Multichain Decentralized Knowledge Graph: AI-grade Knowledge Assets Hub on the OriginTrail Parachain

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OriginTrail

8 min readFeb 20, 2023

This blogpost outlines the next development milestones within the scope of the multichain strategy pursued by the OriginTrail ecosystem and amends relevant sections of the roadmap pertaining to the OriginTrail Parachain development and its overarching role in devising a future blueprint for allowing more blockchain networks to integrate the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG).

The OriginTrail technology presents a unique two-layer decentralized system, designed for sharing trusted data as AI-grade knowledge assets made discoverable across the Internet. The core component, OriginTrail Decentralized Network hosts the multichain Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG), integrated with multiple blockchains. With each blockchain connected to the DKG, the DKG semantic features of Knowledge Assets are enabled on that particular chain.

AI-grade Knowledge Assets are a new, dynamic resource for the Internet

The next generation DKG V6 is following the expected growth trajectory, with OriginTrail Parachain underpinning its cutting-edge features. The key innovation V6 brings are dynamic AI-grade Knowledge Assets, with prescribed ownership, designed to drive unprecedented potential network effects as they gain existence on the new DKG V6. The AI-grade knowledge asset represents a leapfrog innovation as a new, dynamic resource on the Internet with the following main features:

Ownership through the non-fungible token (NFT): Each Knowledge Asset is created with an NFT token (inaugurally on the OriginTrail Parachain), enabling trusted ownership of the underlying structured knowledge;
Verifiability: Each Knowledge Asset state can be verified using a cryptographic proof on the blockchain;
Discoverability: Each Knowledge Asset has its own Unique Asset Locator (UAL), similar to how websites have URLs;
Asset knowledge graph: Knowledge Assets have AI-grade data structure and their growing knowledge graph can be private and public (e.g. metadata/indexing data is always public, the rest of the knowledge can be kept privately), thus capable of powering AI and ML algorithms in a fully decentralized manner;
Composability: Due to their underlying vehicle — the DKG, each Knowledge Asset can be connected to others to form a connected knowledge about anything (scientific research, supply chains, value transactions, IoT data…) and establish an unprecedented potential for the value generation based on the Metcalfe’s law on network effects.

You may learn about the growing number of solutions and industries that are being positively impacted by the knowledge assets here.

Multichain approach

The multichain approach, envisioned in the initial 2017 whitepaper, embodies the 3 key principles of the ecosystem — neutrality, inclusiveness and usability — driving the DKG expansion to blockchain ecosystems that benefit from the unique capabilities of the Decentralized Knowledge Graph.

With the recent launch of DKG V6 on the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot, the DKG receives an additional, tailored blockchain environment to both further innovation on the DKG, as well as to devise new means and approaches to expand the infrastructure and creation of Knowledge Assets on other blockchains (Polkadot Parachains and EVM compatible networks alike). The potential value of knowledge assets interconnected across blockchain networks integrated in the DKG, will grow according to Metcalfe’s law of network effects.

After DKG V6 inaugural launch on ecosystem’s own L1 — the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot, an important milestone was achieved, as this DKG-specific blockchain became both an AI-grade Knowledge Assets Hub for innovations in the semantic web space as well as an acceleration environment for developing new approaches for expanding the DKG to other EVM-capable blockchains (multichain strategy, starting with Polkadot Parachains). Each expansion will be decided within the OriginTrail community through an auction-like selection process (the blueprint to be rolled out in the Metcalfe phase of OriginTrail’s roadmap).

With nearly 85 million TRAC utility tokens teleported to the OriginTrail Parachain (23% of circulating supply) to provide utility needed on the DKG V6, we now aim to address the following topics under the scope of the multi chain strategy within the Turing phase of the roadmap:

Strengthening decentralization for the OriginTrail Parachain,
OriginTrail Parachain Token (OTP) availability,
OriginTrail multichain growth.

Strengthening decentralization for the OriginTrail Parachain

In the Turing phase of the roadmap, we will see the OriginTrail Parachain reach its maturity as a decentralized blockchain. This will be achieved by initiating the OriginTrail Parachain collators system, OriginTrail Parachain’s governance system and performing the sudo removal process.

Both collators and governance systems will be introduced through an RFC document open for inputs from stakeholders before their deployment on the OriginTrail Parachain testnet and mainnet. Both will also follow the good practices that we’ve already seen established in the Polkadot community and leverage some of the battle-tested components.

Successful integration of both components will be followed by the sudo key removal process, which will be detailed in the Governance RFC document.

RFCs pertaining to strengthening decentralization topics are planned to be released in March.

OriginTrail Parachain Token (OTP) Availability

As described in the OriginTrail whitepaper, OTP’s basic utility is to facilitate the transactions in the OriginTrail consensus layer (similar to ETH used on Ethereum). With the inaugural deployment of the OriginTrail DKG V6 on the OriginTrail Parachain, there has also been a growing need to access OTP to use the DKG v6 functionalities. Partially, this has already been addressed through the OTP bounty distributed during the TRAC Teleport process. Additionally, there are 4 other important developments coming in the Turing phase — the OTP sponsorship pallet, XCM enablement, OTP availability on Statemint (in line with their roadmap), and Ledger hardware wallet support for OTP.

The OTP sponsorship pallet’s aim is to support the knowledge asset users by “sponsoring” the costs of gas fees for Knowledge Asset interactions (create, update, transfer) on the OriginTrail Parachain. By doing so, the core functionalities of the DKG v6 will be accessible to anyone even before additional options to obtain OTP tokens are available. The sponsorship pallet will substitute the need for a converter on the OriginTrail Parachain and will, before deployment, be also introduced in an RFC document detailing its implementation.

Another important milestone for OTP availability which will take place in the Turing phase is integration with Statemint via XCM. The exact timeline is largely dependent on the Statemint roadmap but is expected to happen in the coming months. This will allow anyone to obtain OTP on the decentralized exchange and transfer it to the OriginTrail Parachain using XCM to be used for DKG and OriginTrail Parachain functionalities.

Final availability milestone in the Turing phase is a dedicated OTP app on Ledger devices. We can confirm that through our collaboration with Zondax, we have submitted the final version of the OTP app for review with the Ledger team. Follow our Twitter for any updates on the review process timeline.

OriginTrail Multichain Growth

The fact that the OriginTrail DKG is a network integrating with multiple chains has already proven valuable for efficiency and resiliency of the OriginTrail ecosystem. With the launch of the new OriginTrail V6 in December, we are also turning a new page in the OriginTrail Multichain approach, ensuring that the Knowledge Assets and its functionalities can be accessed across more blockchain ecosystems.

Opening access to blockchains other than the OriginTrail Parachain will start within the Polkadot ecosystem (leveraging the core Polkadot capabilities), followed by possibilities of other EVM-compatible blockchains to integrate with DKG as well. In the Turing phase, we are expecting 3 important developments in this process — the conclusion of the TRAC teleport process, integration with the Polkadot Snowbridge system and detailing the DKG integration capabilities and requirements for Polkadot Parachains.

The Teleport process for TRAC tokens started last August and has so far seen over 84 million TRAC get transferred from Ethereum to the OriginTrail Parachain (23% of circulating supply). The teleported TRAC tokens are used to fuel the DKG functionality on the OriginTrail Parachain and have been implemented as a native token on Polkadot, allowing it to leverage all other Polkadot capabilities (including XCM transfers between Polkadot parachains). Teleport will conclude on 22nd of March 2023 with a total of up to 100 million TRAC having the possibility to be teleported from Ethereum to the OriginTrail Parachain.

Following the teleport process, there are no planned movements of TRAC between Polkadot and Ethereum until the Polkadot-supported Snowbridge infrastructure is in place. Their treasury proposal suggests a Polkadot deployment of the infrastructure in July 2023, which would be the requirement for further integration with TRAC to take place with an RFC detailing the process available before that, in the Turing phase of the OriginTrail roadmap.

Finally, the Turing phase will also see more details on how the OriginTrail DKG can get integrated on other parachains in the Polkadot ecosystem, allowing the first wave of multi-chain network effects. While all the details on the approach will be available at a later stage, it is expected that the approach will leverage core Polkadot capabilities like XCM.

Towards a human-centric knowledge economy

With the advent of AI-grade Knowledge Assets as the new resource on the Internet made possible with the DKG V6, the potential to spawn a human-centric knowledge economy has become a possibility. Each Knowledge Asset gaining existence on the DKG is discoverable and verifiable across the universe of otherwise disconnected systems, which constantly expands the value potential based on the Metcalfe’s law of network effects and then materializes in connections generated to form connected knowledge about anything.

The AI-grade Knowledge Assets hub on the OriginTrail Parachain is now envisaged to spawn new methods to bring the powers of the DKG to other parachains on Polkadot as well as any EVM-compatible blockchain, furthering network effects across a multiverse of communities. Upon validation of each reusable component within the OriginTrail-specific blockchain environment, more Web3 teams will gain a chance to leapfrog their value proposition with these strong semantic web fundamentals.

Join our mission in making the global economy work, by organizing the AI-grade Knowledge Assets!

👇 More about OriginTrail 👇

OriginTrail is an ecosystem dedicated to making the global economy work sustainably by organizing trusted AI — grade knowledge assets. It leverages the open source Decentralized Knowledge Graph that connects the physical world (art, healthcare, fashion, education, supply chains, …) and the digital world (blockchain, smart contracts, Metaverse & NFTs, …) in a single connected reality driving transparency and trust.

Advanced knowledge graph technology currently powers trillion-dollar companies like Google and Facebook. By reshaping it for Web3, the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph provides a crucial fabric to link, verify, and value data on both physical and digital assets.