We have written previous articles about P-Reps and also how to make a selection of P-Reps to vote for. In short, P-Reps are leaders of the ICON Republic, chosen by ICONists who vote for them through staking with them. These elected leaders run nodes to produce and validate blocks for ICON and also run the ICON network through a Governance process. The top 22 P-Reps will become the main P-Reps on Sept 24. The next 78 will be sub-P-Reps, who are ready to take action and backup underperforming main P-Reps as needed. ICONists are rewarded for voting and P-Reps are rewarded based on the number of votes they receive. It is very important to have P-Reps who can run a node, make good decisions of the behalf of the community, and also contribute to the ICON ecosystem in a positive way. As such, ICONists should remain active and vigilant, making sure the P-Reps they vote for continue to serve the community. Pocket/Figment P-Rep team created a portal to explore P-Rep candidates and filter based on different categories.

As part of the launch of staking, ICON released an entirely new dashboard, which includes a Governance tab. This new Governance tab shows useful information centered around staking and P-Rep election. It is a very useful tool that enables ICONists to see the ranking of P-Reps, current staking %, and block productivity. Block productivity is especially important. After the pre-voting ends on September 24th, the top 22 P-Reps will take control of the ICON network. Once this happens, if any P-Rep productivity drops below 85%, then all ICONists delegating to that P-Rep will experience a penalty resulting in a 6% ICX burn.

Figure 2 shows an image of the ICON Governance dashboard. As of this writing, there are 33 P-Rep candidates who have registered on-chain (out of 75 registered on ICON’s online candidate list). We expect both of these numbers to grow, as more P-Reps join and continue to register on-chain. We also expect votes to become more spread out as more ICONists join the voting.