Key operational policies on Governance, Transaction fees, and IISS

Greetings from the ICON Team,

ICON’s Yellow Paper containing main operational policies is now open to the public. The ICON team has been committed to ensuring decentralization of the ICON Network while addressing the problems in existing blockchain ecosystems. This is a turning point for ICON, as the Yellow Paper outlines our path towards full decentralization.

ICON has improved the existing ‘Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)’ to prove various items related to network activity, such as smart contract executions and proof of stake. This is measured by using the ‘Delegated Proof of Contribution (DPoC)’ consensus algorithm based on ICON Incentives Scoring System (IISS). Together with Community Representatives (C-Reps), ICON will also elect Public Representatives (P-Reps) who represent the interests of the entire network, in this way ICON will build a balanced ecosystem by collecting diverse opinions from all the participants within the network.

The blueprint to ‘Hyperconnect the World’ presented in the White Paper has been further refined in the ICON Yellow Paper. As the function of ICON Network has expanded, we have now introduced more detailed fee structure, supporting a Smart Contract Executor (DApp) to operate its service reliably.

The ICON Yellow Paper can be divided into three documents: ‘Ⅰ. ICONstitution and Governance, II. Transaction Fee, and III. IISS (ICON Incentives Scoring System)’ and will be released sequentially.

Ⅰ. ICONstitution and Governance — Released

The ‘ICONstitution and Governance’ paper is a reference manual on the ICON Constitution and Governance model. Based on three main principles that constitute ICON Governance (Interchain, Decentralization, Contribution), it specifies the rights and obligations of each participant and representative in the ICON Network. In addition, it explains the key devices (progressive suggestion, resolution) and the process of decision making.

Ⅱ. Transaction Fee — Released

The ‘Transaction Fee’ paper describes the commission system of SCORE, the ICON Smart Contract implementation environment. It addresses the concept and calculation of Step, which is a unit of transaction fee consumed when executing smart contracts. There will be also an introduction of Virtual Step which is a virtual transaction fee depending on the deposit period of ICX and its early withdrawal.

Ⅲ. IISS (ICON Incentives Scoring System) — Released

IISS is an artificial intelligence based system to determine the appropriate share of network rewards given to an individual ICONist (any member of the ICON Network) based on their relative contribution to the ICON Network. IISS will assign each ICONist an “I-Score”, which is calculated using several metrics. The IISS paper includes the I_Score calculation methodology, an incentive and penalty policy, and additional information regarding the distribution of newly issued ICX.