Transcript of Icon Africa AMA On Binance Nigeria.
The icon Africa team continued its drive for awareness around theAfrican continent, we organized Ama session on Binance Nigeria telegram group with over 12,000 members. scott smiley from Icon team and chidi Icon Africa anchored the event. the transcript is below
Kindly give an insight into the ICON project and what it aims to achieve
Ans :Of course, happy to do so
ICON is a smart contract enabled blockchain platform like many others, with a strong focus on South Korean enterprise and government use cases. We recently made some pretty major announcements regarding the use of the ICON Public Blockchain (ICX) for identity purposes when traveling to Jeju Island (number 1 tourist destination in Korea) and for customers of Shinhan Bank (a top bank in Korea).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/south-korea-jeju-island-selects-120000674.html
In addition to our governement and enterprise adoption in Korea, we have all the capabilities of other smart contract platforms. We have games being built on ICON, DeFi being built on ICON, supply chain projects being built on ICON, a passionate and strong community of #ICONSpartans, a growing developers community, and validators/block producers that contribute in many different ways
Segment 1, Question No 1:
ICON recently announced 2 major MyID products Integration, with the key word being mass adoption. Can you explain to the community what this is all about?
Scott : I am quite excited about this myself. Let me explain about myID.
myID Alliance = a group of over 75 corporate and governemnt entities in Korea interested in creating products that leverage Decentralized Identity tools
myID = a framework for creating a decentralized ID using blockchain technology
Zzeung App = this is an app created by ICONLOOP (ICON’s technical partner that leads the myID alliance) that uses myID framework. It is already being used by two members of the myID Alliance, Jeju Island and Shinhan Bank. Zzeung uses the ICON public blockchain when people create a decentralized ID.
So as more members of myID alliance come up with ways to use a decentralized ID in their services, the ICON Public blockchain will get more and more use and this uses the ICX token
What does ICX mean by digital nation?
Scott:I’d say I best explain my thoughts on digital nations in one of my older blog posts through ICX Station
https://medium.com/helloiconworld/digital-nations-82a0d6dd571a
From a high level, I strongly believe cryptocurrencies are so much more than simply technologies looking for use case. Each successful cryptocurrency has it’s own form of economics, it’s own passionate community, it’s own governance structure, and it’s own ethos/belief system. The closer you look at passionate cryptocurrency holders and the leaders of the projects, the more you can see how similar this is to a borderless nation operated entirely online. It’s one of the reasons I find this space so fascinating
How does the grant approval for Iconproject work, do I just submit my request as a developer or there are special use cases the team usually look out for?
Chidi: Grant is a way for both developers and non developers to participate and bring their ideas to life, any idea that will bring value to the icon project is welcome, the icon team reviews the applications and either approve , call for more information or reject
https://forum.icon.community/c/g/31
What is the roadmap for the IconProject?
Scott: So while ICONLOOP is working on the MyID alliance to onboard more use cases for the decentralized ID service, ICON is working on some exciting new features for our network:
- We’re working on IISS 3.0, which is a huge update to the network that requires node operators to hold a lot of ICX. They must hold at least 5% of the amount of ICX delegated to them. It also creates a DAO fund that will be managed by validators to help grow the ICON Ecosystem.
- There are many DeFi projects in development. Balanced.Network is already announced and there are some that are not yet announced.
- Bridge is an exciting project that is also in development. It makes it really easy to convert your fiat currency into a stablecoin and vice versa, so app developers can integrate fiat currencies into their DApps. For example, if somebody wanted to buy a cryptokittie, instead of it costing 1 ETH it could just be priced at $400. Then users could deposit $400 into Bridge and it will be turned into a stablecoin and pay for the cryptokittie (https://medium.com/helloiconworld/bridge-connecting-blockchain-based-applications-to-the-masses-1152798d7afe). This is a huge play for mass adoption. We also have an exciting update to our tech roadmap coming out next week, so keep your eyes out!
Can you tell us about existing ICON partnerships as well as any recent updates, finally do you have any specific product targeting the African crypto space?
Scott:I would say that we’ve done a pretty solid job covering ICON’s partnerships and recent updates in the previous questions, but just to summarize:
- ICON has excellent relationships with governments and corporate entities in Korea, leading to high probability of ICX being used in the background of many of the future blockchain products of the MyID Alliance.
- ICON has a great developer community building many traditional crypto-native apps like DeFi, gaming, and supply chain.
And as for the African Crypto Space, I’m relying on @Olisadon to help me out there! But I do think that DeFi should play a role globally and hope to see some adoption in Africa
Chidi: we are currently exploring some ideas to solve some of the most pressing problems in Africa, will be announced as soon as finalised
general questions
@Abisola1, How does ICON aim to incentivize its community members? I would like to know some of the incentives/ benefits that comes with buying and holding $ICX for long term purpose?
Scott: Buying + staking + voting with your ICX comes with a 13% APY currently. You also have the ability to use the DeFi products when they launch and can also apply for grants from the DAO fund or from ICON
@kunlefighter, How can I be eligible to become a formal C-Rep and can general participants in the network receive compensation for participating in the network?
Scott: If you just want to stake and vote you can get 13% APY, but if you also want to run a node check out our docs here. C-Rep is an older concept, now it’s P-Rep
https://www.icondev.io/docs/quickstart
ICON Developer Portal (https://www.icondev.io/docs/quickstart)
Quickstart
Becoming a Public Representative (P-Rep) P-Reps are the consensus nodes that produce, verify blocks and participate in network policy decisions on th
@Temidayo16, In what instances can DPASS be used outside the ecosystem of ICON for special purposes?
Scott: DPASS is an older product and one of the building blocks to myID. MyID / Zzeung is now being used by governemnts and enterprises as explained in the previous segment
@AbuMaleeq, Your vision is to redefine the meaning of communities, could you tell us some of the benefits of becoming an ICON community member?
Scott: We have a passionate and welcoming community with many community promotions and engaging activites. Additionally, ICX holders will have many things to do with their ICX as we are aggressively building out connections to existing DeFi products and building our own on the ICON network
@Jonahapagu, The ICON network recently experienced an attack by a malicious individual exploiting a vulnerability in the Multiple Unstaking Requests feature. How was this resolved and what measures have been taken to ensure such attacks don’t happen again
Scott: This was addressed in a recent blog post and we are happy to say it’s been resolved with much less damage than was possible. Our community came together, acted quickly, and is now stronger from it 💪🏼. More QA and community testing procedures for future updates are in the works.
@topind7, What is the RELATIONSHIP of NEOPLY with ICON based on?
How has NEOPLY developed the ecosystem of ICON?
Scott: NEOPLY is a top validator on ICON and is therefore incentivized to see ICON become successful
@Olonade02,So far, has ICON been able to achieve any real life usecases? If any, pls list them?
Scott: ICON public blockchain (uses ICX) is mandatory when u go to Jeju Island (top korean tourist area) and is being integrated into Shinhan Bank (top korean bank) this was mentioned in the previous segment please scroll up
@Spott, What are plans on integration of private blockchains?
Or your focus only is connecting the public blockchains?
Scott: The focus is private and public blockchains, but originally it was just private
@Abisola1, Vast majority of crypto projects these days are made by young people who are not ready with any business equipment such as the know how, solid experience, branding, marketing, etc. And, we all know that business can’t be built on pure luck. Can you tell us about ICON project team members & how competent are they? Do they have wealth of experience that is required of them in their respective field?
Scott: The developers in Korea come from POSTECH, a top korean engineering university. I can say that my immediate team members, including myself, have a strong background in investment banking and venture capital leading to good experience in designing defi products
@Idee01, What are ICON IRC-16 security token standards? Since it represents ownership of assets, how is it different from NFTs?
Scott: IRC-16 is more about being compliant with securities laws. Such as having a list of KYCed accounts that are allowed to hold the token
@Olonade02, Do you to lauch new DApps and products on ICON? Should we also expect DeFi Dapps?
Scott: Yes many defi dapps building on ICON. Futureicx.io is live and balanced.network is in production. check us out on dapp.review to stay up to date
What is the most popular dApps game on ICON?
Is ICON supported to create NFT?
Scott:Yes ICON has NFT standards
@Olonade02, What’s your partnership with Jeju Island? What functions are you serving for them
Ans When people arrive on the island they must register a DID on our public blockchain using the Zzeung app
@Jonahapagu, ICONex currently supports ETH and ICX wallets What plans do you have in integrating more public chains to ICONEX
Scott: We plan to integrate more public chains through interoperability. Creating IRC2 tokens that are backed by the actual tokens. Similar to wBTC on ETH
@K2ice, Of all ICON’s products (ICONex, ICON Tracker, DID and ICONick), which one is ICON focusing more on? And which one is more user friendly?
Scott: I would say ICONex is the bigger focus and making it more user friendly is in the works
@herechange, What are your major challenges over time, and how were you able to overcome them
Scott: There have been many challenges, from tech development to community building, and I would say we were able to overcome them by always being willing to take constructive feedback and work together as a team. I am grateful for the team members I hav
@kunlefighter, Can you explain what SCORE (Smart Contract on Reliable Environment) is, what are some of it unique characteristics and why was it created?
Scott: SCORE are the smart contracts on ICON and they are written in Python. I’m not a dev so wish i could help more!
@Olonade02, What’s the difference between blockchain and loopchain? Why does ICON use them both?
Scott: Loopchain is just the core technology of the ICON blockchain
@Jonahapagu, What is IISS scores in the ICON Republic and how is this generated
Scott: Instead of directly getting ICX for staking + voting, you first earn i-score then the ICX needs to be claimed. It leads to more active participation by our voters
I know you have ICON PHILIPINAS. Do you plan to have ICON AFRICANAS as well for we Africans?
Scott: @Olisadon should lead the ICON Africa P-Rep!
@Idee01, What are ICON plans to build local communities to spread awareness in Non-English speaking regions in Africa? Tell us more about ICON community grant program and how we can benefit.
Scott: Anything involving community building in new geographic regions is a huge interest to us. Please apply on the grants page if you have an idea. Take a look at other grants for how they should be formatted.
https://forum.icon.community/c/g/
@Olonade02 , How can you attract longterm investors of $ICX rather than short-term pump and dump users?
Scott: Genuine adoption, which we’re making huge strides at
What’s Balanced Network? What’s its usefulness and relevance to we users?
Scott: It’s a combination of MakerDAO and Synthetix but built on ICON and we have our own special innovations as well. Check out balanced.network for more info
@Olonade02 , Aside public chains, do you plan to interconnect private chains too? If yes, do you need third party partnership to achieve that?
Scott: Yes, ICONLOOP (icon’s tech partner) helps with private chain setups and they are easily connected to the public chain
@Idee01 , I’m am upcoming ethical hacker. Do you have a bug bounty or Hackathon program to check for vulnerabilities of your smart contracts? How often do you carry out security audits?
Scott: It’s in the works. One of our team members is working on a bug bounty program. If you have advice feel free to let me know!
Thanks for participating in this Ama, stay tuned for more exciting activities from IconAfrica.
