The Icon Foundation, the group behind the Icon blockchain network, is giving away 3 million ICX tokens — worth ~$570,000 — in anticipation of its upcoming Public Representative (P-Rep) elections. The giveaway will last from Aug. 26 to Sept. 24 for IXC token holders who opt to participate in P-Rep voting.

Icon shared news of the giveaway in a press release on Aug. 13. According to the announcement, the giveaway is an effort to promote community involvement in the so-dubbed P-Rep elections, and to advance decentralized control of the network.

As per the announcement, ICX holders must participate in voting and staking in the upcoming P-Rep in order to receive tokens from the giveaway, so the giveaway acts directly as a participation incentive.

ICON Foundation founder Min Kim elaborated:

“With the giveaway, we expect not just to re-distribute 3 million ICX for better decentralization and voting capabilities, but we also hope to encourage current ICX holders and ICON community members to transfer their coins to ICONex wallet, so they can properly stake and participate in the upcoming P-Rep elections.”

Becoming more decentralized

The foundation is reportedly actively looking to lessen their own share of the network, and is further encouraging voters to spread out their delegation among the P-Reps. The purpose, as they say, is to make sure that the network remains decentralized, by making sure that neither the foundation nor initial representatives have too much control.

As explained in a report by Decrypt, the Icon Foundation currently controls a lot of its coins, but not for long. The foundation is moving to launch a governance mechanism, dubbed Iconsensus, which shifts the network’s governance model to something like a proof-of-stake system. However, this means that token holders have to elect third parties to run the network. This is where the giveaway incentives come in, which Decrypt reports to be worth $570,000 in total.

DApp Connectivity

Per the press release, Icon is a blockchain network that aims to connect blockchain projects together. This includes decentralized application (DApp) development for public blockchain sectors via partnerships.

As reported by Cointelegraph in May 2018, Icon partnered with the Japanese messaging app Line via joint blockchain initiative Unchain. According to the report, Line aimed to bring its blockchain mainnet closer together with its DApps via Icon’s blockchain solution.