Welcome again to the ICON world! ICON is one of the largest blockchain networks in the world. It boasts independent blockchains comprised of reputable institutions in major industries. Currently, the ICON network has 85 validators, 22 Main P-Reps voted in by ICX holders. ICON never falls behind technologically and operates like a round-the-clock system!
ICONLOOP’s CEO JH Kim appeared on national TV to discuss ‘my-ID’, ‘DPass’, Broof, Seoul Metro project and their future hi-tech developments. The Foundation has recently announced their most anticipated integration with Chainlink, one of the leading oracle solutions in the blockchain industry. This collaboration has exciting implications for the ICON Ecosystem. Moreover, The ICON team are looking forward to a meetup with MakerDAO and Chainlink in their Seoul HQ.
Read on to find out more recent news about ICON and their P-Reps.
Development
Github metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
Improving software packages
The ICON Foundation released a new docker image for the MainNet at UTC 05:00 on January 28th. These include loopchain 2.5.01, iconservice 1.6.00, and reward calculator 1.2.1. See the upgrades and fixes in the full release here.
Social encounters
Interview with ICONLOOP’s CEO JH Kim
Korean-language business news outlet Money Today ran an interview with ICONLOOP’s CEO JH Kim on January 21st. Kim spoke about Korea’s blockchain industry and the direction in which it is moving. He pointed out that in Korea blockchain suddenly came under intense regulatory scrutiny in 2017 and 2018 as the technology became connected to cryptocurrency. However, the country is now taking steps to develop blockchain technology with several R&D projects and public initiatives under way. He regretted that the blockchain scene was now too focused on system integration projects for major corporations. He felt the government should cultivate the blockchain industry in a way that encourages the acquisition of source technology.
He introduced ICONLOOP’s decentralized identification solution “my-ID.” In particular, he contrasts it with the certified certificates commonly used in Korea. Unlike the certificates, which only prove that you are you, “my-ID” proves you are you and includes personal information such as your age, where you live or bank account info. And all that info is protected by blockchain’s decentralization.
Kim also introduced the MyID Alliance, the ecosystem that links ICONLOOP, my-ID users and my-ID acceptors. There are currently 44 entities in the alliance, including financial companies, internet service providers and major corporations.
Moreover, he gave a detailed explanation of the blockchain-based self-sovereign identity authentication service DPASS and certification service Broof. ICONLOOP uses DPASS — which runs on the public blockchain — internally for getting into the office and logging into the corporate intranet, and that he expects the service to synergize and eventually merge with my-ID. DPASS uses the same technology as my-ID, and its decentralized structure ensures the security of your data.
As the era of decentralization is inevitable, he wants ICONLOOP to become a blockchain company that leads that era with the goal of returning data sovereignty to the individual.
Read the whole interview with ICONLOOP’s CEO JH Kim
Meet-up with MakerDAO, Chainlink and ICON
On February 11th at 7pm (KST), ICON will host a joint meet-up alongside leading blockchain projects, MakerDAO and Chainlink. The ICON Foundation are happy to host Kim Jin-woo, General Manager of Korean Community of MakerDao and Yeongin Lee, Korea lead for Chainlink. Bongan Ha, Cryptoeconomic architect of ICON, will also participate in the meet-up by discussing interchain and ICON’s roadmap.
During the discussions, they’ll help visualize the finance, oracle, and interchain focus areas in more detail and hopefully give a clearer picture of how they can be developed to bring blockchain adoption to the masses.
Participating projects:
MakerDAO
Maker is a smart contract platform on Ethereum that backs and stabilizes the value of Dai through a dynamic system of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), autonomous feedback mechanisms, and appropriately incentivized external actors. Maker enables anyone to leverage their Ethereum assets to generate Dai on the Maker Platform. The Dai Stablecoin is a collateral-backed cryptocurrency whose value is stable relative to the US Dollar. Unlike other Stablecoins, Dai is completely decentralized.
Chainlink
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle solution that allows smart contracts to connect off-chain data used by data feeds, Web APIs and traditional banking systems. Chainlink is known to provide reliable and reliable Oracle for many projects (Web3 / Polkadot, Synthetix, Loopring, Kaleido, OpenLaw, Reserve, etc.), as well as many large companies such as Google, Oracle, and Swift.
ICON Network
ICON Network is a public blockchain network that builds a real life environment of blockchain technology through the connection of various blockchain communities based on the “loopchain”, a high-performance blockchain engine. Based on smart contract technology and interchain technology, we provide interoperability with heterogeneous blockchains in major industries such as banks, securities, insurance, hospitals, universities, and governments. ICON Network aims to move towards a truly hyperconnected society by removing barriers in the exchange of values between blockchains.
Finance
The number of transactions dynamics (information from tracker.icon.foundation)
ICON utilizes an on-chain governance system operated by elected nodes known as Public Representatives, or P-Reps.
Who can vote: P-Reps are the only parties that vote on governance issues
Conditions for voting: Top 22 P-Rep
Votes required: 15/22 and 67% of the total delegations to the Top 22 P-Reps
Purpose of voting: Protocol / Parameters
- Text proposals, for example, are used for agreeing on protocol/parameter changes before spending time on development. Since these are all saved on-chain, there is an immutable history of decision making.
- Network Proposals are more advanced text proposals that do not require additional development.
Binding/Non-binding: Both
- Network proposals, for example, are binding but text proposals are non-binding and rely on good-faith execution.
- If a non-binding text proposal is approved, developers will work on the proposed changes.
- Once the changes are completed, a revision proposal will be submitted for a re-vote.
- At this point, it would be considered a network proposal and binding pending the outcome of the vote.
- Note, the Foundation is exploring the feasibility of making text proposals referendum style and available to all ICONists (both voting and proposing) — not just the Top 22 P-Reps.
Proposal submission: Currently only the Top 22 P-Reps can propose and vote
Submission costs: N/A
- However, they will likely propose a 500 ICX fee for referendum text proposals (if added)
The social engagement for ICON $ICX spiked to 2,660,711+ engagements
The first risk-free staking lottery
A DApp idea for the ICON ecosystem allows everyone to benefit from this model without having to lock a big amount of money.
You may already know that ICON allows you to stake your token and earn additional rewards. The ICON protocol is currently offering ~20% annual rewards.
The risk-free staking lottery will be a game based on the ICON blockchain and inspired by PoolTogether which is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
The main advantages of the lottery:
- ICX token holders will be able to join a pool of ICX holders and have a chance to earn the entire reward once a week.
- One winner gets all the staking rewards from the smart contract, and others can claim back their ICX when they want to stop participating.
In this model, to participate in the lottery, people will need to send ICX to the lottery smart contract. The smart contract will then vote for a P-Rep, and one lucky winner will earn the entire staking revenue.
Learn the details about the the ICON ($ICX) Risk-free Lottery
Roadmap
ICON Development Roadmap has been recently updated.
- The expected launch and release of commercialized BTP v1.0. They also expect to complete IISS by adding in the contribution proposal system. This includes the DApp Booster Program and Ecosystem Expansion Projects.
- They are exploring the implementation of a side chain for smart contract execution on Core 2.0 to improve scalability, enhance BTP functionality and provide a sandbox environment.
- The Foundation are inching closer towards a partnership with a leading oracle solution and we hope to provide more details on this very soon.
- Core developers continue to research enhancements for our P2P network and for database integration. The ICON team are also working to improve the ICON Network by developing LFT2, an improved consensus algorithm to ensure higher liveness.
December update
- Core contributors continue to focus on network stabilization by releasing loopchain 2.4.20 and ICON Service 1.5.20.
- The Foundation applied the block structure update version 0.4 from block height of 12,640,761 to support several new stabilization features.
- They also announced the release note for loopchain and ICON Service on the ICON developer portal. You can view this in more detail on icondev.io
ICON Service 1.5.20
- Fix the state inconsistency for claimIScore between iconservice and rc
- Fix score data corruption on score query call
- Fix a bug on PRepEngine._reset_block_validation_penalty
- Implement getInactivePReps JSON-RPC API
- Impose low productivity penalty when a P-Rep gets penalized for block validation failure and low productivity at the same time
- Update getPRepTerm JSON-RPC API
- Fix infinite loop on ipc_server termination
- Pass a new main prep list to loopchain when a p2pEndpoint of the main prep is modified
- Fix a crash on processing queryIScore request with malformed address
loopchain 2.4.20
- Make block_height_sync_timer repeatable
- Reset preps_data in DB if score returns preps data
- Add nid to ‘/api/v1/status/peer’
- Edit logic after write_precommit_state, which is determined by the result of itself
- Base of block version 0.4 for the penalty
- Use VOTING_RATIO after block version 0.4
- Edit logic to prevent confirmation of the previous block if it has a mismatch round with the current round of the node
They also released BTP v0.5 and Android mobile staking, prepared Revision 9 and launched the ICON Community Grant Proposal system.
Partnerships and team members
ICON Plans Integration with Chainlink
ICON Foundation are excited to announce their collaboration with Chainlink, one of the leading oracle solutions in the blockchain industry. It’s a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments.
Oracles allow smart contracts to interact with data and systems from outside their native blockchain (off-chain). This opens up interchain communication and enables smart contracts to interact with traditional non-blockchain systems that currently power global economies.
Chainlink allows developers to customize how their smart contract communicates with anything off-chain using varying levels of decentralization, data aggregation, and oracle selection. It gives smart contracts secure and reliable access to data providers, web APIs, enterprise systems, cloud providers, IoT devices, payment systems, other blockchains and much more.
Upon completion of this integration, anybody building on the ICON Public Blockchain will have the ability to bring real-world data into their blockchain based business using a secure and decentralized oracle network provided by Chainlink.
The initial implementation of Chainlink on ICON will be an ICX/USD pricing oracle that can be utilized by any ICON DApp. This integration will allow ICON Dapps to easily build financial products and market places based on the USD equivalent of ICX.
Integration with Chainlink has exciting implications for the ICON Ecosystem. Read more detailed info about the integration and find out a few ideas on how developers could utilize it.
South Korea’s POSTECH to Issue Diplomas on ICON’s Blockchain with broof
POSTECH (an acronym for Pohang University of Science and Technology)would be issuing diplomas using BROOF, a blockchain-based certificate issuance service that was built by ICONLOOP but runs on the ICON public chain. POSTECH is one of South Korea’s top universities with over 3,000 students and a worldwide ranking of 83. J.H. Kim, CEO of ICONLOOP and ICON Foundation council member, and other ICONLOOP team members are graduates of POSTECH. Thus, they likely have the necessary personal and business connections to secure POSTECH as a partner for blockchain adoption.
What is Broof?
Broof is an online service that was designed to replace the cumbersome process of issuing physical certificates. Broof operates directly on the ICON public chain. Thus, any transactions that incur from services using BROOF will benefit the public chain and require ICX.
Key advantages of broof:
- Broof makes it easy to verify the authenticity of a certificate because the details of a broof certificate are visible on the ICON public blockchain. This means parameters such as origin, destination, and transaction time can be verified by looking up the relevant ICX transaction. Since ICON is a decentralized permissionless blockchain, it’s impossible to rewrite previous transactions unless you have the excessive financial means to do so.
- Broof tackles that problem by making the issuing party and immutable transaction data known. If someone claims to have a POSTECH degree issued by a non-POSTECH address, that’s a big red flag.
- Broof can be used by anyone for anything. It can be used to create immutable digital certificates for everything from university diplomas to a participation award for the your office’s annual Halloween party.
- Broof reduces usage of natural resources.
This has an immediate positive impact on ICX, as any certificates issued on BROOF will require transaction fees. More notably, since these certificates will be image-based, the transaction fee will be higher than typical transactions, due to the increase in data. This has a more indirect positive impact, as it provides a proven use case for blockchain generally and ICON specifically.
Check out Broof’s official website and the whole interview with RHIZOME team member William McKenzieI
ICON P-Reps News
Weekly Shortcuts: Ambrosus, Blockstack, Chainlink, Enjin, Harmony, Polymath
Weekly Shortcuts: Cardano, Constellation, Decentraland, Elrond, Matic, OneLedger,Perlin, Ren
Komodo: Antara framework, improving upon the AtomicDEX, Community Portal soft launch
Ethereum biweekly: Ecosystem and projects’ updates, opinion and research articles
Weekly Shortcuts: Algorand, Fusion, Horizen, NuCypher, NULS, Ontology, Wanchain
ICX Station Announces Support for ICONbet
ICONbet has generated over five million transactions and over $140,000 average daily volume over the past week; it is the number one DApp on the ICON Network and in terms of dollar value of daily volume it hovers around the top 30 measured against DApps across all blockchain networks.
With the support of ICX Station, they hope to see ICONbet continue to grow its KPIs of volume, daily active users, and community size. ICX Station offers strategic support (including but not limited to: high-level strategy planning, token economics design, and community growth efforts) and potential funding for strategic initiatives.
Rumors
https://twitter.com/minhokim/status/1222227151551746050?s=20
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
Social media dynamics:
The charts above illustrate a decline in the number of Telegram and Twitter followers. In general, the ICON foundation experiences an average level of social activity.
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of ICON Reddit subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook likes. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
