Cryptocurrency News Now!: [Issue #1] ICON Newsletter: Our Fast-Growing Ecosystem

Monday, January 13, 2020

[Issue #1] ICON Newsletter: Our Fast-Growing Ecosystem

By ICON Newsletter • Issue #1 • View online

Dear ICONists,

Welcome to the year 2020! The crypto winter has been unbearably harsh for many blockchain projects. Yet, the ICON ecosystem continues to grow and accelerate by the day.

Key Highlights

The number of wallets with an ICX balance have shown average weekly growth of 5% post-decentralization, a significant increase from 0.75% pre-decentralization.
ICON network continues to strengthen with over 80 validators ("P-reps") and ~40% of circulating ICX supply staked providing approximately 19% annualized interest.
ICX is now listed on 31 exchanges and wallets, most recently adding U.S. Exchanges Kraken and Binance U.S. which include USD/ICX pairs for the first time.
Enterprise adoption and community contributors are increasing (details below).
AND FINALLY… Interoperability, the last piece of the puzzle that glues our ambitious vision together, is underway as we have published BTP v0.5 PoC paper on Github.

We believe ICON is now truly becoming a global grassroots movement beyond South Korea. Please continue to follow our journey as we have so much more to share with you this year.

Thank you,

Min Kim, ICON Foundation Council

Refocusing on Enterprise Adoption

ICONLOOP's goal has always been to bring enterprise adoption to the ICON Ecosystem. After the launch of our fully decentralized network in October, we began refocusing on this goal and made meaningful progress.

#BROOF v1.0 Official Launch

Last year, we ran a project for Seoul Metropolitan Government that appointed members of its 'Blockchain Governance Team' using ICON's Public Blockchain. This project evolved into #BROOF (broof.io) with the goal of servicing various industry sectors. This year, one of Korea's top universities, Postech, will begin using #BROOF to issue graduate diplomas. Saramin, Korea's largest HR recruiting company, will begin using #BROOF to verify and issue work certificates. More enterprise case studies to come.

CENgold Launch

Today, Korean citizens can easily download an app to purchase tokenized GOLD, which is powered by ICON's private blockchain technology. CENgold is backed by Korea Gold Exchange, the largest gold exchange in Korea by volume. You can view the product demo video below (sorry, Korean only).

Korea Gold Exchange desires to connect CENgold to ICON's public blockchain. But, there are regulatory hurdles to overcome, in which we are are working hard resolve.

CENgold Service Introduction

My-ID Alliance now has 44 partners

Almost 2 years ago, we introduced Chain ID, a blockchain-based joint authentication service, which was to be used by a dozen securities firms in Korea. Since then, we have brought in more partners and renamed the project as 'My-ID'.

My-ID's goal is to ensure authenticity of a person's digital identity when using real-world services. My-ID is a unique opportunity where it received special approval from Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) blocking any competitors. And with the National Assembly of Korea recently passing 3 bills intended to ease regulations on the use of personal information, all major regulatory roadblocks have been removed.

My-ID is scheduled to officially launch in the 2nd quarter of 2020. We plan to integrate My-ID to the public blockchain in the future and allow DApps in our ecosystem to have a seamless user onboarding experience.

Rising number of Community Contributors

Most importantly, we're proud to be witnessing a growing number of community contributors who are not only building new tools (view at ICON Community website), but even onboarding reputable organizations like World Vision into the ICON ecosystem.

ICON DAO - P-Rep Candidate

@ICONDAO

@Lucky8Steven Our mvp launches in the first half of the year with worldvision being one of our first users to onboard. Our aim is to make it easy for all traditional organizations or businesses to use blockchain features. We believe decentralized orgs are the future.

6:53 AM - 10 Jan 2020

ICON DAO team is led by renowned entrepreneurs and investors behind The Ventures in Korea. Prior to The Ventures, the team founded Viki.com, one of the top video streaming websites in the world, which was acquired by Rakuten, a Japan-based online retail giant. We're excited to have such high caliber team a part of the ICON ecosystem.

ICON ecosystem is growing globally. We have more evangelists around the world knocking on doors than ever before.

UNBLOCK (ICX GROWTH INCUBATOR) PRep for ICON

@UNBLOCK99072354

Our trip to Taipei has been a great success so far! We have met with many great people, and there is so much interest in the ICON blockchain and its applications here in Taiwan. Stay tuned for more to come! Our work in Japan + Taiwan will yield great future for Icon🚀 🚀 🚀 $icx

11:45 PM - 11 Jan 2020