OriginTrail yearly report — 2022 | TOWARDS AI-GRADE KNOWLEDGE ASSETS

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OriginTrail

26 min readApr 7

The year 2022 has been a momentous one for the OriginTrail ecosystem, marked by significant progress in the development of solutions created in collaboration with our partners, groundbreaking technological advancements, and the successful achievement of project milestones. Additionally, we have undertaken numerous marketing initiatives and garnered significant media coverage throughout the year. This comprehensive report provides an in-depth analysis of all these achievements and highlights the substantial growth of our ecosystem. Notably, we have updated our ecosystem map reflecting the significant expansion of our ecosystem. Through this report, we invite the OriginTrail community and everyone interested to join us on a journey of exploration and discovery, as we delve into the various accomplishments of the OriginTrail ecosystem in the past year.

Decentralized Knowledge Graph adoption update

BSI solutions

In early 2022, Trace Labs gained recognition in Interface Magazine for its partnership with BSI and the innovative solutions that the team is currently developing. These include SCAN, designed to secure security audits for more than 21,000 factories in South-East Asia, Training Certificates solution, AidTrust for donated medicines, and several other notable projects.

Since its inception in 2021 AidTrust, the solution co-developed by BSI and Trace Labs, has been bringing transparency and trust to pharmaceutical supply chains. AidTrust utilizes the power of OriginTrail DKG, which transforms data related to events, locations, vaccines and more into verifiable and discoverable Web3 assets. To gain wider awareness, BSI’s Courtney Soulsby and OriginTrail’s Ziga Drev presented the AidTrust milestones and work behind the scenes at the WEF Davos adjacent conference held by Polkadot. While we were approaching the DKG V6 launch, we reached an important milestone of 4000+ vials dispensed to patients in India and 25 locations active there, with the rollout to additional 40 countries. With the V6 release in December last year we started migrating AidTrust to the new network allowing the AidTrust data to become verifiable, discoverable and composable Knowledge Assets on the OriginTrail DKG. Learn more in this article published on BSI’s blog on how AidTrust is building transparency into pharmaceutical supply chains with discoverable and verifiable Web3 assets, secured on the OriginTrail DKG. More information on the solution is available also here.

SCAN Trusted Factory is the solution that harnesses OriginTrail DKG to secure security audits of over 22k factories across Asia for the largest retailers like Home Depot and Walmart. After receiving an upgrade of auditors being able to verify that they have an up-to-date level of SCAN audit training in 2021, last year we observed the growing number of audit assets being secured on the OriginTrail DKG. Last summer it went up from 30K to 35K in only 3 months. As all other solutions, SCAN will be also migrated to V6 with its release in December, where the numbers of audits assets will have new capabilities.

Trace Labs and BSI joined the Innovate UK consortium to work on the Trusted Bytes project to develop new digital solutions for the food and trade industry utilizing the OriginTrail DKG. In 2022, the project reached its second year of maturity, as BSI and Trace Labs worked closely with the consortium to develop cutting-edge solutions aimed at improving supply chain transparency and security. This partnership has resulted in significant advancements in the food and trade industry, paving the way for a more secure and sustainable future for businesses and consumers alike. In September 2022 BSI published a blog post showcasing how OriginTrail DKG is used to facilitate international trade of goods crossing borders and digitize UK’s fresh produce supply chains.

In 2022, Trace Labs and BSI continued to make significant progress with the Training Certificates solution, which uses OriginTrail technology to transform BSI training certificates into Web3 assets secured on the DKG.Trace Labs announced in March 2022 that 12.5K certificates had already been secured on the OriginTrail DKG, and by September, the number had increased to 30K certificates. Towards the end of 2022, Trace Labs announced that the solution would be migrating to DKG v6 and would be empowering over 200k individuals annually by issuing their certificates as Web3 assets on the DKG.

Trace Labs and BSI continued their collaboration with Church of Oak in 2022, building upon the progress made in 2021 with the completion of the immersive experience application and collection of farm data as part of the NGI Atlantic data marketplace project. The distilling process began in 2022 after the construction of the distillery in Monasterevin was finalized in 2021, with OriginTrail DKG serving as the backbone for ensuring trust and transparency for each bottle of whiskey, from grain to glass.

The supporter for all these solutions is the new version of nOS launched at the end of 2022, that allows siloed and poorly interoperable data be transformed into real world knowledge assets on the OriginTrail V6 network, where assets are made discoverable and verifiable. Check out the nOS demo that was presented by the Trace Labs team as part of the DKG V6 launch event.

GS1

In 2021, Trace Labs continued its engagement in the GS1 EPCIS and CBV 2.0 working group, contributing to the development and validation of the new supply chain event visibility standard. As predicted, the EPCIS 2.0 standard was finalized and officially released. In Q1 2022, Trace Labs deployed the first OriginTrail DKG solutions utilizing EPCIS 2.0, delivering enhanced supply chain transparency and traceability for clients.

Trace Labs has since partnered with several other organizations to implement the new GS1 standard. For example, Swiss Railways SBB worked with Trace Labs to improve the DKG-based GS1 EPCIS repository initiative. The initiative was enhanced with increased interoperability, additional features, and onboarding of more suppliers to drive network effects. The team deployed the AidTrust solution, which applies GS1 EPCIS 2.0 in the pharmaceutical industry to capture events along the supply chain of donated medicine, ultimately ensuring that donated products reach their intended patients as well as Trusted Bytes to apply GS1 EPCIS 2.0 for facilitating international trade by providing UK Customs with shipment risk profiles.

Trace Labs also added support for RDF/SPARQL and other semantic technologies in OriginTrail V6, further increasing the capabilities and flexibility of its technological stack for builders seeking standardized, open-source tools. This integration with GS1 standards allows for even more powerful data integration, standardization, and interoperability.

Trace Labs’ General Manager, Jurij Skornik, and BSI’s Global Healthcare Director, Courtney Soulsby, attended the GS1 Healthcare Conference where they discussed how Web3 technology and OriginTrail DKG-based solutions can be leveraged to address humanity’s biggest challenges, with even more power after the V6 release.

TheFSM

In 2022, TheFSM project entered its final year. Trace Labs’ impact on TheFSM platform was of great significance at this stage. The implementation of blockchain services was performed in a blockchain neutral approach, enabling utilization of different blockchains, and has been successfully tested in different environments. Trace Labs participated at several international events presenting and promoting the project. The team attended one of the largest Internal fair of agriculture and food in Central Europe whose exhibitors come from more than 30 different countries. Among others, the company organized a webinar at the beginning of the year, where founder and CTO Branimir Rakic presented how DKG works and its role in the TheFSM marketplace. This webinar enabled us to bring OriginTrail technology closer to the wider audience interested in the agri-tech sector, especially the food safety experts.

In October, TheFSM consortium held a plenary meeting in Athens, where Branimi Rakic presented the next and final steps of project implementation. As the project draws to a close in Jan 2023, many activities have intensified, especially in the final quarter of the year. Just before the completion of the project, the results of the mission to transform the European food certification market with the power of big data and the support of blockchain technology are very satisfactory.

OriginTrail DKG: Decentralized and Scalable Knowledge Graph Economy Tools Supporting the “Trusted, traceable and transparent ontological knowledge on blockchain — ONTOCHAIN”

In 2022, OriginTrail DKG played a crucial role in the ONTOCHAIN project, which is funded by the European Union’s Next Generation Internet initiative. As part of the project, DKG-based Knowledge Economy tools were developed and integrated into the ONTOCHAIN technology stack, allowing for the creation and exchange of trustworthy, transparent, and traceable ontological knowledge. Trace Labs worked alongside other innovative developers, contributing to the ONTOCHAIN distributed storage, core protocols, and application protocols stack. During the ONTOCHAIN Summit held In June 2022 in Berlin, OriginTrail’s CTO Branimir Rakic showcased the Knowledge Tools to the ONTOCHAIN partners and community, and highlighted their capabilities and how they enable the creation and exchange of reliable, transparent and traceable ontological knowledge in a decentralized manner. As the ONTOCHAIN project ended last year, the capabilities of the OriginTrail DKG continue to be valuable for new ONTOCHAIN participants, enabling them to leverage the platform to transition towards a proven, trusted, semantic, human-centric, and privacy-by-design knowledge economy.

Demeter

As part of the Demeter project, Trace Labs continued to collaborate closely with its consortium partner DunavNET, to enable trusted product passports for food products in poultry and wine supply chains utilizing the OriginTrail protocol, which is also supporting the Demeter platform interoperability. Dissemination activities were diverse and impactful. An article on trust and transparency of data in the agri-food supply chain was published, which explains how OriginTrail contributes to reshaping and building a more interoperable, data-driven, innovative, and sustainable European agri-food sector. Together with DunavNET, Trace Labs participated at Synergy Days, which was held during the SmartAgriHubs final event in Lisbon in early autumn 2022. As a proud employer of women, Trace Labs was invited to deliver a workshop, which addressed gender inequality in the agro sector.

Ekopakt

In 2022, Trace Labs achieved a significant milestone by successfully establishing a traceability model for organic beef in Slovenia as part of the EU-funded EKOPAKT project. The project’s primary focus was on developing a traceability framework that utilized the OriginTrail DKG for reliable data exchange and data integrity. In August 2022, the Trace Labs team presented a Provenance tool at the AGRA fair, demonstrating how data can be transformed into discoverable, verifiable, and valuable Knowledge Assets on the OriginTrail DKG. The Provenance tool and traceability model built on top of the OriginTrail DKG were presented at the final project conference, marking the culmination of the project activities. The successful integration of the Provenance tool with the OriginTrail DKG was met with interest and appreciation from attendees, highlighting the project’s impact and success.

Buildchain

In 2022, Trace Labs joined the EU-funded BUILDCHAIN project, which seeks to enhance efficiency, transparency, and trust within the construction industry and create a more sustainable built environment across the European Union. To achieve these goals, the project will utilize the capabilities of the OriginTrail DKG to develop new solutions for trusted data exchange and transparency. As part of the BUILDCHAIN project, Trace Labs will integrate the OriginTrail DKG with the EU Digital Building LogBook system. This integration will create a tamper-proof and decentralized knowledge base, promoting transparency and ensuring data integrity across the construction industry. By leveraging the DKG’s capabilities, Trace Labs aims to promote trust, transparency, efficiency, and sustainability in the construction domain and make a positive impact on the built environment.

Technology development

In 2022, we witnessed significant milestones in terms of technological development, including the deployment of the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot and the release of the latest version of the DKG network, V6. Please read on for further details.

Decentralized Knowledge Graph updates

In 2022, the OriginTrail network underwent significant advancements with the launch of the DKG V6 — a vastly more performant and versatile next generation Internet engine that ushered in a new knowledge economy era.

The launch of V6 was divided into three stages. The first stage involved the deployment of the V6 testnet, where developers could test and refine the new version before it was ready for public release. This stage was crucial in ensuring that V6 was stable and reliable before it was released to the broader network.

The second stage of the launch involved the release of the DKG V6 on the OriginTrail Parachain, where it was feature-locked and ready for full-scale deployment. This stage marked a significant milestone for the network, as it marked the completion of the development process and readiness of V6 for deployment. During this stage, V6 was feature-complete and ready for mass adoption by users and businesses.

Finally, the third and final stage involved the migration of the entire network to V6. This stage was carefully planned and executed to ensure a smooth transition from the old version to the new version. The migration process was designed to minimize any disruptions to the network’s operations and ensure that users could continue to access the network without any issues.

In July 2022, the OriginTrail team announced the completion of the second stage of the V6 launch. The new version had several key features, including an improved consensus mechanism that helped increase the network’s security and scalability. Additionally, the new smart contract layer allowed for more complex data processing and analysis, while the implementation of a decentralized identifier (DID) system enabled secure and verifiable data sharing.

The launch of the DKG V6 led to significant growth and adoption of the OriginTrail network. The enhanced security and scalability features of V6 made it more attractive to individuals and businesses. The addition of the smart contract layer and DID system opened up new possibilities for data processing and analysis, allowing businesses to derive insights and value from their data.

The successful launch event marked the release of the DKG V6 at the end of the year. At the event the team touched upon the global economy and trust challenges, and looked at how trusted knowledge will be grown within the OriginTrail ecosystem. At the event the team launched the newest version by creating the first asset on it and demonstrated the application of real world Knowledge Assets using the brand new Network Operating System (nOS) by igniting the creation of the first 40K Knowledge Assets on the network.

Overall, the launch of the OriginTrail V6 was a significant milestone for the network. As the network continues to grow and evolve, it is expected that the V6 will play a crucial role in its ongoing success and development.

Polkadot integration updates

In 2022, the DKG-tailored blockchain, OriginTrail Parachian was launched. For this to happen, the team first released a new, comprehensive whitepaper covering advancements to the OriginTrail ecosystem, specifically, those introduced by the OriginTrail Parachain. With the OriginTrail Parachain as a layer 1 network coming to life, the team also introduced a native OriginTrail Parachain token (OTP) — a utility asset that is not only used for blockchain gas fees and inclusive governance, but also enables a way to incentivise the growth of DKG usage.

To aid with contributions for the OriginTrail Parachain crowdloan, support was opened on platforms including Parallel, Bifrost, and Kraken. To support the success of the OriginTrail Parachain and the growth of the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph, it was announced that OTP (OriginTrail Parachain tokens) would be distributed to community members. The distribution to both v5 node runners and TRAC token holders was successfully completed.

The OriginTrail Parachain was officially confirmed as the winner of Polkadot’s 17th parachain auction on May 18th, 2022 and in early June OriginTrail successfully launched with its first genesis block being validated. This marked the beginning of a new era where AI-grade Knowledge Assets can be brought to Polkadot, and other Polkadot parachains can integrate the OriginTrail DKG with their blockchain networks.

A few months after the launch, Security Research Labs started executing their automated static and dynamic testing suite for the OriginTrail Parachain in an attempt to identify vulnerabilities with the implementation and we were happy to report that they completed the security review of the OriginTrail Parachain with no issues discovered. The number of blocks on the OriginTrail Parachain started growing fast and the year concluded with 1.4M blocks being validated.

In order to transfer TRAC tokens from the Ethereum blockchain to the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot, a “one-way Teleport” system was implemented, which was described in RFC-12 with 15 teleport batches set in place. At the end of 2022 10th teleport batch was completed.

After the RFC-12, also the RFC-13 was published discussing the proposed implementation of the TRAC token on the OriginTrail Parachain, a move that could provide significant benefits to the OriginTrail ecosystem. This implementation would result in a number of important improvements, including enhanced security, reduced transaction fees, and improved scalability. In addition, the implementation would enable OriginTrail to take advantage of Polkadot’s cross-chain interoperability, allowing for seamless interaction with other blockchain networks.

Key ODN adoption metrics

Exciting developments took place in the OriginTrail Ecosystem during 2022, leading up to the highly anticipated release of the OriginTrail V6 at the end of the year, first implemented on the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot. OriginTrail V6 is a major upgrade to the way the DKG functions, introducing new primitives such as Knowledge Assets and UALs, and runs as a separate network alongside OriginTrail V5.

This requires a rethinking of how network activity and adoption are measured. Starting with 2023, some of the existing metrics will be retired and replaced with more relevant ones focusing on the OriginTrail V6, for example the number of Knowledge Assets on the OriginTrail DKG. As a result, the current metrics show a slowdown in activity on the OriginTrail V5 in the second half of 2022, as network activity transitions to the more powerful OriginTrail V6.

Total graph size (TGS)

Total Graph Size (TGS) is a fundamental metric developed to assess the expansion of the OriginTrail Decentralized Network. It quantifies the volume of knowledge accommodated by the Decentralized Knowledge Graph by integrating two crucial elements of a knowledge graph: data objects and their interconnections. In more precise terms, it combines the aggregate number of graph vertices (alternatively termed as graph cardinality or the order of the graph) and the complete number of graph edges (known in graph theory as graph size) of a decentralized graph. The term vertices encompass all the distinct objects appended to the graph (e.g., identifiers or specific details of supply chain events, products, attestations, locations, and certificates), while edges signify the connections among these objects.

In 2022 we observed a steep growth in TGS, with an increase from 116 million to over 248 million TGS mark. TGS is one of the metrics that remains relevant as we fully transition to OriginTrail V6, and we expect to see accelerated growth due to the enhancement in network efficiencies and expanded usability of the technology in a variety of industries.

Other metrics — New publishings on the DKG

The number of publishings on the V5 network experienced a decline during the latter part of 2022 as network activity transitions to the new and vastly more powerful OriginTrail V6. This metric will be retired starting 2023 and replaced by a more relevant one to measure activity on the OriginTrail V6.

Other metrics — TRAC Staked

Due to the OriginTrail V6 release and related winding down in activity on the V5 network, there was a decrease in total TRAC staked in 2022, starting the year at 11.42 million and ending at 4.04 million. However, with 100 million TRAC teleported to the OriginTrail Parachain and ready to power the V6 network with millions of Knowledge Assets, as well as the upcoming V6 staking capabilities, we expect this metric to increase significantly going forward.

Marketing & communications

DKG version 6

The year began with the launch of stage 1 of the version 6 Decentralized Knowledge Graph Beta. Notably, V6 represents the biggest advancement to the network since its inception. This includes performative improvements as well as new, Web3-focussed, functionality which will enable the DKG to act as the central building block for all future Web3 activities.

To support the launch of V6 Beta launch, the OriginTrail V6 bounty program went live soon after. This bounty program focused on hardening and verifying the technological readiness of the latest version of the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG), including verifying a smooth transition from the V5 mainnet network. The program concluded at the end of December after the V6 officially launched.

In February, the OriginTrail website was comprehensively revamped to include up to date information about V6 as well as the ecosystem in general.

Shortly after that, the V6 Telemetry Hub was launched to support the launch of V6. This hub is a dashboard which shows telemetry measurements of the V6 nodes and is crucial in providing valuable feedback for new functionalities being launched with V6. Additionally, this Hub was integrated within the V6 Bounty Program.

As part of the Beta testing, the OriginTrail DKG registered a new record of 156K publishings in just 24 hours. This represented a 500x improvement over the previous highest seen number on previous DKG versions.

In order to assist with ease of development and ecosystem use, the OriginTrail SDK was added to the DigitalOcean marketplace with a 1-click V6 node setup.

In mid June the OriginTrail roadmap was updated to reflect the move from Turing to Metcalfe phase. This update focussed on the integration of the OriginTrail Parachain to the DKG as well as the new primitives being introduced by V6 and the resultant network effects already taking charge throughout the ecosystem.

Coinciding with the OriginTrail Parachain launch, the Magnify solution was unveiled. Powered by the OriginTrail DKG, Magnify is the first of its kind Web3 explorer which enhances the capability to discover, verify, and supercharge assets.

All the activities throughout 2022 drove to the launch of OriginTrail V6, happened in mid December, which is a vastly more performant and versatile next generation Internet engine that makes all Knowledge Assets discoverable and verifiable across Web3, driving transparency and trust from supply chains to consumer goods or digital collectibles. To mark this important milestone the team organized the V6 launch event, where the OriginTrail core developers launched the newest version of OriginTrail network by creating the first asset on it, presented the newest version of Network Operating System (nOS) and introduced a revamped roadmap for years ahead.

To conclude the year on a high note, the team launched the Houston app, which will help OriginTrail V6 node runners to successfully manage their nodes.

OriginTrail Parachain

In early April 2022, a new, comprehensive whitepaper was released. This whitepaper covers advancements to the OriginTrail ecosystem, specifically, those introduced by the OriginTrail Parachain and how the new synergistic two-token model will boost utility and network effects.

Shortly after the new whitepaper was released, contributions for the OriginTrail Parachain crowdloan opened. To aid with contributions, support was opened on platforms including Parallel, Bifrost, and Kraken.

To support the success of the OriginTrail Parachain and the growth of the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph, it was announced that OTP (OriginTrail Parachain tokens) would be distributed to community members. The distribution to both V5 node runners and TRAC token holders had been successfully completed.

On the 18th of May it was officially confirmed that the OriginTrail Parachain successfully won Polkadot’s 17th parachain auction. Also Polkadot tweeted their congratulations for our win.

The OriginTrail Parachain successfully launched and its genesis block was validated in early June. This launch marked the beginning of the specifically DKG tailored blockchain which is bringing AI-grade Knowledge Assets to Polkadot and their parachains, which will boost Network effects.

Events

In February 2022, the core OriginTrail team attended the leading Ethereum event; ETHDenver. Here, OriginTrail CTO and Founder, Branimir Rakic, conducted a workshop focused on building asset knowledge graphs — creating new and extending existing Web3 assets with powerful, verifiable link data structures using the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG).

Whilst at ETHDenver, Founders Branimir Rakic and Ziga Drev connected with community members Famous Amos and Guinnessstache to conduct a special fireside chat related to V6 of the DKG as well as the coming Polkadot integrations.

In Mid March, Trace Labs’ partners, BSI were invited to the Pharma Supply Chain & Security World 2022 conference, where Courtney Soulsby — BSI Global Healthcare Director — presented AidTrust to a global audience from pharmaceutical industry and showcased how we ensure that the medicines reach the end patients with the help of the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph.

During the AmsterDOT conference, organized by several teams within the Polkadot Ecosystem, Founders Tomaz Levak and Branimir Rakic were invited to attend as well as participate. Branimir conducted a workshop and introduction to the DKG as well as the OriginTrail Parachain and Tomaz delivered a keynote address about the OriginTrail ecosystem.

OriginTrail proudly sponsored the leading global Knowledge Graph Conference held in early May. In addition to the core team attending and presenting on the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph and network effects, two key advisors were invited as attendees and presenters. This included Dan Purtell, Director of Innovation at BSI, as well as Ethernet inventor, Dr Bob Metcalfe. See below for all of the highlights from this prestigious event and the talk recording.

Later in the day after OriginTrail keynote speeches at KGC, the team organized a private event in Brooklyn to discuss Web3 and the future of the Internet. Both Dan Purtell and Bob Metcalfe joined as special guests.

Coinciding with the WEF Davos event in May, Polkadot held an adjacent conference which showcased the real-world utility of blockchain technology. As a leader in this regard, OriginTrail team was invited to attend and host multiple presentations. Notably, the team was also joined by Courtney Soulsby, Global Director, Healthcare at BSI, who together with Founder Ziga Drev, outlined the enormous strides the AidTrust solution is achieving in helping to deliver safe and transparent medicine to the worlds’ most vulnerable. Additionally, Ziga Drev joined a roundtable discussion with other Polkadot projects, such as Robonomics and Bit.Country, where they discussed how any blockchain solution can be built with Polkadot. Also, OriginTrail CTO Branimir Rakic held a presentation on connecting assets on a global scale using the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph.

After the Polkadot at Davos conference, OriginTrail CTO Branimir Rakic joined the Ontochain Summit as part of the EU-funded Ontochain project where he discussed the “Google of Web3” being built on and powered by the Decentralized Knowledge Graph. Click here to read the key takeaways from his talk.

The next event that the OriginTrail team attended was Polkadot Decoded, the worlds’ largest Polkadot conference. Here, Branimir Rakic discussed the OriginTrail DKG from visionary and technical perspectives. You can check the Tweet thread from the event and the talk recording.

In July 2022, Polkadot organized the Polkadot Blockchain Academy, which lasted for four weeks. One of our Web3 engineers attended the academy and had the opportunity to learn more about cryptography directly from Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot. Additionally, Branimir Rakic, founder and CTO of OriginTrail, delivered a lecture at the academy. The insights gained from both the lecture and the academy greatly accelerated the development of the OriginTrail Parachain.

OriginTrail, along with other Parachain teams, had the opportunity to gather in the UK at the Polkadot Parachain Technical Summit. This event was an excellent opportunity for the teams to discuss and share their future development plans for the OriginTrail Parachain and other parachains. The summit was a great success, and the OriginTrail team was excited about the new opportunities that have arisen from the discussions and collaborations at the event.

At the beginning of September Branimir Rakic joined KILT Protocol, Astar Network, Coinbase, IBM & other teams at Data Natives Conference for a keynote talk on how knowledge graphs and blockchains enable a data economy in Web3.

At the end of the month, OriginTrail was one of the sponsors at the World Future Verse Conference, where Jurij Skornik, Trace Labs General Manager, presented various solutions for Web3 that are based on the OriginTrail technology and how can any data be turned into Knowledge Assets secured on the DKG.

Trace Labs’ General Manager Jurij Skornik and BSI’s Global Healthcare Director Courtney Soulsby attended the GS1 Healthcare Conference where they discussed how Web3 technology and OriginTrail DKG-based solutions can be leveraged to address humanity’s biggest challenges, with even more power after the V6 release.

The last event OriginTrail took part in was the 5th annual Talents Meetup “Back to Future” where OriginTrail CTO Branimir Rakic held a speech about the future of Internet and how OriginTrail tackles real-world siloed and poorly interoperable data and turns them into knowledge assets secured on the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph.

Interviews, AMAs & podcasts

To best prepare for the significant technological advancements that occurred in 2022, OriginTrail held a Developer and Community call in the early part of 2021. The call covered a range of topics, including node running, development, and new releases.

As we came closer to the launch of the OriginTrail Parachain the team held an AMA which discussed the upcoming auction process, the new synergist two-token ecosystem model, and the exciting utility being unlocked.

Towards the end of May the team was invited onto the Relay Chain Podcast hosted by Parity team members — the core builders of Polkadot and Kusama. Here, the host Jorrin Bruns discussed with OriginTrail founders Tomaz Levak and Ziga Drev everything related to the OriginTrail Parachain with a focus on the real-world adoption of the technology and how it is transforming global industries.

During mid-June, OriginTrail founders Ziga Drev and Tomaz Levak met with the Managing Director and Head of Digital Assets Research at BTIG to discuss the progress of the OriginTrail ecosystem. A few months later, both were invited to a BTIG-hosted event where they talked about the latest developments in the OriginTrail ecosystem, including the OriginTrail Parachain and the milestones achieved with the DKG V6.

At the end of June Branimir Rakic joined other Polkadot Parachains winners at Twitter Spaces where they discussed each project, presented future development plans and answered a few questions from the listeners. The event host was the Litentry team. Branimir presented OriginTrail’s real world adoption and solutions, talked about Web3 assets and how we can derive value from them, and discussed development plans for the OriginTrail Parachain.

In mid July, Branimir was interviewed by Enjin team, where he discussed the potential of Web3 technology, specifically OriginTrail’s capabilities to address inefficiencies and bad actors in delivering aid referring to the AidTrust solution and to revolutionize various other industries. You can check the interview here.

Shortly after the interview was published, the OriginTrail team organized an AMA on all things V6 and OriginTrail Parachain where they discussed happenings within the OriginTrail ecosystem, especially everything related to the DKG V6 and the OriginTrail Parachain. They outlined the ongoing adoption of the DKG, the upcoming bridge that will be used to bridge TRAC (OriginTrail token) to OTP (OriginTrail Parachain token), the expanded tokenomics, plans for migration of DKG version 5 to version 6, the new Magnify project, and much more. The AMA was organized as a joint effort with community members Famous Amous and Guinnessstache.

After publishing RFC-12, the team organized an AMA to discuss the TRAC teleport process from Ethereum to the OriginTrail Parachain on Polkadot, with the goal of helping the community understand the teleport process.

The team held a few chat AMAs to address any questions the community had about V6, and the answers can still be found in Discord channels by scrolling through the chat history.

The team regularly participates as a guest in AMAs with various communities, including the official Polkadot community’s monthly calls, as well as The Kusamarian, PolkaWorld and Polkadotters. During these sessions, the team presents updates on the ecosystem, important milestones, and projects such as Project Magnify, and responds to questions from these communities.

Towards the end of the year Branimir Rakic was interviewed by LearningSPARQL, where he shared insights on building with OriginTrail, different formats and payment mechanisms for publishing data on the DKG, and the connections between OriginTrail and W3C standards.

We wrapped up the year with Žiga Drev being invited to a short AMA with the DotSama community in which he spoke about the achievements in the OriginTrail ecosystem in 2022. Click here to hear a few important milestones we achieved.

OriginTrail in the news

During the first half of 2022 OriginTrail was featured in several news pieces. One of them was the new BTIG’s institutional Fintech Report, in which it was discussed how OriginTrail brings adoption to Web3 by making assets discoverable, verifiable and valuable. The authors touched upon the launch of the OriginTrail Parachain and why this milestone is important for the expansion of the OriginTrail ecosystem, as well as enhanced network effects with the launch of OriginTrail V6. The network effects are formulated in Metcalfe’s Law, whose formulator is Trace Labs’ advisor Dr. Bob Metcalfe.

The OriginTrail team invited Dr. Bob Metcalfe to join us for the keynote speech at the Knowledge Graph Conference 2022 (KGC), the result of which were 2 articles published. The first one was about Dr. Mercalfe discussing how Web3 will have all kinds of network effects and that “knowledge graphs can go a lot further if they are decentralized, for which the key is connectivity”.

The second article that was published as the result of OriginTrail’s speeches at the KGC 2022 was on the topic of social media and a decentralized problem they have. The databases should not be in possession of a particular subject or a company, but should be decentralized, which is what OriginTrail is working on.

OriginTrail ecosystem was not getting traction only in the news, but also on social media, where we received a new community on CoinMarketCap Community with the inaugural opening of a new account. Shortly after commencing the CMC Community we fulfilled the requirements to receive the verified badge and were rewarded by CoinMarketCap to be one of the top 10 projects by engagement growth. In addition to receiving the CMC community verified badge, we also obtained verified badges for the official OriginTrail and Trace Labs Twitter accounts, as well as verification for the OriginTrail official Telegram chat.

Trace Labs gained recognition in the Interface Magazine for its partnership with BSI and the joint efforts to develop solutions leveraging OriginTrail DKG. Some of these solutions include SCAN for securing security audits of over 21.000 factories that are stored in SCAN’s database, Training certificates solution, AidTrust for donated medicines, and more.

Shortly after the article release, the team held the first meeting of the year with their advisors discussing the future plans for OriginTrail. Further on, the whole Trace Labs’ advisory board was revealed.

After the advisory board revelation, the Trace Labs website was launched with revamped content connected to building a next generation internet with Web3 technology.

One year after the Innovate UK project started, BSI published a blog post showcasing how OriginTrail DKG is used to facilitate international trade of goods crossing borders and digitize UK’s fresh produce supply chains.

Thankfully in 2022 less Covid-19 restrictions were put in place, which allowed the core OriginTrail developers to meet again in person on two company gatherings after a few years of the team being completely decentralized and waving to each other only on video calls. Both company gatherings were successful and led to achieving great milestones, such as the launch of the OriginTrail Parachain and continuous preparations of V6 mainnet launch.

Special credits to our loyal community

The OriginTrail team is proud to have such an engaging community, who always supports the team with their valuable feedback, comments, explanatory videos, innovative music, help with hosting AMAs and more. A lot of things happened through 2022, some of which you can see below.

OriginTrail Club

Through the initiative of the OriginTrail Club the community wants to educate other community members to better understand the OriginTrail project and ecosystem. As they say it’s “content made by the community, for the community”.

Music and explanatory pieces

It’s wonderful to witness music being created through the inspiration drawn from OriginTrail. Additionally, the community has put together numerous explanatory videos, tutorials, and tweet threads to help everyone understand the current developments and the vision we’re working towards. Below we have gathered just a few examples.

The OriginTrail team also gave recognition to the community members who have contributed to the codebase of the OriginTrail protocol as the team considers them to be an integral part of the development of the protocol, since they have helped to improve and refine DKG V6 functionalities.

Shoutout to the team

At the end of the day, what truly satisfies the team for the work we’ve done is the support and kind words we receive from the community. This indicates that the team is making progress in the right direction and that the community recognizes the value of our efforts.

Financials

In 2022, the ecosystem remains in a good financial state, with the future development fund remaining in the same amount as at the end of 2021, a total of 132,500,000 TRAC.

The total size of the treasury therefore stands at 17,526.13 ETH on December 31st 2022.

Trace token

The Trace token (TRAC) asset ecosystem saw a very significant expansion in 2022. In January, the TRAC token was added to an important global exchange Huobi.

Shortly after, in February, Coinbase Assets announced their support for deposits and withdrawals of $TRAC.

As well as the new additions of Houbi and Coinbase Assets, TRAC remains available on Coinbase exchange, KuCoin, Bittrex Global, Uniswap, Bancor, BitMart, Changelly, HitBTC and Idex. At the beginning of 2023 TRAC was listed on Binance.US as well.

In 2022, we saw significant progress in the development of the OriginTrail DKG, marked by the successful launch of both OriginTrail Parachain and DKG V6. Looking towards the future, we are excited to continue expanding the OriginTrail ecosystem and achieving new milestones. Let’s aim to break even more barriers and set new records in the upcoming year as we continue to #TraceOn!

👇 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.