Hello, crypto fans and enthusiasts! It’s time we updated you on the latest news from the vigorous and progressive ICON world! ICON keeps growing and there is a lot of exciting news to spread around!
The number of validators grew to 100! Wallet growth remained consistent in the 4–5% range week over week. Approximately 41% of circulating ICX supply remains staked providing about 18% annualized interest showing strong confidence from the community.
This year is surely going to bring a great number of creative projects including new developments and collaborations! Stay tuned!
Let’s focus on the key highlights of the ICON Project!
Firstly, check out a new MyID app “VisitMe” which works on the ICON public chain and is available for iOS and Android. The app facilitates the process of visiting an office. After confirming your personal details, the service sends you an invitation and a QR code through the app. The only thing you have to do when you arrive at the destination is to show your QR to the scanner at the door.
Secondly, the team released a stability upgrade to the protocol.
What’s more, ICX Station Announces the beta launch of ICON Vote, a communication platform for P-reps. It makes it easier for P-Reps to interact directly with their supporters through on-chain votes accessible only to their voter base. P-Reps utilizing ICON Vote will offer their supporters a greater voice in governance, funding decisions, and other deliverables.
Another great news! ICONLOOP signed a MoU with Saramin, Korea’s leading job placement platform, to collaborate in building a blockchain-based digital ID and authentication ecosystem. The purpose of the MoU is to increase Saramin’s customer experience and value through ICONLOOP’s blockchain certificate issuance and management service ‘broof’ and its digital identity platform ‘MyID’.
Moreover, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) issued diplomas, created by ICONLOOP’s blockchain-based certification service “broof”, to over 8 hundred students. POSTECH’s decision marks the first time a South Korean university has issued a blockchain-based diploma to an entire graduating class!
Read on to find out more fresh updates!
Development
Github metrics:
eveloper activity (from Coinlib.io):
Check out a great new MyID app “VisitMe” that works on the ICON public chain and is available for iOS and Android. It’s a new visitor management solution!
Incorporating ICONLOOP’s decentralized ID (DID) protocol, VisitMe eliminates the hassle involved in visiting an office. Users can simply make reservations to visit the office using an app After confirming your name, phone number, place of work or other basic information, the service sends you an invitation through the app. The invitation includes a QR code. When you arrive at the destination, simply show the QR code to the scanner at the door. Since VisitMe’s invitation is blockchain-based, it’s virtually impossible to forge. The developers plan to officially launch the service after the Proof of Concept period.
ICONLOOP is exploring plans to connect VisitMe to the My-ID app set to launch in the first half of this year. This would require the consent of the currently 47 members of the MyID Alliance, however. One of those members, the ubiquitous hotel booking platform Yanolja, is also working on a digital ID-based solution that will use MyID to simplify the reservation and check-in experience.
ICONLOOP’S “MY-ID” BLOCKCHAIN IDENTITY VERIFICATION: A DEEPER LOOK
The ICON Team published the LFT2 repository on Github. LFT2 is a new consensus algorithm inspired by PBFT. It improves the TPS with reducing a pair of votes compared to PBFT when nodes make a consensus. A concept, ‘Candidate’ has been introduced for keeping safety.
This is implemented as a library. So not only blockchain but also any application which requires a byzantine fault tolerance consensus algorithm can integrate it.
For more details follow the link here
This contains an example application for easy understanding. You can run it without integration. Also it composes multiple nodes in this single app. You can simulate byzantine node actions and observe how it tolerates the actions.
The paper of LFT2 will be released soon.
The Balanced Team is excited to officially announce their $ICX DeFi project.
Balanced is a collaborative effort between ICX Station, PARROT9, Galen Danziger of Mousebelt, and Dan Brehmer of iBriz-ICONosphere.
The goal is to create the de-facto form of payment for the ICON ecosystem through giving ICX another use case: collateral.
Balanced is a DAO. It incentivizes people to deposit their ICX as collateral and borrow tokens pegged to the value of real world assets. The first token will be the ICON Dollar, which is pegged to USD.There is no ICO and no pre-mine of tokens. Balanced contributors earn (mine) Balance Tokens, which entitle them to governance and rewards from network fees. Only Balance Token holders that actively contribute to the Balanced DAO receive these benefits.
How can you use Balanced?
- Leverage — Deposit ICX into Balanced, borrow ICD, then buy more crypto.
- Mine Balance Tokens — Deposit ICX and borrow against it to mine Balance Tokens. They represent ownership in the Balanced DAO, and include benefits like income from network fees.
- Make Stable Payments — Borrow ICD from Balanced, then use it to make payments without fear of the price fluctuating.
- Sell ICX without affecting the market — If you borrow ICD, some of your collateral is sold over time to support arbitrage traders. This keeps ICD close to its pegged value, and helps you reduce your ICX position without hurting the market.
- Offer liquidity on the DEX — Supply liquidity for the Balanced DEX to mine Balance Tokens and earn more ICX.
- Trade ICD — Trade ICON Dollars to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities.
- Interest Rate Arbitrage — Take advantage of the 0% interest rate to borrow ICD and sell it for an Ethereum stablecoin. Then lend it at a higher rate using the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem.
Social encounters
P-rep Governance Meeting concluded
Great discussion by fellow P-Reps and the ICON team about the future. ICON network is blessed to have such active and vocal P-rep teams ready to cooperate and push the network towards success.
IConnect Global hosted the ICON Africa Meetup 1.0 on the 13th of February, 2020, bringing together developers interested in working on solutions on the ICON network. The event focused on real-world solutions that can be built on the ICON network to solve problems especially on the continent.
The area of focus was a supply chain solution. They delved into the magnitude of the problem facing farmers and transport and logistics companies along the supply chain, and explored how a solution can be structured to solve the challenges.
Upcoming events
Join the very first ICON London Meet-Up!
Feb. 19, London
Description
The main goals:
- Educating the the wider Blockchain community
- Launching DApps
- Launching real-life use cases in UK Cities
The team will be giving away 15 ICX to anyone who doesn’t already have a wallet and will show you how to stake it.
Don’t forget to check out ICONLOOP’s upcoming event!
Feb. 20, Seoul
The blockchain development company is teaming up with the think tank Yeosijae: the Future Consensus Institute to host a discussion on the coming age of digital sovereignty.
The talk, entitled “The Three Data-Related Laws: Could They Make Our Lives Smart?”, comes as the recent passage by South Korea’s parliament of amendments to a trio of data-related laws kicks so-called “MyData” projects into high gear and ushers in an age of individual sovereignty over personal data.
The event, which will feature presentations, a panel discussion and a question-and-answer session, will examine how these developments will bring substantive changes to our lives and look at the legal issues and tensions that could result from data protection efforts.
Visualizing Public Blockchain: Finance, Oracle, and Interchain
March 18, Seoul
Finance
The number of transactions dynamics (information from tracker.icon.foundation) ICON Tracker
On February 12, ICON’s native cryptocurrency ICX was trading at just under US$0.417 , up 2.80%. Against Bitcoin, however, it fell 1.71%. Trading volume was just over US$50 million, with a market trading cap of slightly over US$218 million.
On February 16, ICX was trading at US$0.365, with trading volume at over US$49 million, with a market trading cap of over US$190 million.
The price of ICX has witnessed a bit of a correction since earlier this month when it was pushing US$.60. But compared to where the cryptocurrency was at the start of January, when it was trading at US$0.11 with daily trading volume at less than US$5 million, these are good days for ICX.
One of the more curious aspects of ICX’s bull run has been the bewilderment it seems to have engendered in observers.
At Altcoin Buzz, Deepika Garg examines some of what could be behind ICX’s rise.
Reasons include:
- ICON has some market-ready projects ready to go. And they could encourage mass-adoption of blockchain.
- The South Korean government is promoting blockchain technology, supporting projects in a number of sectors favorable to ICON, i.e., decentralized ID.
- Staking rewards stirring interest
- Better marketing of the company’s achievements
- Alliances and partnership with government and corporate entities
- Lots of good local press in Korea.
What’s more, ICON’s technology partner, ICONLOOP, has been working hard to commercialize the “My-ID” DID solution and expand the related MyID Alliance. It has also been forming partnerships to expand the use of its blockchain-based ID services, fueling expectations that we’ll soon be seeing real-world usage of the technology.
Related articles:
The ICONIST:
ICX PRICE SURGES AS MYID INTEREST GROWS
ICX’S BOOM: ICON’S EFFORT FINALLY BEING REWARDED?
ICX Station Announces the beta launch of ICON Vote
ICON Vote is communication platform for P-reps and ICX investors. ICON Vote enables P-Reps to interact directly with their supporters through on-chain votes accessible only to their voter base. P-Reps utilizing ICON Vote will offer their supporters a greater voice in governance, funding decisions, and other deliverables.
ICON Vote provides an opportunity for each P-Rep to form its own DAO, turning delegators into active participants so that the ICON ecosystem can flourish. The vision of ICON Vote goes beyond simply allowing P-Reps to propose votes to their delegators: this platform can become the standard communication medium between a P-Rep and their supporters.
With ICON Vote, P-reps better understand what their own voters want them to contribute. ICX investors can now voice their opinion to P-reps on what they want to see accomplished instead of simply voting for a P-rep.
The major benefits of ICON Vote:
- Utilize collective intelligence from the community.
- Silent majority can voice their opinion now through votes: social media can sometimes be skewed towards a specific direction based on vocal minorities and many do not like to participate in such discussions. ICON Vote can give them an outlet to voice their opinion.
- Great efficiency and productivity: Discussion needs to end sometimes and voting can help move conversations forward. Healthy discussions are always good, but some discussions never end, and there is no progress. As a mature community, we need to sometimes agree to disagree and put it to a vote so that we can move on to work on greater things.
Roadmap
MainNet Update
The following updates describe the latest improvements in each software package, which uses the following version sequence: loopchain 2.5.01, iconservice 1.6.00, rewardcalculator 1.2.1. See upgrades and fixes for information about updating to the latest release of ICON Loopchain
- Adjusted peer loading priority
- Modified retrieving candidate blocks
- Fixed make requirements in Ubuntu
- Added command line to print loopchain version and dependencies
- Modified handshake for Citizen
- Fixed leader complaint
- Added Block Recovery function to delete unconfirmed blocks
- Block structure updated to version 0.5
- Support diverged block recovery
- Fix remaining bug in the Block Recovery function
- Update log format
Partnerships and team members
ICONLOOP, signed a MoU with Saramin HR, which operates the job placement platform and search engine Saramin, to collaborate in building a blockchain-based digital ID and authentication ecosystem. Saramin HR is Korea’s leading job placement platform.
The purpose of the MoU is to increase Saramin’s customer experience and value through ICONLOOP’s blockchain certificate issuance and management service ‘broof’ and its digital identity platform ‘MyID.’ Furthermore, it will contribute and collaborate in building a more robust and vibrant blockchain-based digital ID and verification ecosystem in Korea. Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), a leading Korean university, and Korea Productivity Center are already using ‘broof’ to issue blockchain-based certificates.
Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) issues blockchain diplomas due to coronavirus.
On Feb. 7, more than 8 hundred new graduates of Pohang University of Science and Technology were sent a QR code that links to a blockchain-secured diploma certificate. POSTECH is the latest of several large universities to issue degrees on the blockchain. The diplomas are created by blockchain-based certification service “broof” launched in May 2019 by ICONLOOP. The service allows users to issue, manage, and view online certificates via ICONLOOP’s public blockchain network.
According to a POSTECH official, it is impossible to hold a graduation ceremony on time in the aftermath of the new coronavirus. The university believes it’s no longer safe for students to congregate at a graduation ceremony.
Meanwhile, other higher education institutions also are experimenting with digital academic credentials. MIT Media Lab, for example, is building a set of tools to store and manage cryptographically signed certificates on the Bitcoin blockchain.
sources:
The ICONIST: MAJOR UNIVERSITY FIGHTS CORONAVIRUS WITH BROOF
Decrypt: South Korean university issues blockchain diplomas due to coronavirus
ICON Seoul office tour
ICON’s new office can accommodate up to 470 people. As ICON Council member Min Kim told The Iconist in an interview last month, the team hopes the space will support the project for the next three years. The bigger confines allow ICON to host more and bigger events, too — indeed, on the day we visited, the team was hosting its first developers’ workshop of the year.
Like many tech companies, the new office embraces an open plan that encourages socialization, interaction and collaboration. You’ll find no cubicle drones here, or cubicles for that matter. Even the conference rooms are enclosed in glass to emphasize transparency. The only truly enclosed spaces are the more security sensitive departments such as the blockchain research lab.
Watch the video to check it out !
ICON P-Reps News
Komodo: 2020 Technical Roadmap, 2019 Annual Report, Fourth Annual Notary Node Election
Weekly Shortcuts: Ampleforth, Crypto.com, Grin, IOTA, Hedera Hashgraph
Enigma: SecretDAO, Salad 2020 Update, Open Community Call Recap, The Community Blog
Ethereum biweekly: Ecosystem and projects’ updates, opinion and research articles
Polkadot: XCMP Scheme, Kusama Upgrade Bulletin, PANIC for Polkadot, Acala Platform
ICX Station Announces the beta launch of ICON Vote
Rumors
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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