Blockchain Integration - What You Should Know about ICON
Last month, we are excited to announce that DappReview has officially integrated ICON blockchain, to showcase the ICON dapps and provide trusted data analytics to users. This partnership will benefit each other in many ways. DappReview will help dapps on ICON get more exposure to the larger audience.
What is ICON Network?
ICON Network is a general purpose blockchain protocol based on the native cryptocurrency ICX that can run smart contracts, adopt the BFT-DPoS (Delegated Proof-of-Stake) consensus protocol, and use an economic-governance protocol called DPoC (Delegated Proof-of-Contribution).
As one of the most utilized public blockchains, ICON's technology keeps evolving and improving over the time. The core team of ICON has finished its research on LFT(Loop Fault Tolerance) 2.0, a next-generation BFT consensus algorithm that can achieve high performance by improving upon the existing one. LFT 2.0 improves latency and TPS compared to PBFT as block confirmation time and state confirmation time are the same. The team has since started working to implement this into ICON network.
ICON is implementing DAO-based governance, which means the validators (P-Reps) can submit governance variables and network proposals through an on-chain governance system. All the ICX holders could delegate their tokens to the representatives to participate in decision making.
ICON Incentives Scoring System (IISS) is an evaluation system for accurately measuring and compensating the contributions of ICONists within the ICON Network. Now the staking reward is 17% annualized, one of the highest among peers. The core team is doing research on IISS 3.0 upgrade 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.
In terms of dapps, ICON already has 7 use cases on the consumer side. There are DAO platforms like ICONBet and ICON Vote. STAYGE is an Incentivized fan community for K-pop music. Check out all the ICON dapps HERE.
To have a better understanding of ICON, Vincent (CEO of DappReview) interviewed with Daeki Lee (Co-founder of ICX Station). Daeki shared a lot more about the vision and advantages of ICON, the DAO governance and future plans.
Interview with ICON Foundation
1. What's the vision of ICON? How does ICON differentiate with other protocols?
Daeki:
ICON aims to be the hybrid blockchain network that powers communities and enterprises.
ICON differentiates from other protocols in the following manners: 1) it has a strong emphasis on DAO-like governance and welcome DAO-like communities, 2) it has a strong presence in South Korea, and 3) it powers real-world enterprise use cases.
1) Strong emphasis on DAO-like governance and DAO-like communities: Its DAO-like governance is well represented by on-chain proposals, which are proposed and determined by validators, and CPS, which will let validators run a DAO-like fund for the ICON ecosystem. In addition, as seen from the success of ICONbet DAO platform, the ICON ecosystem is actively encouraging mini DAO-like communities to blossom within its network and providing tools for them.
2) ICON has a strong presence in South Korea: Loopchain engine, which powers ICON network, plans to be widely utilized within Korea. MyID is a digital identity authentication service built using the loopchain technology and plans to power MyID Alliance, leading DID consortium in Korea, which includes 52 top organizations such as Samsung Electronics, IBK, Shinhan Bank, etc. The end goal is to connect these loopchain use cases with the ICON network. Seoul Metropolitan Government also previously utilized the ICON network to appoint new members to its blockchain team.
3) ICON powers real-world enterprise use cases: ICON network is also utilized to support enterprise focused blockchain use cases such as Broof or VisitMe. Broof is a blockchain based certificate issuance service, which was recently used to issue diplomas for POSTECH, Korea's top university. Saramin, Korea's #1 HR recruiting company, also started using Broof to verify and authenticate work and education certificates. VisitMe is a blockchain based visitor management solution utilizing DID solution so that visitors don't have to register every time they visit a company.
2. The ICON integration with DappReview was actually a grant application. We submitted the application to ICON Community and got approved by the foundation. It's an interesting process with transparency and engagement of the community. Could you explain more about the initiative and process of grant application of ICON?
Daeki:
Current grant process is an early stage of CPS, which will ultimately be run as a DAO fund by validators. As a network that has a strong emphasis on DAO-like governance, we wanted a grant process that is as transparent to the community as possible. We believe that sharing these grant opportunities with the community educates community members on the upcoming development/partnership opportunities and drives active engagement from the community when grants projects launch.
Currently, ICON Grant Program is actively promoted within the ICON community and external developer communities to mainly foster development of DAO-like communities on the ICON network. Once a grant is applied, the ICON Foundation team takes 2 weeks to review the grant opportunity and get back to each grant with 3 results: Approve/Reject/Approval pending on revised conditions.
3. What kinds of projects are favored or more likely to get approval? Could you give some examples or stats?
Daeki:
Grants are primarily evaluated based on whether they will add value to the ICON ecosystem. As the ICON ecosystem is mainly focused on fostering DAO-like communities within its network, DAO-like communities built on blockchain or tools to support such communities will likely to get approval. Here is a good article that summarizes some of the missing pieces on the ICON network and those that will likely get the grants approval:
4. Talking about dapps, how does ICON help Dapp developers/teams? How do you position Dapps in the ICON ecosystem?
Daeki:
As mentioned a few times above, we envision the ICON network to be a home for many DAO-like communities and we believe that many of them will be in the form of dapps. A great example is ICONbet, leading i-gaming DAO platform on the ICON network. ICON network is well suited for these communities as the transaction fee is relatively low and can process 1300+ transactions within 2 seconds in a block. It also has a fee sharing feature and virtual steps, which can enable seamless experience for end users. Please refer to this deck to learn more about these unique features that ICON has. In addition, dapps can also run validators in the ICON network and, with the support from the community, dapps can generate a meaningful amount of ICX. For example, ICONbet Community P-rep is #26 P-rep in the ICON network, generating 25K ICX/month at the moment.
5. Any future plans about ICON you wanna share with us?
Daeki:
Although not highlighted often, ICON has a very strong technology foundation as seen from receiving the 'Minister of Science and ICT Award' as a blockchain industry leader in Korea. ICON plans to release more details and audit results around LFT 2.0, a next generation BFT consensus algorithm that can achieve high performance by improving the existing LFT algorithm.
Check out all the ICON dapps: https://dapp.review/explore/icon