ICON 2Q Achievements
Greetings ICONists,
The second half of 2019 has begun. It seems that the first half of this year has flown by already, with this period being more intense than ever for the ICON Team.
The second quarter of 2019, when our efforts began to turn into tangible outcomes, will be presented with a review by category.
Key performances in the Second Quarter of 2019
## Ecosystem
ICONSENSUS<ICONSENSUS>, the journey toward mass adoption of blockchain that began in the first quarter, is now on track. The P-Rep election, the first milestone of ICONSENSUS, will be held in September, and 40 candidates from all over the world have already submitted their applications.
The ICON P-Rep TestNets are currently being operated by P-Rep candidates to diverse test situations, enabling them to thoroughly review both technical and governance aspects before the Mainnet launch. The 1st Phase of the ICON P-Rep TestNet was successfully completed in May. Completing the first TestNet as a decentralized network comprised of P-Rep candidates while also achieving stable operation without any stoppages was a significant step for the ICON Network. The 2nd Phase of the P-Rep TestNet has already begun and will be operated until July 31st.
ICON has updated the IISS (ICON Incentive Scoring System) and shared details on Pre-Voting, which will begin in August. All ICONists will be able to experience what it is like to vote for a P-Rep candidate by staking ICX and delegating authority through Pre-Voting.
In addition, 10 ICONSENSUS Campaign Ambassadors were selected and have been collaborating with ICON to promote the upcoming P-Rep elections with creative content. There were also ‘ICONSENSUS P-Rep Candidate Conference Calls’ where ICONists had a chance to attend live streams and get to know 13 different P-Rep candidates more closely.
We expect your continued interest and participation in ‘ICONSENSUS’, which marks the full-scale expansion of the ICON ecosystem.
ICON TX ChallengeThe ‘ICON TX Challenge’, a large scale blockchain development contest with a total prize pool of 1 million ICX and the goal of supporting developers around the world to develop the blockchain ecosystem, is in full progress. It has successfully generated 60M+ transactions in merely 24 days, which was very effective in stress testing ICON's network and proving the performance of the network before the decentralization. The ‘ICON TX Challenge’ has successfully brought 240+ blockchain-based services on the ICON network as well.
In addition, ‘ICON’s Got Talent (The final award of ICON TX Challenge)’ has been recently opened. A total of 6 teams will be selected according to evaluation standards after the contest, and they will be awarded a final prize of 50,000 ICX per team. If you haven't participated yet, join now!
Check out the ICON’s Got Talent (Final Award) Participation Page
**** Those who have already registered for the ICON TX Challenge must reapply to participate ‘ICON's Got Talent (Final Award)’.*
## MOU / Partnership
In the second quarter, ICON formed meaningful partnerships in several ways. First, users can now use ICX at over 40 million Visa merchants globally as ICON has partnered with Crypto.com. This is seen as an important move to accelerate the realization of our goal of ‘mass adoption of blockchain’ in that ICONists can actually spend/use ICX in normal everyday commerce.
There have also been a number of partnerships for the development of ICON DApp ecosystem. VELIC, which signed a strategic partnership with ICON last January, participated in the ICX Station accelerator program as a listing partner. With this partnership, ICX Station can provide projects coming through the program with an avenue to liquidity. Through the strategic partnership with ‘Chain Partners’, a blockchain fintech company, ICON is discussing various cooperative measures with Chain Partners for the vitalization of ICON’s DApp ecosystem.
In addition, ICON continues securing diverse and strong partnerships such as the partnership with ‘MixMarvel’ to introduce blockchain technology into existing online and mobile game series, thereby reducing entry barriers, and the partnership with ‘Infinity Stones’ to add insight into the governance and economic structure of ICON.
## Development
The second quarter was a time when the ICON Team made impressive achievements in development as well. We have been updating the development roadmap on the last day of every month since January (Apr / May / Jun), and there are some items that were implemented in the second quarter.
ICON DID (Decentralized Identifier), a decentralized identity authentication system based on the ICON public blockchain, has been developed as a live service. ICONLOOP’s ‘DPASS’ is a mobile application for a ‘Decentralized Passport’. This is a global authentication service that realizes the concept of ‘integrated identity’ and ‘self-sovereignty’ using the ICON DID standards. It is expected that the convenience of using blockchain services will be greatly improved when DPASS is integrated with a variety of on/offline services. ‘DPASS’ is currently being reviewed in the App Store (iOS) and will be released after official registration. (Android version to be released later.)
ICON DEX implementation is also complete and its sources, concept descriptions, and test documents have been published on the ICON GitHub. As the ICON DEX was developed as open source with the Apache 2.0 License, anyone can build and operate decentralized exchanges based on IRC tokens by using open DEX sources.
‘broof’, which was launched in May by ICONLOOP, supports certificate issuance, storage, and prevention of falsification based on the ICON public blockchain network. The details of the certificate issued can be browsed on the ‘ICON Tracker,’ which provides all transaction recorded on the ICON network.
The ICON Team will be working on the planned milestones in the third quarter, while at the same time, continuing to make efforts to enable development outcomes to be implemented as services that offer greater value and convenience.
Events
In April, the ICON Team opened the ‘ICON LOUNGE’, our own meetup space for connecting various blockchain projects with the vision of ‘Hyperconnect the World’. We hosted the ‘ICON DApp MeetUp’ as the first event in the ICON LOUNGE including ‘ICON LOUNGE Opening Party’. We will keep introducing innovative technologies and projects in the blockchain industry and supporting networking in the ICON LOUNGE.
The ICON Team sponsored and participated in various blockchain events in Korea and abroad such as ‘International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC) 2019’, ‘Korea Future Forum (KFF) 2019 & Blockchain Tech Show’, ‘Blockchain: Cross, Emerge, Breakthrough Meetup’, and ‘Asia America MultiTechnology Association (AAMA) Fintech Connect Conference’ in the second quarter. Most notably, ICON collaborated with leading blockchain and enterprise companies to discuss adoption, regulation, security, identity and innovation as a platform sponsor of the ‘Blockchain Revolution Global (BRG)’ conference in Toronto. ICON also sponsored ‘DevGround 2019’ as a leading Korean blockchain project and introduced DID (Decentralized Identifier) as a prime example of improvements being made through blockchain.
The ICON Team is excited to share our achievements in the second quarter of 2019. We are always grateful for your support and will do our best to introduce more advanced achievements in the third quarter.
Thank you,
Hyperconnect the World
ICON Team
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