In 2009, with the release of the first bitcoin, the world reckoned a new era in technology. An era that focussed on returning the power back to the user from the facilitators and the removal of central points of control. The advent of the cryptocurrency market and its underlying technology; the blockchain, came at a time when the world was discontent with the amount of centralisation that the financial structures across the world had and continues to have.

The technology resonated with the frustrated world’s need for decentralisation and gave birth to a market that is now booming. Around the market was born an industry that focussed on creating solutions using the blockchain for problems that have existed for decade. For example, health records management, data control, social networking, etc.

But the major flaw that all of these projects and companies had was the fact they all focussed on making their platforms decentralised instead of functional. They had the technology under control, but lost sight of the product’s functionality and real world use cases.

To  tackle this particular problem, ICON is working on integrating, first the plethora of separate blockchains with one and other and secondly the blockchain with our day-to-day.

The ICON Foundation

The ICON Foundation is an integration platform. The foundation’s aim is to provide an ecosystem and platform for blockchains that function on different protocols and under different governance methods, to interact and transact with one and other. By providing this ecosystem for these separate blockchains, ICON is introducing open communication and interoperability to the world of separate blockchains.

The world of decentralisation has broadened the horizon of how the internet and its internal networks should look. It is no longer a network to have a central node to function and that is exactly what ICON is using advantage of.

The ICON foundation is building an ICON platform that essentially connects the world of blockchain by bringing them under one umbrella. The ICON platform allows blockchains that function under different protocols and governance models to communicate and transact with each other. While doing so, the ICON platform also has a huge focus on the real-world use cases of the blockchain, which at this point in time is quite low.

Bringing all the blockchains of the world under one umbrella brings back the question of centralisation. Because the platform is owned by the company and it logically makes them the sole point of control. but to tackle this possible formation of a monopoly, ICON implements a community ledger.

The community ledger records all transactions within and among blockchains and keeps a chronological record of events. The community ledger is owned, updated and managed by the ICON community itself, which means that the foundation has little to no control over the ledger.

ICON is essentially a community of blockchains and the people that use them. In the official design of this overall community, these are the components that the network has:

Community: The blockchains are grouped into sub-categories based on utility and their underlying governance systems into sub-communities. These sub-communities together form the entire community on the ICON Network.

The size and utility of each community is based on the central governance policy of each blockchain and the viamedia of all of them put together.

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C-Node: The C-Node stands for Community Node. The C-node in each sub-community is incharge of the consensus that is needed to be reached. C-Nodes are available to both individuals and organisations.

The C-Node is chosen and appointed by the members of the community themselves. And the regulations are also decided by the community itself.

C-Rep: The C-Rep stands for Community Representative. The community representative is chosen by the members of the community unit. The community representative of each unit and subsequent community is responsible for making sure that all participants get their vote on transactions, updates and other issues.

The C-Rep is chosen by an election that will be conducted within the communities themselves and the C-Rep is responsible for making sure that there is peace among all the participants of the community.

ICON Republic: the ICON Republic is the integrator of all these separate communities. The collection of sub-communities and communities on the network form the ICON Republic.

The ICON Republic is just a mode of communication and transaction between blockchains and the ICON Republic holds no control or power over how and what the blockchain communities do on the network.

Citizen Node: Citizen Nodes are a very crucial component on the ICON Network. They essentially are allowed to participate and use any of the applications of the blockchain but are not allowed voting rights on the network.

The biggest aim of the ICON network is to act as the bridge between the way networks work today and the way they should tomorrow. To do so, the ICON Network is connecting all the blockchains and making them one big community and evangelising the blockchain to other organisations and institutions. The foundation is promoting hyperconnectivity for future networks.

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Partnerships

In the cryptocurrency market community outreach and partnerships are very important to the success of any project. The partnerships that a company makes in its early days sometimes define just how far the company will go.

In this particular sphere, the ICON Network has done pretty well. The foundation is supported by some big-time blockchain influencers and venture capitalists. Their partnerships include names like; Pantera, Kenetic Capital, TaaS, etc.

The foundation struck 8 large partnerships in its early days and is owed most of the success and guidance that the company developers get. The ICON foundation has also partnered with Hashed. Hashed is a network of blockchain industry professionals and influencers in South Korea.

The ICX Token

The ICON Network’s native token is the ICX token. ICX aims to be what Ripple is to financial institutions, to blockchain communities; a mode of transaction. The token is listed on 28 exchanges globally. The token is rates as number 37th on coinmarketcap.

The current value of the token is $0.637 USD. The token’s all-time high was $12.11 USD.

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Ramaa Mohan