A protocol that's trying to achieve something a little different to most other blockchains, also known as the Korean Ethereum - ICON.
The ICON Foundation was founded by Min Kim and the network has its very own native cryptocurrency ICON with the ticker of ICX.
ICON has the similarity with COSMOS and Polkadot, ICON Network wants to connect multiple blockchains and other digital systems to make or create a large interoperable network. ICON ICX is betting that their network superior technology and talented development team will give them a chance to become the dominant hub of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The ICON ICX Network can also be used to tokenize contracts, transfer tokenized securities, store digital deeds, keep track of loans, transfer all sorts of digital currency, make payments and store business records. It's no surprise as being compared to Ethereum.
What makes ICON a little different from other networks it is structure. At the center of the network is ICON, but specifically, the P-reps and Citizen Nodes
P-reps stands for Public Representatives and they have the opportunity to vote on governance decisions that affect the day-to-day operations of the ICON blockchain. P-reps are also the one responsible for the validation of every transactions on the ICON network.
Citizen Nodes, which are all of the other nodes that aren't P-reps. Since the nodes can not actually vote on governance decisions on the protocol nor can they validate transactions, their primary purpose is to allow a user to initiate transactions or to use dApps or decentralized apps on the ICON ICX blockchain.
ICON uses a unique consensus mechanism called LFT, which stands for Loop Fault Tolerance protocol.
The LFT protocol has two main advantages;
By using trusted nodes. LFT can reach consensus very quickly, actually allowing the ICON ICX blockchain to scale to approximately 9,000 transactions per second.
LFT also actually allows the ICON ICX network to reach the fast Finality while at the same the time Forking the network is impossible with it.
Staking ICX
ICON ICX holders can also stake their coins for a chance to validate transactions and earn block rewards. At the moment, the current staking reward is 11.8% per year.
ICON's Gangnam Testnet launched on October 2020
Back in October 2020, the ICON ICX developers launched the Gangnam Testnet. The Testnet can be used to build and implement new technologies without breaking the main chain, in other words, it gives ICON developers a place for testing before actually pushing updates on the ICON blockchain.
Once the developers are satisfied that everything is working just fine, they will launch ICON 2.0. The new ICON 2.0 blockchain will further expand the interoperability features of ICON as it will allow the users to actually connect to different blockchains just like Ethereum.
Not unlike the Ethereum 2.0, the new ICON 2.0 will also be the ICON Network's largest upgrade to date.
Difference of ICON to Ethereum
Despite this ongoing comparison between ICON and Ethereum, one of the most striking differences comes into play when developers want to build on top of the blockchain.
With Ethereum, developers have to learn a new programming language called solidity, but on ICON, developers have more flexibility because they can actually code smart contracts in Python. And since Python is a common coding language, it is easier for new users to create smart contracts on the network.
Final thought for ICON
Although many ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings have come and gone, ICON has proven itself to be a project with a long-lasting vision and with the right team they've been able to turn that Vision into a reality guys.
Lead Image from: Crushcrypto.com
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