Hello, and welcome to another biweekly recap of ICON. As always, we are here with news and events that happened within the ICON Ecosystem. So let’s look at the key takeaways!
ICON’s non-fungible token standard, IRC-3, has shifted its status to the Last Call. The review period was set to run until July 13th, and interested parties could have proposed changes through PR before final acceptance. The IRC-3 token standard interface was initially announced in 2018, to standardize the issuance and trading of non-fungible assets on the ICON blockchain. Inspired by the ERC-721 standard, IRC-3 covers NFT use cases’ broad features, including ownership representation of digital or physical assets, and consignment to third party operators for token transfers. Another essential milestone is associated with Certik’s Audit of ICON Smart Contracts. CertiK’s team of engineers stated that “with regards to the codebase, the main recommendation is to continue updating the codebase to match the latest major versions of Python and their respected standards, so that officially recognized libraries, as well as the team’s custom codebase, deliver high code quality and security.” Check the details in the update below.
Furthermore, a new proposal was introduced by Scott Smiley. It was suggested that the base transaction fee is raised to 10 times what it currently is, over a while, making sure it is not causing disruptions in the network along the way. Long story short, this was proposed because transaction fees in USD are currently unnecessarily low according to the recent findings. At the moment, the average transaction fee would take roughly 43M transactions per day (~500 tps) to break even. With 10x the transaction fee, it is possible to counteract inflation entirely with ~4.3M transactions per day (~50 tps).
Next, in a newsletter, published on July 6th, some crucial things from the end of June and the beginning of July were highlighted. They mentioned that approximately 55.2% of circulating supply staked vs. 38.4% at the end of 2019, about 13.7% annual staking reward, and +3% weekly growth in wallets with balances. Additionally, over 300,000 wallets now have an ICX balance. Main P-Reps lowered the global commission rate to nearly 17.3% down from ~17.5% last week. They also reminded that ICONLOOP raised 6 billion KRW (~5 million USD) in a bridge round from leading Korean investment firms. Danal Holdings (Subsidiary of Danal — software development, commerce, mobile payment) has decided to invest in ICONLOOPwith the intention to use DID for integrated payment system and identification services on their platform.
As for the upcoming events — on July 30th, the current status and vision of famous blockchain projects will be introduced to the Korean blockchain community through the joint meetup of Maker DAO X Chainlink X ICON team. Some virtual events are also planned. ICON Community is growing — there is a slight increase in the number of subscribers in social networks and active participants in the chat.
Stay tuned for more!
Development
The IRC-3 token standard interface was first proposed in 2018, to standardize the issuance and trading of non-fungible assets on the ICON blockchain.
NFTs represent unique ownership of digital or physical assets that are distinguishable and inherently non-fungible. A diverse universe of assets can be represented by NFTs, including physical properties such as homes, artworks, or virtual assets such as collectible cards and other one-of-a-kind unique assets. Inspired by the ERC-721 standard, IRC-3 covers the broad features of NFT use cases, including ownership representation of digital or physical assets, and consignment to third party operators for token transfers. The standard can be found on the ICON Non-Fungible Token Standard IIP page, including its specifications and a sample SCORE implementation. A community-driven NFT group was also formed during the most recent ICON developer call, where interested community members can gather to collaborate and build around the NFT technology.
CertiK, is the leading blockchain security company, founded by Computer Science professors from Yale and Columbia University. They pioneered using Formal Verification technology to perform comprehensive mathematical computations that are able to identify undetected vulnerabilities in a project’s source code. They have helped secure some of the largest blockchain projects in the space by combining their deep domain expertise, proprietary tooling and unique techniques.
CertiK’s team of engineers states, “with regards to the codebase, the main recommendation we can make is to continue updating the codebase to match the latest major versions of Python and their respected standards, so that officially recognized libraries, as well as the team’s custom codebase, deliver high code quality and security.”
Additionally, the CertiK team of engineers advised ICON that all minor findings are carefully considered and assimilated in the codebase of the project to ensure that the highest code standard is achieved.
Also read in the article CertiK’s audit of ICON’s Python Implementation of the Service Engine
Quick Take:
- Transaction fees in USD are currently extremely low, unnecessarily low
- With the current average transaction fee, it would take ~43M transactions per day (~500 tps) to break even
- With 10x the transaction fee, we could be counteracting inflation entirely with ~4.3M transactions per day (~50 tps)
They propose raising the base transaction fee to 10 times what it currently is over a period of time, making sure it is not causing disruptions in the network along the way. Step Price adjustments are a built-in Network Proposal, so what in necessary to do is make the proposal and agree. However, there is a maximum increase in Step Price of 30% so it will take some time to reach the goal of 10x growth.
Here is a model that shows the numbers
- Release is planned for July 20th according to the roadmap
Awareness and social encounters
Key Highlights:
- ~55.2% of circulating supply staked vs. 38.4% at the end of 2019. ~13.7% annual staking reward
- +3% weekly growth in wallets with balances. Over 300,000 wallets now have an ICX balance
- Main P-Reps lowered the global commission rate to ~17.3% down from ~17.5% last week
- ICONLOOP raises 6 billion KRW (~5 million USD) in a bridge round from leading Korean investment firms
- ICONLOOP onboards POSCO (a multi-billion dollar company) to the network through the VisitMe app
- ICON released its June technology roadmap update including staking from SCORE, multiple unstaking periods and voting up to 100 P-Reps
- Cointelegraph covers ICON Hyperhack in an article titled “The Rise of Virtual Hackathons”
With the recently released interoperability protocol, BTP 1.0 ICON brings true decentralization to the blockchain by seamlessly connecting public & private decentralized services.
With many sports leagues around the world in a state of suspension because of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the United States, you’d think this would be a bad time for sports betting platforms. ICON-powered sports betting DApp ZenSports, however, has not only adjusted to the new reality, but is flourishing in it. ZenSports Mark Thomas says traffic is on par with pre-pandemic times, in part thanks to the additions of newer sports such as MMA and esports. It took some effort on the part of ZenSports and users themselves to get there, though.
“In the first couple of weeks, people were hesitant to bet on esports because they didn’t really understand it or didn’t know how to bet on it. People aren’t going to put hard-earned money on things they don’t understand at all,” recalls Thomas.
“But for the most part, people just want to bet. People are willing to learn something new or do something new if it’s credible. And as long as there’s a credible, safe way of betting on those things, in a safe, trustworthy environment, people are pretty flexible.”
He adds, “Sometimes, you’re forced to learn something new. And you learn that you love it.”
Min Kim, ICON founder, tweeted “ICON ranks quite well overall vs. other top smart contract platforms. Have room to improve, esp. market maturity category.”
Upcoming events
- June 19th, 2020 — August 19th, 2020 — A Call to Developers: Build on ICON. Hyperconnect the world. ($20,000 Prizes). They’re currently at 140 participants. Build De-Fi, Utility, NFT & Gaming.
- July 30th, 2020 — Meetup with ICON, Chainlink, Maker
- July 31st, 2020 — Governance: What It Means to Blockchain Projects with ICON, Tezos, and Maker
Finance
- Key network stats
Weekly vote change
Weekly voter change
Number of wallets by vote size
Number of P-Reps Voted per Wallet
- FutureICX is ready for release
Roadmap
Below is the projected timeline for the release:
- 07/14: Release the update to Pagoda, Yeouido
- 07/20: Release update to exchanges
- 07/27: Release update to Mainnet
They will also update ICONex Chrome, ICONex Mobile, and ICON Tracker to support the new features.
[Update details]
Based on community requests, they have worked on several features to enhance the governance experience of the ICON network. Based on this feedback, they will soon add P-Rep private key dualizing, staking, and delegating functions in SCORE, multiple unstaking periods, and a function to increase the number of delegations from 10 to 100. Details of each feature can be found below.
[P-Rep Private Key Dualizing function]
- Allows P-Reps to register an additional key, the key used to produce and validate a block, to the ICON Network.
- Currently, when an ICONist tries to register as a P-Rep, the ICONist’s key will automatically be registered as a key for the node, and the keystore has to be put into the docker.
- With this update, ICONist can register a separate additional key for P-Rep nodes when they try to register as a P-Rep.
- The ICONist public address will be used to participate in governance, receive reward, and only the node key you have registered are included in the docker.
- Therefore, the ICONist’s public key does not enter the docker, but only the key of the node enters the docker. It can be understood that the owner of the node and the key for node operation are separated.
[Staking and delegating function in SCORE]
- Allows SCORE to stake and delegate directly to P-Reps.
- Since ICON Network has a block reward for voting, if a SCORE can vote to a P-Rep, the SCORE also can receive a reward and distribute it to the ICONists who deposited ICX to the contract.
[Multiple Unstaking Periods]
- Allows ICONists and SCOREs to have separate schedules for unstaking.
- Currently, an ICONist can only submit one unstaking request to the network. With this update, ICONist will be able to submit several unstaking requests (up to 1000).
[Extension of the number of delegation slots]
- Allows an ICONist to vote up to 100 P-Reps.
[Additional developments during the month]
They continued to make progress on additional IRC token standards for the ICON network. They hope to release more information on these standards in the coming weeks.
Partnerships and team members
Danal Holdings (Subsidiary of Danal — software development, commerce, mobile payment) has decided to invest in ICONLOOP. They intend on using DID for integrated payment system and identification services on their platform.
Check a thread by Markus from ICON Hyperconnect:
Balanced is a DAO consisting of a decentralized balance sheet of ICX collateral, with the vision of creating a vibrant ecosystem of tokens pegged to the value of real-world assets. It allows users to mint and retire pegged assets, while also providing market makers with clearly defined arbitrage opportunities. The initial iteration of Balanced will support the minting and retiring of USD-pegged assets referred to as ICON Dollars (ICD).
This edition contains changes to:
- Liquidation mechanism
- Token economics
- Platform fees
- BAL mining
Other
ICON P-Reps News
Top-10 P-reps
The freshest biweekly development update on Citadel P-Rep, come around and see what we made so far!
- Citadel launched in beta!
- Citadel overview: ICON
Social media metrics
The charts above illustratefluctuations 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.
