I just published “Joint Venture between ICON and LINE: ‘Unchain’” https://t.co/3xpHhuWl38 — ICON (@helloiconworld) May 15, 2018

“Unchain will create a blockchain ecosystem fueled by a token economy, where the users are rewarded for their contributions to the network. DApp services discovered through ICON and Unblock, a subsidiary of LINE dedicated to blockchain research and to accelerate DApp projects, will be integrated with Unchain. This joint venture takes blockchain and decentralization another step closer to being a part of our everyday lives.”

ICON is a cryptocurrency that some how manages to avoid mainstream headlines. Given that it is currently ranked 19on coinmarketcap.com for market capitalisation, you can argue that this currency should not be underestimated. Current trading volumes for ICON sit around $111,030,000.00, cementing the true popularity of this cryptocurrency. ICON is seeing some significant gains today, in line with an overall market rise which seems to be occurring as a result of correction, against the mid-May market slide which now seems to have come to an abrupt stop. At the time of writing, ICON is valued at $4.29, up 10.27%, moving closer to a two-monthly high of $4.82, as seen towards the end of April. According to a Medium post by the ICON team, ICON is set to partner with LINE PLUS, a global social network with over 200 million, monthly average users globally. The partnership, known as ‘Unchained’ aims to work with LINE to introduce an ICON based blockchain network, designed to help users of LINE develop their own DApps, designed to expand the blockchain ecosystem. See more about LINE PLUS, here- https://linecorp.com/en/ According to ICON:This is all part of ICONs eventual plan to ‘hyperconnect the world’. Overall this might not seem like an utterly ground-breaking announcement, indeed it isn’t. What it does do however, is secure a growing future for the ICON blockchain and thus the ICON currency. With a potential 200 million new users given access to ICONs systems and ICONs currency, you might expect activity on the blockchain to increase, moreover, you might then expect the value of ICON to rock up, given that within this, the currency is given a new meaning and a new context, plus, a potential huge new investor base. As news of this partnership spreads, we expect to see ICON continue to climb ahead of the rest of the markets. As I have said, things are moving upwards and ICON can naturally latch on to that. Given that near neighbours Binance Coin and Qtum are only up 4.10% and 7.99% respectively (at the time of writing), I can suggest that ICON’s double figure gain has at least gained some positive influence form this announcement. See the full press release from ICON, for yourself, here- https://medium.com/helloiconworld/joint-venture-between-icon-and-line-unchain-b802fa0fa071