ICON accelerates the expansion of its public blockchain ecosystem

ICON, one of the largest blockchain projects in South Korea, today announced an accelerated strategy to expand its public blockchain ecosystem. The first enhancement is an enterprise blockchain alliance program with its global accelerator program, plus the beginning of a campaign to elect network representatives, also ICON revealed plans for their decentralized exchange and identification system based on its public network.

Reinforcing enterprise blockchain alliance with global DApp accelerator program

ICON pursues DApp (Decentralized Application) partners focused on both B2C and B2B products through the newly established ICON LAP100 (ICON Loopchain Alliance Program) and its global accelerator program, ICX Station. It has currently formed partnerships with more than 30 companies to carry out collaboration projects. ICON has already secured 13 new partners this year.

ICON is the only blockchain project in South Korea to run a global accelerator program through launching ICX Station locations in major cities such as San Francisco, Singapore, and Seoul. Deblock is serving as the Seoul launchpad of ICX Station, playing a pivotal role in advancing South Korea’s DApp projects into the global market. ICON also has plans to launch a Tokyo launchpad in the first half of this year.

In addition to existing partners in various fields, ‘AC3’, a US-based customer-driven viral marketing platform, ‘VELIC’, a Singapore-based comprehensive finance platform for crypto-assets, and ‘Somesing’, a social music application combining user-generated content and reward system joined as ICON’s new DApp partners this year. ICON is currently in conversations with more potential DApp partners as the mission to grow the ecosystem continues.

In addition to the efforts of ICX Station, ICON has recently established ‘ICON LAP100’, which is an enterprise blockchain alliance program based on the ICON public blockchain (the core blockchain engine of ICON is loopchain). Its goal is to jointly develop enterprise-specialized blockchain solutions with 100 companies and startups in various fields including biometric identification, certification issuance, payment, etc. On December 27th, 2018, ICON held a launch event with several members of ICON LAP100 including Raonsecure, Digitalzone, DataAlliance, Matrix2B, OWDIN Network, Charzin, TheVita, Liwonace, Cryptofuture, and TeamK. Discussions are underway for business development and technology support.

For inquiries regarding technical support and service partnerships, check out the ICON Developer Portal.

Heading toward decentralization through the election of network representatives

Pre-registration for ICON Public Representative (P-Rep) candidacy started on January 17th, 2019. Twenty-two P-Reps will be elected. Anyone can register as a P-Rep candidate. Pre-registration will take place off-chain, then the actual election and voting process will take place on-chain. ICON token holders will elect 22 P-Reps via an on-chain election.

22 P-Reps elected by all participating ICONists will have the distributed responsibility of preserving the ICON Network, producing and verifying blocks, validating transactions, and proposing and voting on network policy changes. As a result of stake delegation from ICONists, P-Reps gain economic benefits and voting weight. ICONists who vote and delegate their stake will be rewarded with the right to a certain portion of block rewards.

After the P-Rep election, the next step toward pushing mass adoption will be ‘Ecosystem Expansion Projects’ (EEP), which any ICONist can propose for network growth, and ‘DApp Booster Programs’ (DBP), which would allocate a portion of block rewards to a specific decentralized application.

The ICON Network measures contributions of each network participant through Delegated Proof of Contribution (DPoC), allowing ICONists to delegate a certain portion of block rewards to EEPs and DBPs.

The election webpage, which is operated by the ICON Community, supports pre-registration for P-Rep candidacy in an off-chain environment, browsing basic information by region, and offers the latest news and election-related content.

Decentralized exchange and identification service to be released in the first half of this year

ICON announces plans to release its decentralized exchange (DEX) and decentralized identification (DID) in the first half of this year. ICON has already released ICONex, the wallet that supports transactions across multiple cryptocurrencies with a user-friendly UX/UI, and ICON Tracker, which is a block explorer for ICON that displays all transaction records on the network to enhance transparency and data accessibility.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) will support p2p exchange between ICX and IRC2 (ICON mainnet-based tokens). All transactions will be executed via smart contracts to ensure security and transparency compared to centralized exchanges. Additionally, ICON’s DEX will increase the liquidity and usability of IRC2 tokens in the ICON Network, without being listed on external exchanges. ICON aims to implement DEX to connect heterogeneous blockchains in the future and bridge various blockchain communities.

ICON plans to release a decentralized identification (DID) mobile application based on its public blockchain. ICON’s DID aligns with the increasing need for data sovereignty, and will allow individuals to store and manage their personal information themselves compared to the current centralized identification system. The benefits of DID include falsification protection, duplication protection, and security of information. DID supports user identification for DApps, making it unnecessary to establish a separate ID system within each individual DApp.