Hello ICONists! It’s the second March Biweekly update on ICON Foundation!
We’re going to start this report with the most exciting news!
ICONLOOP is one of four finalists for the Blockchain Revolution Global Enterprise Blockchain Awards in the subcategory: Innovative Entrepreneurship in Blockchain — Technology & Platforms. What’s more, ICONLOOP added another 5 new companies to the MyID alliance: the Industrial Bank of Korea, P2P financial firm Funda, blockchain security solution Quantstamp, mobile pass solution MOCAsystem and the Korea Smart Clothing Association.
Most of the readers already know that Democracy Seoul implements ICONLOOP’s “loopchain” engine as part of Seoul Metropolitan Government’s “Blockchain CIty Seoul” project. The platform will use the blockchain module to record voting data on the blockchain in real time. It encourages citizen participation in the policymaking process by allowing them to suggest policies. ICONLOOP will continue to deliver the value of blockchain to mass adoption.
Furthermore, Korean-language blockchain news outlet BCNMedia takes a look at a new information system that collects and provides information on Seoul’s largest used car and automotive aftermarket district. The website for used car sales uses the Seoul Blockchain Platform, based on ICONLOOP’s blockchain engine “loopchain.” The Seoul Blockchain Platform prevents tampering of data entered into the website and improves trust in the system.
Earlier this month South Korea’s parliament passed a revision to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA), a first step in bringing cryptocurrency into the national mainstream. The bill will go into effect from March 2021. This is a massive development for the ICON project as the foundation continues to build bridges between governments, companies and other enterprises interested in blockchain technology.
Moving on to another valuable news! ICON Foundation is changing its policy to allow ICONLOOP employees’ participation in the ICON project from RESTRICTED to LIMITED. ICONLOOP employees may apply to the following two programs: Employee Grant Participation Program and Employee P-Rep Participation Program. Previously, ICON Foundation and ICONLOOP agreed to restrict ICONLOOP employees from applying for grants and running for P-Reps. Now, ICONLOOP employees will be allowed pending the approval of their respective grant and contribution proposals by both ICONLOOP executives and the ICON Foundation.
Unfortunately, the ICON team had to limit business activities and are working remotely now due to ‘Coronavirus’ which continues to spread across the globe. The team’s primary concern is the safety and health of the members.
Last but not least! P-Rep Governance Meeting #3 is a wrap! More participants joined in this time. The ICON core team thank everyone for the participation and encourage them to make more contributions to the ICON ecosystem.
More news to follow!
Read on and stay tuned!
Development
Github metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
DEMOCRACY SEOUL
Democracy Seoul implements ICONLOOP’s “loopchain” engine as part of Seoul Metropolitan Government’s “Blockchain CIty Seoul” project. ICONLOOP has been providing blockchain technology to the city since 2018, when it was selected as an operator of Seoul’s standard blockchain platform for the “Seoul Blockchain Demonstration Project.”
The platform will use the blockchain module to record voting data on the blockchain in real time. It encourages citizen participation in the policymaking process by allowing them to suggest policies, which are then debated, voted upon and — if they receive sufficient support — reflected in real-life city policy.
According to ICONLOOP Communication Team Lead Minhwan Kim, ICONLOOP will continue to deliver the value of blockchain to mass adoption and ‘Hyperconnect the World’.
Seoul City, Janganpyeong Area Automotive Industry Information at a Glance. Blockchain based ‘integrated information portal construction’
Social encounters
ICONLOOP Recognized as a Finalist for Global Enterprise Blockchain Award!
The Enterprise Blockchain Awards (EBAs) judging committee have made their decisions on the finalists for the annual Enterprise Blockchain Awards! ICONLOOP is one of four finalists in the subcategory: Innovative Entrepreneurship in Blockchain — Technology & Platforms. Each subcategory will have one winner, which will be announced at the EBA Gala event on April 8th, 2020, in Toronto, Ontario, following the conclusion of the Blockchain Revolution Global (BRG) conference, one of the leading enterprise-focused blockchain conferences in the world.
JH Kim, CEO of ICONLOOP, said: “We are extremely excited to be recognized alongside the thought leaders in the blockchain industry . Our innovative decentralized identity products have made significant strides in Korea and we’re very pleased to see our work recognized globally”.
Upcoming events
the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA) PASSAGE HELPS KEEP ICX STRONG
The South Korean parliament’s recent passing of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA) has been good news for local virtual assets, especially ICON (ICX).
Coin prices have soared since the passage of the FTRA last week, fueled by expectations that cryptocurrencies will finally be brought into the institutional mainstream. As of 10 March, the price of ICX climbed to nearly US$0.42 against the dollar, 24% higher than it was trading prior to the passage. Metadium and Klay were trading higher, too.
Also helping ICON’s price was news that the MyID Alliance had added five new partners: the Industrial Bank of Korea, P2P financial firm Funda, blockchain security solution Quantstamp, mobile pass solution MOCAsystem and the Korea Smart Clothing Association.
ZenSports
ZenSports is a mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace where anyone can create and accept bets with anyone else in the world, without the need for a centralized bookmaker. Bettors can create their own bets with their own odds and terms, and others in the marketplace will accept those bets.
ZenSports created its own cryptocurrency utility token called SPORTS, which customers can use for placing bets, earning discounted betting fees, and getting cash back, bonuses, and other rewards. SPORTS utility token, SPORT security token, and certain API’s are built on the ICON blockchain protocol.
The team’s looking for a blockchain engineer that is very familiar (or fluent!) with developing on ICON’s protocol to join the team either as a part-time or full-time contractor (preferably full-time). Must have prior blockchain software engineering experience developing on ICON and be able to work autonomously in a dynamic, fast-paced startup. More details can be found here.
The team have currently focused on optimizing the post-customer acquisition and retention funnel through constant product iteration and via their SPORTS Rewards Program.
ZenSports is available for download in both the App Store (iOS) and the ZenSports website (Android), and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Roadmap
Development roadmap plans for 2020
Key Themes
1. Network Enhancement
The Foundation continues to refine icon-service and its loopchain engine through network enhancements and stability features. This will remain a key focus as the team look to improve upon the technology for broader adoption across corporates, government entities and crypto natives. Additionally, they will continue to improve the security features of the network and improve decentralization.
Items that will be accomplished in 2020:
- Block Recovery
- 2 blocks Invocations
- P-Rep Private Key Dualizing
- Increase the Main P-Rep Set Size
- LFT2 technical documentation and yellow paper
Other Items
- Staking and voting APIs on SCORE
- Automatic block structure upgrading via Revision Proposal
- SCORE internal call function
2. Open Source Enhancement
This year ICON wants to increase the number of open-source contributions from the community to loopchain and icon-service. Right now, the codebase is being primarily managed by ICON Foundation but in 2020 they want to increase their level of open source to a much greater degree.
Key focus areas:
- Fully migrate internal development process to GitHub repository
- Improve documentation explaining the architecture of loopchain and icon-service, including design documentation
- Improve commentary between codes
- Enhancing and formalizing the off-chain governance process (IIP)
3. Governance System Update
ICON plans to propose refinements to IISS in 2020. By better aligning incentives across stakeholders in the network, they hope to promote more collaboration amongst ICONists. These stakeholders include Main P-Reps, Sub P-Reps, Contributors and Delegators. The team also plan to implement the Contribution Proposal System (CPS) to accelerate the activity on the network. Recall that the CPS is a governance and funding mechanism to support growth through contribution. With this system, ICONists can be rewarded for their contribution through this decentralized mechanism without relying on ICON Foundation for support.
Potential Proposal for IISS Revisions
- Adjust the Representative Reward (TBD)
- Form the Contribution Proposal Fund
- Add the minimum bond requirement for Public Representative
- Add the slashing based on the minimum bond requirement for Public Representative
Contribution Proposal System
- Improve the design of the CPS
- Develop the CPS
- Integrate the CPS into the ICON Network
4. BTP and Sidechain
Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP) will allow the transfer of value and information between heterogeneous chains. With this technology, multiple blockchains can communicate and interconnect via ICON Network. In 2020, the team plan to have the basic level of the BTP technology implemented into the ICON Network. The basic level of the BTP will allow Private Blockchains to interconnect with ICON Network.
- Design the new economic, governance components for the BTP
- Integrate the BTP technology into the ICON Network
- Develop the new components to ICON Network to support the BTP
Sidechain will be a new layer of the ICON Network to support a reliable smart-contract environment. The primary goal of this sidechain is to incentivize developers to deploy smart contracts on the sidechain leaving the ICON Network to focus on interchain and governance transaction processing. This is not only the most effective solution for improving scalability and implementing a virtual machine but also allows the ICON Network to focus on the interchain and governance, making it a true ICON Republic; an interconnecting hub as the Nexus, referenced in the original whitepaper. All business logic related to smart contacts will be handled on this layer independently. However, the economic and governance systems of the sidechain must technically depend on the root chain so we will implement this into ICON’s IISS and on-chain governance system.
- Design economic, governance model of the sidechain
- Develop the sidechain using the new blockchain-based on Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
- Integrate the sidechain into the ICON NetworkUpdate log format
ICON Development Roadmap Update — February 2020
LFT 2.0 Summary
LFT 2.0 is a next-generation BFT consensus algorithm that improves upon the existing LFT algorithm.
LFT 2.0 generates blocks through consensus by round-basis, like the BFT algorithm, and each round consists of two phases, the Propose Phase, and the Vote Phase. LFT 2.0 can achieve high performance in the way that the current block’s state is confirmed in the next block. LFT 2.0 improves latency and TPS compared to PBFT as block confirmation time and state confirmation time are the same.
IISS 3.0
IISS is the contribution measurement and incentive distribution system for ICON’s decentralized autonomous network. An IISS 3.0 upgrade is currently being researched which includes both the design, the scope of development and timing. The goal will be to move towards a stronger contribution-oriented DAO based on game theory and an improved voter behavior economy.
Partnerships and team members
ICONLOOP HELPS CREATE AN AUTOMOBILE AFTERMARKET HOTSPOT
Korean-language blockchain news outlet BCNMedia takes a look at a new information system that collects and provides information on Seoul’s largest used car and automotive aftermarket district.
The new system aims to integrate data provided by individual automobile-related businesses in the Janganpyeong neighborhood and rectify the information imbalance between people on the ground and other industry workers.
Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to provide through the system not only automobile-related educational materials and information on local events, but also information pertaining to sales and sellers.
The city will digitize and offer data on sales, parts, re-manufacturing, tuning and other car info in Janganpyeong.
In particular, the website for used car sales uses the Seoul Blockchain Platform, based on ICONLOOP’s blockchain engine “loopchain.”
The Seoul Blockchain Platform prevents tampering of data entered into the website and improves trust in the system.
ICONLOOP Employee Participation Program
ICON Foundation is changing its policy to allow ICONLOOP employees’ participation in the ICON project from RESTRICTED to LIMITED.
ICONLOOP employees may apply to the following two programs:
Employee Grant Participation Program: Employees may submit an application to the ICON Community Grant Program with their independent project. The application process is the same, except the projects must also be approved by ICONLOOP executives before submission.
Employee P-Rep Participation Program: Employees may apply to become a P-Rep candidate. A team of 3–8 persons must submit their contribution proposal with details on how they plan to add value to the ICON project. If approved, the ICON Foundation will delegate 50,000 ICX per employee up to one (1) year (max). Each team must cover its node registration fee and operational costs. Only up to 10 teams (max) will be approved. Submitted applications will be available for viewing on the icon.community website similar to other P-Rep candidates. Also, for each 50,000 ICX delegated for the Employee P-Rep Participation Program, the ICON Foundation will remove an equivalent amount from the ICON Foundation node.
ICONLOOP and its employees have played a key role in the growing ecosystem as the primary technology partner and the ecosystem expansion partner. The team believe these programs will further accelerate the development of the ecosystem by incentivizing individuals with the best knowledge of ICON’s technology to contribute even more.
French startup and ICON P-Rep Sharpn wants to expand ICON’s network of developers
The Sharpn Earn program is an opportunity for would-be developers to learn how to create smart contracts while getting paid at the same time.
Select users who complete the inaugural course of Sharpn’s educational platform Devblockchain.tech will earn US$15 in ICX. Sharpn will conduct several rounds of selection, with preference given to users who are new to the development of SCORE, i.e., Smart Contract on Reliable Environment, ICON’s smart contract format. There are more than 275 users pre-registered, and they are aiming to increase this number after launch at the end of March.
Sharpn co-founder Lucas Lareginie said: “We wanted to do more than a ‘simple’ code learning solution. We wanted to work with communication and marketing levers to maximize the number of trained developers and therefore increase our impact. ICON smart contract development has a lot of qualities, especially accessibility to beginners because it works with Python. We are in an ultra-competitive niche market with few developers, which is why we need to actively promote our technology and preferably target novice developers.”
ICON P-Reps News
Paradigm
Komodo: Approaching 2020 Notary Node Election, DEXP2P, AMA for Komodo, Blockchain Training
NT/Brain and artificial neurons link over the Web
Enigma: Salad: Development update, Guy Zyskind’s Letter, Governance Capabilities, Community Updates
Polkadot: Integration with Chainlink, Bison Trails’ Support, Polymesh
Ethereum biweekly: Ecosystem and projects’ updates, opinion and research articles
ICON: 2020 Roadmap Updates, MyID, Balanced Project,P-Reps’ updates
ICX Station
Ubik Capital
VELIC
ICONation
RHIZOME
ICONVIET
Catalyst
ICON DAO
Everstake
ICON. HYPERCONNECT THE WORLD
POS Bakerz
A Quick Guide to ICON Decentralized Autonomous Governance System
block42
ReliantNode
Metanyx
Chainode Tech
Other
CAN BLOCKCHAIN SOLVE COVID-19’S TRUST AND PRIVACY ISSUES?
Crypto in South Korea: A History & What’s Next
S. KOREAN LAWMAKERS FINALLY PASS LEGAL REVISION TO MAKE CRYPTO MAINSTREAM
South Korea’s parliament has finally passed a revision to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA), a first step in bringing cryptocurrency into the national mainstream. Lawmakers passed the bill during a plenary session on Thursday. It will go into effect from March 2021.
The bill extends AML/CFT obligations imposed on banks and other financial institutions to so-called “virtual asset service providers” (VASPs) such as cryptocurrency exchanges. The measure implements guidelines set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last June.
Social media metrics
Social media 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.
This is not financial advice.
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