We often take technology that we rely upon for granted. Everyday we trust countless systems to work together seamlessly without a second thought. We only notice the complexity when a service we’re using goes down unexpectedly, such as Slack’s recent episode. Behind the apps that power the world lies massive technical infrastructure that lets everything work together. The decentralized future will need just such infrastructure in order to function, and ICON aims to provide that connectivity. ICON is a network of networks, but also has its own cryptocurrency (ICX) which operates as both a means of payment and a protocol for connecting between blockchains.
ICON positions itself as the link between various cryptocurrencies, regardless of their governance models. The idea is that currently, the only way for cryptocurrency communities to interact with each other is through exchanges. This connection is limited, and exchanges also suffer from centralization. ICON allows different blockchain communities to connect with one another, and share their individual resources directly. This is done by using blockchain IDs to allow payments and exchange different currencies through DEX wallets.
They’ve also developed a proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that optimizes economic decision making. The product is called DAVinCI LABS, and it is already being used by insurance companies and banks to analyze risk and macroeconomic trends. ICON plans to use the technology to analyze their token network in order to optimize compensations. This will make ICON more flexible, and easier to change in response to market forces.
The Korean based company launched their token in October of last year, and it has since risen to 23rd place on CoinMarketCap. The price per token has risen significantly from the ICO price of $0.11 USD. Now it sits at $1.65 USD, equaling a return of 15x. The circulating supply as of this writing is 387,431,340 ICX, which is just short of the total supply of 400,228,740 ICX. This leads to a market cap of $640,276,781 USD and a 24-hour volume of $45,348,100 USD.
