Cryptocurrency News Now!: [Issue #4] ICON Newsletter: The Future is Decentralized ID

Monday, February 3, 2020

[Issue #4] ICON Newsletter: The Future is Decentralized ID

By ICON Newsletter • Issue #4 • View online

Dear ICONists,

Everyone's talking about $ICX after the price increase of 83% in a week and 177% from the beginning of 2020. Many questions are floating around on staking, and more importantly, what the ICON project is all about.

Simply put, ICON is a decentralized network governed by Public Representatives ('P-Reps') where anyone can build and deploy applications. In the future, applications on the ICON network will be interoperable with other blockchain networks like Ethereum. For example, one team has built a karaoke app called Somesing while others built gaming apps, ICONbet and ZenSports.

ICONLOOP, the main company behind the ICON project, is bringing enterprise adoption to the ICON Network with Decentralized ID ('DID') applications. This week, let's take a look at 4 Decentralized ID ('DID') related projects our team has built or is currently working on.

'My-ID': Bank-grade Digital ID card approved by Korean financial regulators. Imagine being able to carry your Driver's License or Passport on your mobile phone. The product is being developed with 47 enterprise partners. Uses include opening financial accounts, digital payment with improved verification, and checking into hotel rooms.
#broof: Digital certificate issuance and verification service that is complementary with 'My-ID'. The product is being used or live-tested by 15+ customers. Uses include authenticating employment, education degrees, and art pieces.
'VisitMe': Digital guest pass management for enterprise. The product has just entered beta and began live-testing at our very own ICON HQ in Seoul, Korea.
Meeting Room: Room reservation system for enterprise. The product is being used internally by ICONLOOP. The system manages 14 meeting rooms for 150+ employees using ICON's public blockchain.

We have the latest updates, photos, and videos of these DID applications and other news below. Scroll down to read more.

Thanks,

Min Kim, ICON Foundation Council

3 new firms join 'My-ID Alliance' (47 total)

The value of the blockchain network increases with the number of members. We seem to have new members joining our alliance every week.

This week's new member companies are:

Initech - Security solutions provider
8percent - P2P finance/marketplace lending provider
SSenStone - Authentication solutions provider

My-ID's goal is to ensure the 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.

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.

My-ID Alliance now has 47 members

#broof featured on national news

#broof and ICON Office

We're proud to have consistent national television coverage on our products. This week, MoneyToday ('MT') featured #broof and the DID industry.

Employment Certificate issued for ICONLOOP

All ICONLOOP employees can now be verified on the ICON network via #broof. This past week ICONLOOP issued Employment Certificates to all of its employees.

In Korea, employment verification is often necessary, for example, to open a bank account or apply for an apartment. Korea is one of the top ICT counties in the world. But, such verification processes are predominantly paper-based, which has higher chances of fraud.

#broof is to be a complementary product with My-ID to make sure only one digital certification can be tied to one person.

Min

@minhokim

Eat your own dog food! We began issuing employment certificates for ICONLOOP. This is the future of employment verification. Applying for mortgage? Applying for housing? Want employee discounts? #Broof makes it easy and cheap. #ICONproject https://t.co/o9VYlQsooN

6:43 AM - 30 Jan 2020

VisitMe enters live-testing

Building access management, or more simply guest pass issuance and verification process, in Korea, is very inefficient today. We've made the process much easier with VisitMe. We know because we began using it at our own office in Seoul, Korea.

Available on iOS

Guests are issued a Guest Pass through our VisitMe app. ICON's blockchain ensures that there is only one Guest Pass per person. We believe this process can be further improved with My-ID integration and building hardware upgrades. Check out VisitMe in action in the video below.

VisitMe in use at ICON HQ

Last week, we hosted the Korea Startup Forum at our #ICONLounge. All guests used the VisitMe app to access our building. We received great feedback!

Korea Startup Forum event at #ICONLounge

Fee 2.0 integrated to Meeting Room

The ICON project encourages launching and experimenting with new blockchain applications. At ICON HQ, we enjoy creating products that solve our problems. So, our engineers decided to whip up the 'Meeting Room'. An application used to reserve meeting space at our Seoul HQ.

Previously, all team members were required to have $ICX to use 'Meeting Room'. But, in the past week, Fee 2.0 was integrated making this application free to use due to virtual step credits.

Meeting Room DApp Interface

Technology update

Our team continues to deliver on technology. Check out our latest updates below.

Roadmap Update — January 2020

The new year is off to a fast start for the ICON project and January was another great month of progress as we strive to fulfill our original vision of hyper-connecting the world.

medium.com • Share

MainNet update

Improving software packages

medium.com • Share

$ICX trends

"Unbelievable week for $ICX"

The community sentiment for the project feels a bit like the end of 2017. However, it's different this time. As mentioned in previous newsletters, we are witnessing strong organic growth in activities including social engagement in the ICON Ecosystem.

LunarCRUSH

@LunarCRUSH

UPDATE: Unbelievable week for $icx 🔥🚀🌜.

We've been seeing signals all week (especially a push to the #1 #AltRank yesterday and today) prior to today's huge move with today marking new highs on all social metrics. https://t.co/PVwDlwW5gF #ICONProject https://t.co/IuSqEt6TuB https://t.co/Aqcml9eqwq

12:04 PM - 31 Jan 2020

Real Circulating Supply continues to fall

Every week, we see more and more ICONists choosing to stake and re-stake their $ICX. As a result, the real circulating supply of $ICX, calculated by nominal circulating supply minus total staked $ICX, continues to fall. We believe this is a strong indicator of our community's confidence in the ICON project.

ICONVIET P-Rep

@iconviet

This is historical data of total ICX amount being staked/unstaked in last 5 months, by #Chainalytic https://t.co/ILzgsnoS8Z

8:40 AM - 31 Jan 2020

Korean blockchain industry outlook

Lastly, the industry outlook in Korea feels very positive with clearer regulation on the horizon and an additional 6 million KRW pumping into the blockchain ecosystem by the Korean government. All in all, we couldn't have asked for a better start to the year 2020.

Gov't Tells Lawmakers to Crap or Get off the Pot On Blockchain Laws | The Iconist

Every Korean government body involved in mainstreaming cryptocurrency is urging lawmakers to get moving and pass revisions to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA).

theicon.ist • Share

6 Billion KRW Pumping Into Blockchain; DID a Popular Feature | The Iconist

The Korean government will spend KRW 600 million won on each of 10 blockchain projects in 2020, for a total budget of KRW 6 billion.

theicon.ist • Share

Community bulletin board

If you are looking for assistance, please use hashtag #ICONBulletinBoard on Twitter. We'll do our best to include your message in this section.

ZenSports

@zensports

Enter the ZenSports Superbowl Challenge and win 25,000,000 SPORTS Tokens for getting the exact score of the game right! 🏈💰😁👍 #SuperBowl #sportsbetting #cryptocurrency #decentralize

Details in our Telegram channel:

https://t.co/LLsVNo128R

5:38 PM - 1 Feb 2020

The Iconist

@TheIconistNews

Calling all ICONists! We are always looking for new guest writers on our platform. If you would be interested in contributing a guest post to The Iconist, DM us your story idea and we'll get back to you.

9:38 PM - 30 Jan 2020

ICON

@helloiconworld

We will be hosting a joint meet-up alongside leading blockchain projects, @MakerDAO and @chainlink on February 11th at 7pm (KST). We encourage our Korean community to come out and learn more about De-Fi, Oracles and Interchain!

Event details below:

https://t.co/i4moEnUKqM

1:39 PM - 23 Jan 2020