there is a video link at the end for those who prefer an audio version

Blockchain is a really great technology with many great features. But as a technology, it is really different from legacy systems (meaning the main systems of the world) that the two have difficulties communicating with each other. And that is one of the major deterrents to mass adoption of blockchain technology.

Oneledger introduces itself as “A Universal Blockchain Protocol Enabling Cross-ledger Access through Business Modularization”

In simple terms what this means is that Oneledger it is a blockchain project that focuses on being a bridge between blockchain and legacy systems particularly businesses. For those who are more familiar with the crypto scene, we call this type of project, a project that focuses on interoperability.

There are many different interoperability projects in the market, each of them will try to build that bridge between legacy systems and blockchain by different means. The key to understanding what makes an interoperability project unique, is to understand what type of bridge they are building.

For E.g. Wanchain does it by providing services.
Ontology does so by creating a trust system and universal ID.
ICON creates smart contracts for smart contracts etc…

OneLedger builds the bridge in three parts, an API, the protocol and the sidechains. If you understand these three aspects, you understand what Oneledger is all about. For this reason, I will start this review by giving you a simple explanation of their tech.

The first aspect we will talk about is their API gateway.

An API is essential an app for an app. An example is your Uber App. On your Uber app you will have various features e.g. an identification feature, a GPS feature, an ordering and payment feature. All of these features are APIs, not apps.

The significance of OneLedger connecting to legacy systems via APIs is the businesses can continue to use whatever legacy system they are using e.g. SAP for their accounting, and all they need to do is install an API into their accounting software, so there is an option in their existing software they can click to send the information to the OneLedger API gateway. This is vastly difference from projects that build a blockchain app and expect the new business to stop using their current working system and swap over to a new app they are completely unfamiliar with. So the API makes Oneledger as a blockchain project very easy to be adopted.

There are only a few projects in the blockchain space that do this currently e.g SophiaTx, but not many, I think projects with these feature will potentially be very attractive to businesses, because they are not asking business to come to the blockchain world, they are bringing the blockchain to businesses and thus minimising cost and risk.

Now before I dive into the protocol and side chains which are the other two parts of OneLedger, I want to explain briefly the difference between Protocol and Platform. Many times when we review blockchain platform projects, we use these terms interchangeably. But understanding the subtle difference between the two will help us to understand OneLedger.

A platform is the technology on which other programs or blockchains are built upon.

A protocol is the system of rules that govern the communication.

So for example, if you’re using a windows PC, Windows is your platform and the language which it uses to communicate with the programs is called the protocol.

In the case of OneLedger, the side chains which we will talk about later, are the blockchains that are built on the platform, but the protocol which we are going to discuss now, is the main communication engine.

The protocol itself has a few interesting features. The first is the smart identity management platform. So in blockchain, a person’s identity can be considered their key. A person has a private key and a public key. The public key is what you show others and they can use that key or address to send you funds. The private key is what you hold secret and you use this to send others fund.

As a protocol, oneledger aims to connect the legacy systems to multiple different blockchains e.g. bitcoin, ethereum etc… each of these blockchains will produce at least one public key for the user. Instead of dealing with each individual key/ identity, Oneledger creates a master key for each individual in its protocol. This key can serve both public and private purporses and can also interact with any of the public keys on another blockchain.

Another interesting feature they have is known as the Chaincode service.

So at some point, business may wish to develop their own Dapps (decentralised apps). When this happens, depending on which platform they wish to interact with e.g. bitcoin, neo, ethereum etc.. they have to write and deploy smart contacts in multiple languages. Because each platform utilises a different language.

Oneledger is developing an SDK that will function as a master contract which will be a master copy of the contract that can be easily translated into each language of choice.

The third feature they have is called programming interface.

Remember how we said that legacy systems will interact with the protocol via APIs? The programming interface is like a library of available APIs, but also the librarian that manages those APIs.

Now let’s talk about the platform aspect of Oneledger. So the side chains.

Where normally after having a protocol, the protocol will facilitate communication with the Oneledger blockchain full stop.

Here Oneledger is blockchain agnostic, meaning it will allow and facilitate communications with various other blockchains to allow users to have the choice of utilising the benefits of many other blockchains.

It does this by building side chains, which are mini blockchains for each user and each blockchain they want to communicate with. The only requirement they need the other cryptocurrency to use what is known as HTLC (or hashed time lock contracts) to synchronise with the side chain, and HTLC is a technology compatible with most cryptocurrencies use.

Basically by using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and identity management, business owners can launch their own permissioned or permissionless sidechains, with their own unique network consensus.

The Oneledger project uses a three layer concensus in order to enable to integrate effectively with different blockchain products.

The first concensus is the business initialisation which is basically a contract to define the roles and behaviour or business participation. This contract is then deployed as a smart contract which is run by nodes within Oneledger.

The second concensus is the Oneledger Channel Concensus and this is the part of the concensus that executes the interactions. And this will utilise a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) partial sync where all participants on the sidechain need to vote and a concensus of more than 2/3 is required to go ahead.

The third layer is the public chain concensus which helps to transfer assests/ data across chains. Once again, 2/3 of the sidechain notes must validate the transaction.

And that’s basically the tech of Oneledger summarised. Feel free to dive into their whitepaper for more details.

I think the tech is actually quite complicated because there is so many different aspects to this project. But if does succeed, it will be very attractive because they will be offering multiple features on a single platform. Potential use cases include:

• Ease of deploying Dapps,
• Being able to move business traffic with high performance, meaning they will be more attractive to big businesses
• They offer cross-chain accesss in a transparent and tracebale manner and
• Which opens them up for uses like asset identification and transparent flow e.g. donation processing,
• Or business flow solutions e.g. supply chain and ecommerce flow.

They don’t have a prototype yet or working product, so all of this is still conceptual. But their first minimal viable product or prototype is due to be released next month, so that will really capture attention if they can released a working product with the potential of the above use cases.

Team:

This is their team. It’s an impressive team that definitely knows what they are doing.

The guy leading the project is David Cao—their CEO. He has over 10 years of enterprise architect experience, he’s also worked on a magnitude of technical projects for several Fortune 500 enterprises. He also previously worked at IBM Toronto Lab on the development of DB2 and WebSphere Commerce core engine. As a specialist in supply chain, payments, e-commerce, and as an experienced J2EE enterprise architect, David has helped large enterprises grow exponentially, including Home Depot, Sears, and Toshiba. He is currently an active member in both the Hyperledger and blockchain community.

Alex Todd Chief Technology Advisor Alex is a pioneer in the fintech and entrepreneurial space. He is the Founder and CEO of Trust 2 Pay, and former CTO of PRESTO where he led the creation of innovative industry engagement programs in support of the 10-year business model roadmap contributing to an estimated value of $200M+ over five years. Alex has spent his career exploring business opportunities in the emerging and disruptive technologies space, and is currently launching a social enterprise that uses blockchain technology to help 5 billion working-age people prosper by making financial resources more accessible.

Stephen Li Lead Engineer Stephen is a senior software developer and a subject-matter expert in distributed application innovation. He is a former senior consultant for Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. He also worked in IBM and Microsoft. Stephen has a deep understanding of both frontend and backend systems through development and architecture, and has an interest in the application of high-performance computing. He is also embracing the blockchain revolution and has become an expert in Solidity smart contract development on Ethereum.

And you can go through the website and their individual linkedin profiles for more information, but they definitely come across as a reliable team.

Advisors:

These are their advisors, includes notable names like Trevor Koverko who is the CEO of Digital Assets International, and the CEO of Polymath Network and one of the most successful angel investors in Canada.

Also Matthew Neimerg, a former IBM Center of Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow in High Performance Computing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Sam Onat Yilmaz, a veteran venture investor primarily in the fintech and biotech verticals. He co-founded the DApps fund, which is the first digital currency denominated fund that invested in Factom, Ethereum, Maidsafe and other early tokens

Mervyn Chng who is a managing partner and CIO at his own venture firm, and he focuses on infrastructure and “fat protocols” with early stage multi million dollar investments in RChain, Zilliqa, Bluzelle, Elastos, Dragonchain, POA, Wanchain, Theta, Chainlink and others like Quantstamp, Gifto, Kyber Network. With years of Cryptocurrency experience, he specializes in helping projects through the entire ICO process from whitepaper to token sales structure and connections with the top influencers, reviewers, funds and exchanges.

So not only are these guys very experienced and have a great track record in picking winning blockchain projects, they are also very well connected and helping to support the Oneledger project both internally and externally.

Partners and investors:

Similarly under partners and investors we see a lot of capital firms, and that re-confirms that a lot of big professional investors are interested in this project which is a great sign for lay investors like us.

Token distribution:

This is their token distribution. Key things to take note here are 35% sale distribution and the company reserve is only 10% not a crazy amount like 90% in some other distributions. With the exception of the public sale, everything else has a lock in periods ranging 12-24months and the lock ins will also be slowly released either monthly or quarterly for different groups. This staggered release of funds is great and avoids sudden dumps.

Now, the most attractive thing to me about this ICO is the very low hard cap. A hard cap is the maxium amount of money this project can raise. And it is set at only $15 million USD. This is very very low. A high profile project like this with a strong social community (Telegram group current over 16k members) I would have imagined a hard cap between $30-50 million. The low hardcap means 2 things.

1. A lot of people are going to miss out or not buy as much as they would like

2. There is likely going to be a FOMO when the coin first hits the market. This is also considering the fact that because it is an ICO which means potential investors from China/ USA etc will not be eligible for the ICO and can only get in once it hits the exchanges.

Given there is no lock-in for those who buy at public sale, I foresee potentially a lot of trading the lay investor level when the token first hits the market. I’m personally keen to try and get in on this.

Just yesterday, the company announced that they would be reducing the token price to 10% of its original planned cost, but compensating for it by increasing the token supply 10x. This means the token price will be around $0.052 at ICO. I am not sure what this means because the overall hardcap remains the same. So proportionally actually the token hasn’t changed in value. It just sounds cheaper, its not really cheaper because the increased token supply diluted the value.

The KYC will be happening on 12pm, 9th May EST and end on 12pm 16th May EST. It is first come first serve basis and I would be very surprised if it doesn’t get filled up way before the 16th of May.

The requirements for the KYC include

• Photo ID
• Selfie
• Proof of residential address
• Etherum address
• Description of source of funds

So pretty standard KYC.

However, the KYC is tied to an ambassador program. Which means not everyone gets the same allocation of allowed ICO investment. The amount you can invest will be influenced by how much you advertise the ICO and there are different Tiers of grading. So the more ambassador points you have, the more you can buy at ICO stage. Check out their telegram group for the links and more details.

Roadmap:

One last thing to cover before we end, and that is their roadmap:

There are a few upcoming events, the most notable is their minimal viable product due in June. June or July would be when I would guess they will hit the exchanges so the end of Q2 is when I expect a lot of hype and FOMO for this coin on the market.

Q3 is massive technological milestones, basically everything from API to identity management system to smart contract system etc… and 2019 is when the first version of the Oneledger platform will be released.

My final opinion on this project is, I personally think in the short term, because of its very low hardcap and no lock-in period, and the fact that it is a great product with a great team behind it, it is a very promising ICO with high short term potential profits.

In the long term, it will be really depend on two things:

1. That they can actually deliver a working product. I think many investors underestimate how hard it is to deliver a working blockchain product. Until a MVP is released, a project remains a very risky investment at best to me personally.

2. Secondly will be market penetration. OneLedger sounds like a very good project, but there are also already other very good projects like WANCHAIN in the space with slightly quicker roadmaps than Oneledger. It’s still early days for Crypto, but people are starting to snatch up big partnerships, so moving forward, the success of the Oneledger will really come down to whether they can establish market penetration. The thing they have going for them is a strong team of advisors with a lot of blockchain connections.

The other thing that will also affect adoption of the project is the kind of ledger systems their APIs can be implemented into. ERP especially SAP program. I am assuming that is one of the first programs that Oneledger will target with its API, but it is not actually stated which programs they will start building APIs for. It is no point building an API that only 10 companies use. Moving forward, if I was an investor, this is probably something I would like the team to clarify.

That’s it guys. Those are my thoughts on Oneledger. This is not a professional opinon or advice, it is merely my personal opinions and thoughts as I research this project for myself. Always do your own research and make your own decision.
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