This is not financial advice.
During the last two weeks ICON Foundation showed average level of activity in media landscape. The main keynote of ICON’s biweekly update are initial preparations for P-Rep registration. At the end of April, ‘TestNet for P-Reps’ will be open for P-Rep candidates to experience their roles in block production and verification in advance before election. In early August, the ICON Foundation will start offering ‘P-Rep Pre-voting’ for all ICONists to experience what it is like to vote for a P-Rep candidate. To continue, ICON community published development update. I-Score, the right to claim ICX at any time from the Public Treasury, will become available to ICONists as well as ICON’s DID known as ‘DPASS’, a new decentralized identity service. Finally, ICONLOOP has integrated its blockchain technology to SBI Savings Bank’s personal authentication service, the first blockchain-based authentication service launched in the Korean savings bank industry. ICON pranked crypto community with publishing the following article on April, 1.
Development
100 Public Representatives (P-Reps) are elected for the ICON Network by delegation of ICONists. Top ranked 22 main P-Reps will participate in block production, verification and making governance decisions. 200,000 ICONists are waiting to vote for eligible P-Rep candidates to boost the ICON ecosystem.
1. ICON TestNet Opens for P-Rep Candidates
At the end of April, ‘TestNet for P-Reps’ will be open for P-Rep candidates to experience their roles in block production and verification in advance. The TestNet operation policy will be guided through ‘ICON P-Reps,’ a private Telegram channel dedicated to P-Rep candidates. Each candidate will have access to the ICON TestNet under the support of the ICON Foundation. For more information on how to join ‘ICON P-Reps’ Telegram channel, please visit ICON.community (https://t.me/iconcm).
Before September comes, every P-Rep candidate will be able to check their resources in advance by installing the ICON Network’s software and running their own servers. The data collected during the period will be utilized for the decentralized ICON MainNet, and further announcements will be updated in real time via the ‘ICON P-Reps’ telegram channel and GitHub at the end of April.
2. P-Rep Pre-voting, the start of P-Rep On-chain Registration & Voting
P-Rep Pre-voting, which will take place in early August, allows all ICONists to stake ICX and delegate authority using the ICONex wallet. Additionally, all P-Rep candidates will be able to register their information on the ICON Network in advance and start their marketing campaign.
Key points and brief rules on ‘P-Rep Pre-voting’ are as follows:
* All P-Rep candidates can register their candidate information on-chain.
* All ICONists may delegate their stake to any registered P-Rep candidates.
* Even if a P-Rep candidate is delegated with the stake, the candidate is still not elected as the actual P-Rep, and the real decentralization will start September 2019.
* P-Rep candidates that receive votes will not receive any block rewards during this period. Rewards during this period are only for voters.
* All ICONists who have participated in P-Rep Pre-voting will be rewarded for their delegation of stake. The reward will come from the ICX held by the ICON Foundation.
Social encounters
This candidate report presents a summary of each P-Rep candidate. You will understand better about each candidate and their proposals by reading the report. The views of each candidate are their own, and icon.community does not hold any copyright.
ICON Sweden aims to become a leading P-Rep in Europe. The team consists of experts in Information Security, Privacy, Operations, Governance, Legal, Compliance and Risks Management. As ICON Sweden is a Block Producer in Telos and other EOSIS Chains, ICON Sweden can bring experience to ICONSENSUS.
Main Proposal
1) Community Building: Build communities using both social media tools and face-to-face meetups
2) Governance: Utilize ICONists’ voting weight to choose appropriate P-Reps that match their wishes and beliefs.
3) Blocks Production Infrastructure: Build, configure and deploy ICON recommended high-end infrastructure.
4) Decentralized and Centralized Applications: Support the development of innovative applications.
5) Regular Weekly Reports: Create regular weekly reports on ICON Sweden’s progress and the status of ICON Blockchain ecosystem.
Iconode is working on developing its business based in Puerto Rico. Being closely located to the US, Iconode can help to raise a unique awareness assisting engagement with US markets and global participants. To expand the ICON ecosystem, Iconode is focusing on developing quality operating standards, client retention, dependable real-world business practices, and infrastructure.
Main proposal
1) Building a user-friendly ecosystem: Reduce barriers to ease market entry for participants while helping to create and maximize opportunities in decentralization, data efficiency, and process management.
2) Stable and solid operation: Secure operating share and maintain a solid position in the ICON ecosystem.
- Have experiences combined with the industry’s current early stage of development
- Have accumulated Traction capital for the acquisition of ICX to provide stable operations, minimizing fluctuations to the flow of our delegations and providing an initial basis for reliable operating
3) Community building: Maintain a high status within the community as it serves its purpose and improves the community’s awareness, understanding, market access and use of these technologies.
- Publish weekly reports with metrics and statistics in English, Korean and Spanish
- Public relations through reporting and hearing community feedback
VELIC is a financial services platform powered by the ICON network. It offers a variety of financial services related to blockchain-based assets. Based in Singapore, VELIC has a growing user base notably in Asia. VELIC will expand and accelerate the ICON Network and its community by applying the knowledge and experience by operating from a commercial/enterprise standpoint.
Main proposal
1) The ICON Ecosystem: Provide services that encourage the consumption of ICX tokens.
- Provide custody, trading, lending and asset management services for ICX holders.
- Generate sizable transactions.
- Maintain a Node backed by institutional-level security.
2) Services for DApps
- Be a reliable partner for ICON DApps in terms of due diligence, fundraising and user acquisition.
- Manage cash flow even after IAO in the form of loans using various cryptocurrencies
- Provide corporate finance/asset management for DApps
3) For the ICON community: Support ICON community by building applicable product and services using ICX tokens.
- Promote the development of useful DApps
- Offer financing service for various ICON ecosystem participants
- Provide essential asset management & key storage services
- Plan to offer staking service for PoS tokens under the storage system
DRAICON BALL team will focus on ICON’s decentralization ideology and connection with other networks. DRAICON BALL will be based in Korea to keep a close relationship with ICON team and to maintain real-time communication with the community for the betterment of ICON Network.
Main proposal
1) Dependable infrastructure: Provide block generating and verifying infrastructure to help ICON Network operate seamlessly.
- View dependability as Reliability, Availability, and Security.
2) DApp ecosystem
- Focus on the DApp ecosystem growth and promotion.
- Contribute Awareness, Barrier to entry, Promotion, and Investment to create a virtuous cycle in which DApps are attracted to and utilize ICON Network.
3) Oracle ecosystem: Contribute Governance & Reputation, Data and Participation to build decentralized Oracle ecosystem
4) Interchain: Contribute Status, Value exchange, and Awareness.
Noris is a technology consultancy based in San Francisco. Noris focuses on connecting the talent and expertise of Silicon Valley with the rest of the global blockchain movement. Noris team also organizes one of the biggest blockchain event in Silicon Valley, SF Blockchain Week (SFBW) as well as gathering events such as the Berkeley Blockchain Career Fair. Noris aims to engage the ICON community and to disseminate knowledge of its technological advantages to computer science enthusiasts and blockchain investors.
Main proposal
1) Community building: Provide support in community building and market expansion in the U.S. as well as China.
- Provide the most relevant updates from ICON to the Chinese market by coordinating with the renowned media influencers in China.
2) Public Event & Promotion:
- SF Blockchain Week: Highlight ICON to the San Francisco community by educating the community from both a technical and fundamental perspective, from enthusiasts to serious engineers and investors.
- Blockchain Career Fair: Provide invaluable personnel and talent resources to the ICON team.
3) Provide support in growing and helping evangelize ICON in China
- Coordinate with the renowned media influencers in China to provide the most relevant updates from ICON to the Chinese market
See also:
The video covers:
Election Process
What is the requirement to become a P-Rep?
How much reward can a P-Rep get?
Why Should I be P-Rep?
ICON Depends on your hand
Upcoming events:
Finance
Roadmap
IISS (ICON Incentives Scoring System)
Before the election of P-Reps in September, ICONists will be able to obtain I-Score starting in the third quarter through staking & delegating to P-Reps. ICX holders will receive I-Score as an incentive by staking their ICX and voting to delegate authority to registered P-Rep candidates. During this pre-voting period, however, the nodes themselves will still be operated by the ICON Foundation. I-Score accumulated throughout the delegation period can be exchanged for ICX whenever the ICX holders want. The ICX rewards will come from the ICON Foundation’s existing treasury, not from the creation of new ICX. When decentralization occurs in September, ICX rewards will come from newly created ICX, not the ICON Foundation existing treasury.
Transaction Fee System
There are two major updates to the transaction fee system. The fee sharing feature, allowing DApp providers (instead of users) to pay the transaction fee, and fee payment using Virtual Step, which is obtained through staking (different type of staking than IISS), are both entering the stabilization phase. These features will undergo a stabilization period starting in April and will likely be released during the second quarter.
DEX (Decentralized Exchange)
The ICON Team is currently working on integrating the DEX SCORE with ICON’s wallet service, ICONex. ICON’s DEX will provide liquidity between ICX and IRC tokens based on reserves without any need for a bid-and-offer style order book. This functions similarly to Kyber Network and Bancor. With the release of the ICON public network-based DEX, ICON DApps’ IRC tokens that are not yet listed on exchanges will still be able to be traded through ICONex.
DID (Decentralized Identifier)
ICON’s DID will be released in May and will be called ‘DPASS,’ a new decentralized identity service available to all users. Users will be able to get access to multiple existing services and apps with just one authentication procedure (KYC) without repeating the registration process.
Enhancement in Mobile Accessibility
Most DApps hardly work on mobile devices. The importance of mobile integration has become apparent over the last few years, and we realize the necessity of mobile support to further the adoption of blockchain technology. The ICON Team plans to enhance DApps’ mobile accessibility using two methods. First, we will update Mobile ICON Connect to support the integration of mobile apps with ICONex and the ability to call SCORE functions through the app. Secondly, we are preparing the interface for mobile web browsing to communicate with ICONex via relayers to call SCORE.
The ICON development team has moved one step further in the development of the core blockchain platform, and through a recent reorganization, we are more actively pursuing service-level projects for end users. We have been organizing teams dedicated to creating more user-friendly services on top of the ICON platform.
Services based on ICON:
DID
- Launch DID feature in ICONex Wallet (In research -> In development): DID feature integrated in ICONex
Vault
- Launch Vault feature in ICONex Wallet (In research -> In development): Decentralized key management feature integrated in ICONex wallet
What’s next?
- Become a genesis Public Representative
Partnerships and team members
- ICONLOOP Partners with SBI Savings Bank to Release Blockchain-based Personal Authentication Services
ICONLOOP has integrated its blockchain technology to SBI Savings Bank’s personal authentication service. ‘SBI Simple Authentication,’ the first blockchain-based authentication service launched in the Korean savings bank industry is now open to public.
BI Savings Bank’s mobile smart banking application enables users to authenticate blockchain-based personal identification number (PIN) or fingerprints through ‘SBI Simple Authentication.’ Along with the enhanced security from the use of blockchain, the new service allows users to log in and easily initiate transfers by using just a PIN or fingerprint without a public certificate, security card, or one-time password (OTP).
Blockchain-based ‘SBI Simple Authentication’ is implemented by storing PIN or fingerprint authentication information, with consensus among the nodes of the SBI blockchain server (instead of getting proof from certification authorities), and verifying the data integrity through ‘SCORE’, a smart contract environment developed by ICONLOOP, at the time of issuing a certificate. ‘SBI Simple Authentication’ establishes a safe user authentication process by applying private and public key structure, while being compatible with the existing certificate standards by adopting their specifications. It also follows the FIDO standards to support biometric authentication.
Users can login and transfer money by selecting ‘PIN authentication’ or ‘fingerprint authentication,’ after tapping the ‘login’ button on the home screen. For customers who have not registered PIN or fingerprint authentication, the initial authentication settings screen will be displayed following the registration prompt. SBI’s new service is focused on offering the same user experience (UX) as the existing PIN or fingerprint authentication system so that users are comfortable using the new authentication service without an understanding of blockchain technology.
Both companies expect enhanced security through the utilization of blockchain technology. It will now be impossible to falsify information and misuse the certificates, while also increasing customer satisfaction as there is no need to install separate security plug-ins. Also, in conjunction with the timestamping function on the public blockchain in the future, there will be noteworthy cost savings by gradually replacing the areas where public certificates are currently used.
SBI SAVINGS BANK, a savings bank established under the Mutual Savings Bank Act of South Korea, is a financial institution with strong ties to the communities it serves. The bank’s principal customers include low-income and middle-income individuals, self-employed individuals and small and medium-size enterprises. It engages in various businesses, including time deposits for individuals, consumer loans, real estate-backed loans for businesses and real estate project loans.
Rumours
No updates
Social media metrics
The charts above illustrate an increase in the number of Telegram and Twitter followers. In general, ICON foundation experiences 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.
