO Council, team and ecosystem shares and the NEO-holder airdrop were not sold. 280M / 1,000,000,000 ONT fixed supply = 28.0%. No public sale; a private placement to institutional partners (28% bucket) closed in Q1 2018, reportedly at $0.20 per ONT; 20M ONT were airdropped to NEO holders from the NEO Council's 10%. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. No ONT issuance: all 1B ONT were minted at genesis and the supply is fixed. ONG is released to ONT holders and stakers, not to a developer or treasury share. source |
| Decentralisation | 5 | average of 3 parts |
| Governance (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No freeze, blacklist or clawback power over ONT located; no halts on record. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The Ontology Foundation (Onchain-founded) maintains the only node, ontio/ontology (LGPL-3.0), and the roadmap. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 5 | Gated by stake rank: only a capped set of the largest stakes produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | – | Not yet counted |
| Security | 5.6 | 4.4 of 8 points source |
| Pool diversity (Largest pool 50% 0 to 20% 10, largest three 90% 0 to 50% 10; 2 points) | 5.5 | largest 46.17%, largest three 50.81% |
| Network activity (Transactions a day, 250 0, 500,000 or more 10; 2 points) | 2.7 | about 1,882 transactions a day |
| Hashrate (Own work 5, its power 1 kW 0 to 10 GW 5; 1 point) | 1 | not mined: another consensus, 1 |
| Clients (Separate code and teams 10, separate code or teams 9, a fork by the same team or a stale second 8; one client: a new version within 12 months 7, 24 months 6, none in 24 months 5, none in 48 months 3; a second in development +0.5, a second seen running +1, 8 at most with one client; chain ended 0; 1 point) | 7 | one client, latest version Oct 2026 |
| Open source (Node software) | ✓ | |
| No 51% attack (Nor a deep reorganisation, five years) | ✓ | |
| Scalability | — | too few measures yet source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | – | not yet measured |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 121, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | – | not yet measured |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 0 | a block every 1 second |
| Block space per 10 minutes (24 MB or more 10: the ten busiest networks' median demand, 16.4 MB, and half again for growth) | – | not yet measured |
| Features (3 checks) | 0 | 0 of 1 passed, 2 not yet researched |
| Fast payments (Safe to accept within seconds · Whitepaper abstract, §1, §2 and §11) | – | VBFT finalises each block deterministically, but blocks are produced on demand (about 3,400-4,200 a day, ~23 s on average), and the time to inclusion for a new payment was not established. |
| Pruned nodes (Old history dropped, every rule checked · Whitepaper §7) | – | No documented pruning mode found. |
| Light clients (Payments verified from headers · Whitepaper §8) | ✗ | No light client that checks Ontology consensus ships for users; wallets trust the nodes they query. |
| Privacy | 3.5 | 3.5 of 10: whitepaper privacy 3.5 of 7, extra features 0 of 3, 1 not yet researched source |
| Protocol level privacy (Keys not tied to an identity · Whitepaper §10) | 10 | Anyone can create keys and receive and send coins; the protocol carries no identity check. |
| UTXO ledger (Separate outputs, change to a new address · Whitepaper §2, §9) | 0 | An account ledger: one running balance for each address, so the remainder stays at the sending address and its payments share one public history. |
| HD addresses (A new address for each payment, unlinked · Whitepaper §10) | – | |
| Hidden amounts (Amounts confidential) | 0 | No confidential transactions. |
| Hidden parties (Sender and receiver hidden) | 0 | No sender or receiver hiding. |
| Network privacy (Origin hidden by default) | 0 | Ontology nodes relay transactions directly. |
| Programmability | 8.9 | 8 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance (At protocol level) | 2 | OEP-4 contracts on NeoVM/Wasm and ERC-20 contracts on its EVM (since 2022), open to any account. |
| Smart contracts (General-purpose) | 2 | NeoVM and Wasm contracts, plus an EVM on mainnet since March 2022 (block 13,920,000), open to any account. |
| Multisig and time locks (Without a third party) | ✓ | Multisig and timelock contracts on its EVM, NeoVM and Wasm engines. |
| Atomic swaps (With other chains) | ✓ | EVM HTLC contracts (hash lock plus timelock refund). |
| Native DEX (Trades the coin itself, not a claim) | ✓ | Traded as itself, not as a wrapped token or a claim: its own chain's DEXes (OntologyEVM, DefiLlama). |
| Cross-chain messaging (Verified by the chain itself) | ✗ | No protocol messaging to other chains; bridges such as Poly Network are third-party. |
| NFTs (Carried by the chain's rules) | ✓ | OEP-5 (ERC-721 analogue) NFT contracts and ERC-721 on the EVM. |
| Demand | 6 | average of 7 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 31 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 4 | $1,210,869 traded in 24 hours; #654 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $953,626) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 7.8 | 1.9% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (±2% of the price ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 8.5 | $141,255 within 2% of the price on 6 exchanges, 0.34% of its market cap, median of the last 15 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 4 | $41M, 4 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 7 | futures, options and margin positions 8.8% of its market cap |
| Wallet support (wallets that hold it, 10 or more: 10) | 1 | its own node and wallet, counted as 1: no wallet in the site's directory lists it yet |
| Record | 8 | average of 3 criteria |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 8 | 8 full years since 2018-03-08, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, fixes, vulnerabilities) | 7 | 3 positive, 0 negative, 3 not yet researched source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 60 commits in 6 of the last 12 months (github.com/ontio/ontology); ontio/ontology latest release v1.18.0, 2026-10-22; 5 stable releases in 24 months. |
| Shipped a security fix in two years, +1 | ✓ | fixed the flaw behind the exploit of 2026-08-31 |
| Exploit of the chain, 2026-08-31, flaw fixed (the security fix above) | ✓ | Malicious attack activity targeting the network made Ontology's core team and validators stop block production at block 20,770,893; it resumed about 2 Sep 2026 after a mandatory node upgrade to v3.1.5, with no user assets reported lost. cryptoslate.com cryptoslate.com |
| Not yet researched | ||
| Shipped a privacy improvement in two years | – | |
| Shipped a scaling upgrade in two years | – | |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years | – | |
| Conduct (origin, claims, halts) | 9 | 2 positive, 3 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| Negative record | ||
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2024-05-20 | ✗ | Block production halted because some consensus nodes had improper settings; resumed after developers and node operators fixed the configuration (duration not disclosed). cryptowisser.com |
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2026-08-31 | ✗ | Core team and validators suspended mainnet block production after block 20,770,893 (08:24 UTC) over a security concern that became confirmed malicious activity; resumed about 2 Sep 2026 with sync nodes required to upgrade to v3.1.5. cryptoslate.com cryptoslate.com ont.io |
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2026-10-10 | ✗ | Mainnet block production suspended with consensus nodes after an urgent security report about an ecosystem project; resumed 12 Oct 2026 after about 41-43 hours. news.bitcoin.com |
Ten sections, weighted equally, each 0 to 10: consensus (the two ladders), supply (the supply scale and a fixed cap that holds), distribution (premine, fundraising, developer share, holders), decentralisation (governance, no central team, who can mint, nodes), security, scalability, privacy, programmability (what the scripting layer can do beyond the whitepaper's payment system), demand, and record (age, development, conduct). They are built from the criteria in the second table: privacy, scalability, security and decentralisation are the Cryptocurrency Standards among them, as follows: privacy (the whitepaper's three checks a base of 7 of 10, three extra features up to 3 more), scalability (four measures and three features), security (pool diversity, network activity, hashrate, clients and two checks) and decentralisation (governance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share); programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) follows them, and supply and demand are two: the supply, scored against 21 million, and demand, the average of seven measures of the market and the wallets. Provisional: parts marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
Proof of Stake coins
Ethereum ETHA+
BNB BNBA
Solana SOLA+
Oasis ROSEB
Nano XNOA
Polymesh POLYXB
Concordium CCDBAll Proof of Stake chains →Proof of Work coins
Bitcoin BTCA+
Zcash ZECA+
Dogecoin DOGEA+
Monero XMRA+
Bitcoin Cash BCHA++
Litecoin LTCA+
Ethereum Classic ETCAAll Proof of Work chains →Supply
1,000,000,000 ONT are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
Launch and allocation
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 28% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Fundraising | Private or venture funding |
All 1B ONT were minted in the genesis block (2018) and the supply is fixed and indivisible: 28% institutional partners, 25% ecosystem fund, 15% core team, 12% community, 10% NEO Council, 10% technical community rewards (CoinGecko total 1B).
No public sale; a private placement to institutional partners (28% bucket) closed in Q1 2018, reportedly at $0.20 per ONT; 20M ONT were airdropped to NEO holders from the NEO Council's 10%.
The 28% institutional-partners bucket (280M ONT) was sold in the Q1 2018 private placement (reportedly ~$0.20/ONT); the NEO Council, team and ecosystem shares and the NEO-holder airdrop were not sold. 280M / 1,000,000,000 ONT fixed supply = 28.0%.
No ONT issuance: all 1B ONT were minted at genesis and the supply is fixed. ONG is released to ONT holders and stakers, not to a developer or treasury share.
Sources: neonewstoday.com · altfins.com · crypto.com · docs.ont.io · ont.io · neonewstoday.com. Researched 2026-10-24, medium confidence.
What a regulator has said
No SEC/CFTC determination — unclassified.
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
How CoinSpectrum ranks Ontology
Ontology is #85 among cryptocurrencies and #491 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 406 places between Ontology's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).