ICON Network is a South Korean layer-one blockchain. Its stated mission is to create an interoperable blockchain network that connects autonomous online communities and traditional businesses.

ICON Network is committed to offering tangible benefits to users by developing hyperconnectivity and promoting frictionless value transactions. ICON can reduce the number of intermediaries and eliminate barriers to cross-border contacts by confirming transactions on its decentralized ledger.

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The firm is particularly interested in decentralized identification, digital certificate issuing, blockchain payments, decentralized finance, and non-fungible tokens, as well as other use cases such as e-government, elections, decentralized oracles, and e-health.

ICON was able to gain multiple agreements with South Korean firms and the country's private sector because of its emphasis on enterprise adoption.

For example, ICONLOOP, a major blockchain technology business in South Korea and the key contributor to the ICON Project, is the leader of the country's biggest decentralized identification consortium. Additionally, the country's Jeju island hired the corporation in August 2020 to conduct private and secure COVID-19 contact tracing.

Among the Icon Network's other partners are Shinhan Bank, South Korea's second-biggest commercial bank, and Danal Fintech, the firm behind Paycoin, a worldwide payment and remittance app.

Evolution and Development of ICON

In September 2017, an initial coin offering (ICO) for Icon's cryptocurrency, ICX, garnered around $43 million. This auction included 50% of ICON's total token supply. In January 2018, the project officially launched its blockchain, and participants in the initial coin offering (ICO) got their ICX cryptocurrency in June 2018.

ICON developed its own token standard, IRC16, in 2019, enabling customers to utilize the ICON software as a foundation for creating their own tokenized assets and securities. ICON characterizes its objective as the aim to create a digital country where diverse economic actors can issue and govern their own kinds of value under their own rule systems.

According to its website, Project ICON's mission is to hyperconnect the planet. The project aims to achieve this by creating one of the world's biggest decentralized networks.

The ICON project was inspired real-world economies are constructed; corporations, charitable organizations, and government entities all rely on a single exchange medium national currency—while being independent but interoperable market agents.

What makes ICON unique?

Nodes can contribute blocks to the ICON blockchain using an innovative delegated proof-of-stake consensus process. The notion is that by not deciding blocks via competitiveness (as is the case with PoW and mining), the system can achieve agreement faster.

Icon's blockchain guarantees five essential components of collaboration. These are:

• Icon Republic — The network's governance structure and decision-making body. Icon communities make up the Icon Republic.
• Icon Groups – Icon communities are a network of nodes with their own system of rules and consensus processes.
• Community Representative (C-Rep) — A trustworthy node from each community. C-Reps are paid in ICX.
• Community Nodes (C-Nodes) — These nodes regulate and maintain a community's blockchain.
• Citizen Nodes – Don't have voting power but may transact with other communities and the Icon Republic.

Loopchain is the algorithm that runs the Icon blockchain, connecting all the Icon Republic's nodes. Loopchain achieves this via the Loop Fault Tolerance (LFT) mechanism.

Loopchain, like other DPoS algorithms, allocates nodes to aggregate transactions into blocks, add them to the blockchain, and disseminate them to other network nodes. Validation nodes next confirm the block's creation, examine the block hash, and validate the block contents.

Icon differs from a standard DPoS blockchain in that it simplifies the consensus process. LFT employs a method called Spinning to simplify the process used to choose who may generate blocks and who can validate them.

ICON Network focuses on many use cases to achieve hyperconnectivity in South Korea. ICON Network focuses on many use cases to achieve hyperconnectivity in South Korea. One is decentralized identity management using Zzeung.

To offer decentralized identification services to South Korean enterprises, the business secured an exclusive license from the Financial Services Commission. Businesses may securely retain user authentication data and utilize face recognition to create bank accounts. The ICON Network secures data. Zzeung uses decentralized identity services for COVID-19 contact tracking.

ICON also offers digital certificate issuance, storage, and verification services to South Korean colleges. It also uses an ICON-secured digital certificate management system to verify applicants' academic and professional qualifications.

Tokens from Ethereum may be transferred to ICON using Orbit Bridge, which is a DeFi and NFT ecosystem. Unlike other DeFi systems, ICON's are primarily user-centric. Balanced Network, a DeFi cooperation to add stablecoins to the ICON Network, and Open Money Market are two examples. Decentralized finance (DeFi) is the industry's fastest expanding category.

The ICON Network's DeFi ecosystem uses ICX as collateral. Holders of ICX may use it to get loans. Bonds, the fundamental engine of world economies, join the ICON Network. Based on real-world assets like the US dollar, the Balanced Network is a DeFi partnership between four Public Representatives (P-Reps).

To develop a money market where anybody may lend and borrow assets, earn interest, and own shares in the protocol, three P-Reps have collaborated. More DeFi collaborations with ICON members are in the works.

To enable the transfer of Ethereum-based digital assets onto the ICON Network, Orbit Bridge will be integrated into the DeFi ecosystem in December 2020.

This connection adds value to the ICON Network by linking assets across blockchains and increasing economic activity. The ability to borrow and lend assets across networks and bridges is now available to traders and DeFi projects built on ICON.

Notably, the ICON Network's DeFi solutions are largely user-centric. Even in the bitcoin world, only a tiny number of users employ DeFi devices due to their complexity. ICON's DeFi solutions focus on user experience and simplify blockchain technology.

What are the main uses for ICON?

The ICON Network continues to develop innovative tools to improve data openness, reliability, immutability, and usability across sectors and services. These include:

• ICONLOOP is actively creating an electronic government-to-citizen integration solution.
• ICONLOOP is striving to enhance the Korean election system's openness and efficiency.
• Chronic Disease Management System: ICONLOOP is presently building a blockchain and AI-based system for the Korean province of Gangwon-do.
• A security token based on the IRC-16 standard was designed to enable enterprise-level trade, issuance, and development on ICON's blockchain.
• Band Protocol successfully connected with the ICON Network in July 2020, enabling safe, decentralized oracles for major decentralized apps (DApps).
• The unique oracle solution can be used to evaluate the average price of ICX. This is achieved by combining data that is collected from several sources, including top exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, Huobi, and others.

What is the future potential for ICON?

ICON aspires to build a larger network—made up of smaller networks—that is powered by cryptocurrency. Blockchains that are a member of the ICON project may use the platform's decentralized exchange to swap currency (DEX).

The DEX establishes currency reserves for each blockchain community to facilitate real-time value exchange. Exchange rates for these transactions are determined by an A.I. analytical model, with the native ICX coin serving as an intermediate currency.

Price analysis on ICON

ICON was initially launched in 2017, and its price analysis over the past five years are as follows:

Price prediction on ICON

According to some estimates, the coin should achieve a minimum of $3.40 in 2023, might reach $5 in 2023, and average $6.80 in 2024. According to the site, the ICON price is expected to be approximately $9 in 2025 and might reach $10 the following year.

Where can you buy ICON?

ICON (ICX) can be bought, sold, and traded on the following popular exchanges:

1. Gate.io
2. Binance
3. Kraken
4. CoinTiger
5. Crypto.com

1. Gate.io: Gate.io has been in operation for the past eight years, and it has grown to become a trusted, well-established crypto exchange. Users have access to several trading options, including spot trading, margin trading, lending, and more. There are several digital currencies to choose from.

2. Binance: Binance is the largest and most popular crypto exchange as well as a trading platform in the cryptocurrency market. The benefits of trading ICX on Binance is that users have access to some of the lowest transaction costs, increased liquidity, and several trading opportunities.

3. Kraken: Kraken was established in 2011 by Jesse Powell, and in the past decade, the exchange has expanded and grown to become a large, prominent platform that offers crypto trading and exchange.

4. CoinTiger: CoinTiger is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, having users from all around the world. The exchange enables traders to buy and sell tokens, generate passive cryptocurrency income, trade cryptocurrency futures, and invest in freshly listed currencies.

5. Crypto.com: Crypto.com is a crypto exchange trading platform that provides services like trading, investment, staking, wallets, and non-fungible tokens. This exchange supports over 150 different currencies, charges a fair price, and gives discounts to those who own a considerable amount of Crypto.com Coin (CRO).

Its ecosystem of cryptocurrency-related items may make it an attractive option for people wishing to make significant use of their coins.

You can buy  ICON safely from these cryptocurrency platforms.

Are there criticisms against ICON?

Yes, there are criticisms against ICON.

While ICON has lofty ambitions for uniting diverse communities, it confronts several obstacles in achieving this aim. To begin, several investors are accustomed to using centralized cryptocurrencies.

While it is true that these old, centralized exchanges do not conform to the decentralized idea of cryptocurrencies, they remained a vital aspect of the cryptocurrency economy in 2023.

Many investors will only invest in cryptocurrencies that they can acquire through their preferred exchanges. This might cause difficulties for ICX. Given ICON's objectives, several exchanges may decide not to provide ICX to their consumers.

Increased competition raises the possibility that a specific cryptocurrency may fail to gain traction. ICON, like other cryptocurrencies, faces severe competition.

What is ICON’s largest Competitor?

Hyperledger is the largest competitor of ICON Network.

Hyperledger is a popular blockchain-based initiative that has a comprehensive structure, rules, norms, and tools that are essential for the development of a range of open-source blockchains and associated applications for usage across several sectors.

Hyperledger's initiatives include several enterprise-ready permissioned blockchain systems in which network users are known to one another and therefore have an inherent incentive to participate in the consensus-making process.

What is the Staking Process involved with ICON?

Each ICX token represents one vote that may be delegated to other organizations. These are:

• Representatives — Block producers and validators in the Icon Republic.
• DApps – Decentralized apps based on smart contracts.
• EEPs – Ecosystem expansion projects supported by the Icon blockchain.

Staking ICX rewards token holders and the validator they delegate votes to. The IISS employs staking to calculate I-Score, a measure of a user's network contribution.

What can ICON smart contracts do?

Loopchain is at the heart of ICON. Loopchain is a high-performance blockchain that enables real-time transaction processing and is built on top of upgraded Smart Contracts.

Smart Contracts enable transactions to be carried out without the involvement of a trusted intermediary, and the blockchain technology, which was previously used just as a transaction ledger, has been turned into an application platform.

SCORE is a Loopchain enhancement that enables high-performance contracts to operate directly in the node operating environment without the need for a separate Virtual Machine (VM).

SCORE is simply deployable and may be used for a variety of applications because it works independently of the underlying blockchain activities. The multi-channel functionality enables the creation of separate channels inside the same blockchain network to execute requests, consensus, and Smart Contracts.

Because the channel is formed with just two business nodes, channel integrity and assurance are assured on a channel-by-channel basis, and transaction data is stored only by the parties to the transaction.

Is ICON a Good Investment?

Yes, ICON Network is a good investment.

ICX, the ICON network's cryptocurrency token, is not as popular with cryptocurrency investors as its peers. The ICX coin was launched in 2017 at a price of about $0.50.

In early 2018, it quickly soared to a value slightly over $13.00. However, the increase was followed by a slow decrease during the rest of the year, finally bringing the token down to levels comparable to its initial issuance price.

From late 2019 to early 2020, the ICX's market price remained very constant, mostly between $0.30 and $0.50, with a peak of $0.78 in 2020 and a low of $0.11.

ICX's market price movement is highly correlated with that of Algorand (ALGO) and Cardano (ADA), two far more popular cryptocurrencies with daily trading volumes in the billions.

What is the supply and distribution of ICON?

ICX now has a circulating supply of 800 million tokens with no hard limit on the overall supply. The allocation of tokens is as follows:

• 400 million ICX were sold at the initial coin offering (ICO) in September 2017 for $0.11.
• 16%was reserved for the community, and 10% went to the team, advisers, and early contributors.
• 10% to the community organization and key partners
• 14% will be donated to the ICON charity.

ICX is utilized for staking, remunerating users for network activity, and paying smart contract and transaction fees. Staking incentives range from 6% to 36% each year, depending on the quantity staked.

The unstaking term is proportional to the quantity of ICX staked; the less ICX from the entire supply staked, the longer the unstaking period, which may vary from 20 to five days.

Is ICON a viable Alternative Coin?

Yes, ICON Network is a good alternative coin.

• Hacking – ICON network does not have a history of hacking
• Security – ICON Network is extremely secure.
• Technology – ICON Network uses several innovative technological features, including Zzeung, Orbit Bridge, P-Reps, C-Reps, C-Nodes, Loop Fault Tolerance, and more.

Any cryptocurrency that isn't Bitcoin is referred to as an altcoin.

What are the differences between ICON and Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is free from censorship and can be used for fast, cost-effective payments across borders.

Bitcoin aims to solve several issues that fiat currencies face, including double-spending, amongst others. Bitcoin is a medium of exchange, a store of value, and an effective digital currency.

ICON Network is a general-purpose blockchain system based on the native coin ICX that enables the execution of smart contracts, the usage of an upgraded version of the Tendermint consensus process, and the use of DPoS for economic governance (Delegated Proof-of-Stake).

What are the differences between ICON and Ethereum?

The ICON Cryptocurrency (ICX) network is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2017 by a South Korean firm. ICX is the native cryptocurrency connected to the ICON Network.

ICON is, in fact, a fully-functional blockchain network. Ethereum provides everyone with unrestricted access to online digital currency and data-friendly services. Ethereum is an open-source software platform that enables the development of a variety of decentralized applications.

What are the differences between ICON and NFTs?

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that each have a unique value, with no two NFTs holding the same characteristics or value as another. ICON, on the other hand, is fungible, which means that one ICX has the same value and characteristics as another ICX.

What are the differences between ICON and Solana?

Solana is a blockchain platform that is meant to run decentralized, scalable applications. It is currently in beta testing. As compared to competing blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana can handle up to 50,000 transactions per second and has far cheaper transaction costs.

ICON is a blockchain-based project, extensive crypto technology and network structure that enables the interaction of autonomous blockchains.

What are the differences between ICON and Cardano?

Cardano (ADA) is an innovative blockchain-based platform and a programmable system that was started in 2017. Cardano, like Ethereum, allows developers to create and launch DApps from its blockchain.

Cardano is the first project that is academically peer-reviewed, and while it is a young project, Cardano is one of the top 10 altcoins in the cryptocurrency market.

ICON Network can be explained as a blockchain-based protocol for DApps. In addition, it acts as an aggregate chain to achieve interoperability, allowing a web of networks that consolidate blockchain data into a single layer.

What is staking?

The notion is that participants may lock coins (their “stake”), and the system will randomly choose one to verify the next block. The odds of getting picked are usually proportionate to the number of coins locked up.

Unlike Proof of Work, which decides which people construct a block. Instead, it is based on how many staked coins they have. It was originally utilized on the Bitshares blockchain, but other networks quickly embraced it.

DPoS lets users vote using their coin balances, with voting power proportionate to currency holdings.

Delegates control the blockchain on behalf of their voters, guaranteeing security and consensus. Typically, staking rewards are paid to elected delegates, who subsequently distribute them to their constituents proportionately.

The DPoS paradigm provides for faster consensus with fewer validating nodes. So, it improves network performance. However, it may result in less decentralization since the network depends on a limited set of validating nodes.

These validating nodes run the blockchain's operations and governance. They help establish agreement and define crucial governance principles.

Staking rewards depend on the following factors:

• The number of tokens staked
• The duration of the staking period
• The overall number of coins staked on the network
• The inflation rate of the protocol

Some protocols have a flat rate for staking rewards which are distributed as compensation for inflation. Inflation ensures that token holders spend their coins instead of holding them, subsequently increasing the token's usability as a digital currency.

How to calculate staking rewards in ICON

The IISS calculates rewards and issuance rates for every block based on factors including C-Rep votes, transaction fees, and staked ICX. These variables are also utilized in the I-score.

It is created every block and distributed to a public repository where contributors may claim ICX based on their I-Score. The transaction fees in each block affect the quantity of ICX created.

If the transaction fees in a block match the needed ICX issuance, no additional ICX will be issued. The formulas that are used to calculate rewards are as follows:

(Image source: https://m.icon.foundation/download/IISS_Paper_v2.0_EN.pdf)

Which wallets support ICS tokens?

The following wallets support ICS coins:

• MetaMask is a digital wallet as well as a gateway to DApps based on the blockchain. MetaMask is a browser extension that provides its users with a key vault, secure login, token wallet, and a comprehensive exchange trading platform.
• imToken is a global blockchain digital asset wallet that provides users with trusted asset management services and a wide range of compatible tokens.
• HYPERPAY offers a multi-currency and multi-platform wallet that supports all ERC-20 and QRC-20 tokens along with EOS coins and several others.
• SafePal is a reputable hardware wallet that serves more than 2 million users. The wallet is extremely secure and provides user-friendly crypto fund management.

Best Bitcoin Wallets are the same as Revain wallets.