I’ve been reading articles about LINK, Line’s cryptocurrency, which just released its mainnet this August but none of them highlight the question we want to know which is: Where does ICON (Icx) fit into all this?

I immediately set out to find out as much as I could about how ICX could be involved and what I discovered did not disappoint.

Link’s logo (Line’s Cryptocurrency)

Let’s start out by answering some basic questions:



What is ICX?

“ICON is a connector of disparate cryptocurrencies with different blockchain governances, and furthermore, a connector of the crypto world to our real world. ICON embraces the new and the unfamiliar, the principle of radical inclusion — accept new ideas and decisions made by the new republic established by ever-changing crypto-to-real world connections.”

What is LINE?

“Line is a social platform with hundreds of millions users worldwide, having a particularly strong focus in the rapidly advancing continent of Asia.” From my personal experience, Latin America is also an important source of Line’s user-base.

So what’s the deal?

On May 14, 2018, Line Plus and ICON partnered to create Unchain with the intention of building Line’s blockchain network. “Unchain aims to develop various DApp services while building synergies with ICON to expand the blockchain ecosystem.”

When this news was first delivered, it was a positive sign for ICON but still vague, in terms of what exactly they’d be working on and how the Asian power-house, Line, would use ICON’s technology.

After reading LINK’s white paper, it’s clear that ICON’s technology and infrastructure will be key to LINK’s existence and success.

See for yourself:

LINK’s roadmap which validates Unchain’s involvement in #buidling Link’s blockchain platform.

In Link’s white paper, they specifically mention the following:

“Creating a thriving ecosystem and token economy joined together by a single digital token.”

I found this particularly interesting because it could imply that Link’s entire ecosystem success will rely on its interoperability. ICON, as many supporters and cryptocurrency enthusiasts are aware of, is one of the big three coins focused on facilitating blockchain interoperability.

“LINK Chain is a consortium-type blockchain platform where each participating service constitutes one node in a larger network. It is built on a high-performing blockchain core network that can process more than 1,000 transactions per second in a single thread.” — LINK’s white paper

Technology Architecture

One of the main components of LINK’s technology architecture is LINK Chain Framework, the platform API required for building services, comprising smart contracts, wallets, a unified authentication system, and block data management features.

ICX’s white paper stresses that “The consortium plans to expand its blockchain services to other capital market processes, including post-trading and trading, through SCORE, the loopchain’s smart contract execution environment.” This allows me to deduce that SCORE will be a crucial instrument in LINK’s plan to comprise smart contracts.

Figure A

Link’s four main layers illustrated in figure A suggest that the consensus algorithms they’re speaking about are based on Consensus LFT (Loop Fault Tolerance.

“LFT is an enhanced BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance)32-based algorithm that promotes faster consensus and ensures the finality of the consensus without the possibility of forks within the network. LFT supports faster consensus by creating a group among trusted nodes. LFT can accommodate diverse consensus structure by allowing such groups or nodes to freely determine the number of votes.” — ICON’s white paper

“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 foundation

Figure B — LINK’s token economy will fuel a blockchain ecosystem where users are rewarded for their contributions to the network. (Identical to Unchain’s mission.)

It gets better!

“The top-tiered life insurance company in Korea and major university hospitals are working together on a blockchain pilot project to incorporate theloop’s blockchain technology into the insurance claims and payment process. This project aims to automate the entire insurance claiming process, from patient authentication to sending medical records to insurance providers, through blockchain technologies without any intermediaries. The pilot project will be implemented through SCORE, and plans to launch in early 2018 initially for select insurance products.” — ICON’s white paper

Now, we know that ICON has the capability of supporting decentralized automated insurance claims. This is important because a January 2018 Techcrunch article states that “The Japanese company (LINE) announced the creation of a new financial services division which will spearhead a move into cryptocurrencies and other services including loans and insurance.”

These were the conclusions I deduced from my research involving the LINE Token Economy white paper, ICON Foundation’s white paper, and a few other articles from ICON foundation and Techcrunch.

This article was written for informational purposes only. None of the above is intended to be financial advice or investment advice.

I’m open to discuss any suggestions or opinions. Please follow me on Twitter if you’d like to engage: https://twitter.com/_kevcas