ICON P-Reps News

VELIC

Ubik Capital

DECENTRALIZATION

ICON is officially decentralized! This past month saw the team working on updating block structure, completing the role switch function and developing P-Rep tools, network proposals, and election features.

As a reminder, you can monitor P-Reps’ productivity rates on the ICON Tracker. We encourage all ICONists to pay close attention to top P-Reps, who have just claimed their first rewards, and continue spreading your votes around. The 6% burn penalty will only begin on November 29th.

BTP

Beyond decentralization, the team has also made progress on its BTP, with an improved block structure that now supports BTP capabilities; the interchain communication between heterogeneous chains. The feature is currently being stabilized and ICON hopes to share more details in the near future.

Core developers have also started work on improving the P2P network and database integration, which will significantly improve basic network performance over time. ICON is working to improve the network by developing LFT2, an improved consensus algorithm that will ensure higher liveness.

MOBILE STAKING UPDATE

The long-awaited mobile staking update is almost here. Mobile development is complete, but is currently undergoing quality assurance (QA) and should be released in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can try P-Rep Reliant Node’s unofficial mobile staking wallet, ‘MyICONWallet’.

UPDATED GOVERNANCE PAPER

Lastly, ICON has recently updated its governance paper, which gives more details into the Network Proposal system and outlines several network proposals that can be submitted, including Text Proposals, P-Rep Disqualification Proposals, Malicious SCORE Proposals, Step Price Proposals and Revision Proposals. As stated in the paper, “In order to pass a Network Proposal, the proposal must receive approval from ⅔ + 1 of the current P-Reps, as well as reach 67% approval of the stake-weighted vote of the current P-Reps.”

ICONLOOP’s MyID Alliance has officially launched with 39 partners in the sectors of finance, securities, e-commerce and manufacturing.

Their vision? Implement a trusted decentralized ID (DID) ecosystem through ICONLOOP’s proprietary solution, MyID. Their mission is threefold:

User-Centric: Develop use cases and solve user inconvenience

Business Focused: Expand the business based on trust authentified by financial secto

Glocalization: Glocalize MyID-based business model, connect and expand the IDs of countries around the world

WHY MYID ALLIANCE?

MyID Alliance is ready to expand the DID ecosystem.

1. Expansion of DID ecosystem based on the trust built by the financial sector

MyID is authenticated based on proven technology from trusted financial institutions such as banks, securities and insurance firms. This means that these IDs can be accepted in various sectors such as public, e-commerce, Internet, manufacturing, education, NGO and even overseas.

2. MyID’s inclusion in the FSC’s “Innovative Financial Services and Regulations Sandbox”

MyID has been recognized as Korea’s only ID verification platform that can be applied throughout the financial sector.

3. Verified DID technology

MyID is one of Korea’s first DID services registered on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s Method Registry, which enables rapid project implementation based on high stability and convenience of blockchain technology.

MYID ALLIANCE PARTNERS

Currently, MyID Alliance is comprised of 39 members in various fields.

Ecosystem partners, all from the financial sector, are those who will be involved with verifying and issuing identities. “These companies will not only issue identity but also apply the issued MyID directly to our services,” said an ICONLOOP spokesperson. When MyID is released sometime in the first half of 2020, it will be introduced to ecosystem partners first.

Growth partners represent future use cases for MyID. In other words, these are the companies that will leverage MyID once the ID is verified and issued by the above ecosystem partners. Lastly, general partners are those who don’t have concrete plans as of yet, but have an interest in adopting MyID and collaborating.

Note: Samsung Electronics and STX Corporation were not listed in a ‘partners’ category, hence their absence from the list below.

EVENT SPEAKERS

On November 5th, partners and advisors of the alliance gathered at ICON’s office in Seoul to commemorate the big event, dubbed the ‘MyID Alliance Partners Day’. Speakers included recently appointed advisory committee chairman, Hun Jae Lee, ICONLOOP’s Josh Choi and Jonghyup Kim, as well as partners Shinhan Bank, POSCO, YOTI and Yanolja.

Hun Jae Lee, chairman of MyID Alliance’s advisory committee, opened the conference by explaining blockchain technology’s potential to open up the future. “To lead the global blockchain market, we need to respond to this quick change to a new paradigm,” he said. “In an era where we have to think about how to open up and participate in the future, I think Korea is ranked third to fourth in the blockchain sector. If we dig in more actively, [Korea] will play a leading role in developing a new economy.”

Lee explained that people, especially in Korea, equate blockchain to crypto and speculation. “I want to change this perception with MyID, that’s why I joined MyID Alliance as an advisor,” he said.

Josh Choi, ICONLOOP’s Chief Communications Officer, stated that the most important aspect in the digital economy is trust between players. He explained that MyID is different from other DID services because it is the only DID service based on the financial sector. In other words, financial institutions can issue certified information for the MyID service, resulting in a much higher level of verification than any other businesses. Choi added that ICONLOOP had its own solid blockchain technology that could power the MyID service.

Hyunki Jang, Shinhan Bank’s Head of Digital R&D Center, spoke about two areas where blockchain can be used in the financial sector. The first is for digital asset management, and the second is through DID services. “MyID service can reduce the three steps of real-name verification, which our financial sector currently has, to just one step,” he said. Shinhan Bank hopes to increase customer convenience through the implementation of DID services in digital asset management, global remittance and payments.

Daeho Shin, Director of POSCO Venture Group, plans to build a smart city in Korea’s tech-friendly city Pohang, so that startups, corporations and organizations can cooperate and work together. “We are planning to issue a blockchain-based local currency that can be used in this smart city,” said Shin. “Especially with MyID service, we will be able to solve ID verification issues by authenticating degrees and personal information a lot quicker.”

Thom White, Future Technologies Team Lead at YOTI, a global identity platform, explained the company’s goal to securely prove your digital identity. YOTI, which stands for “Your Own Trusted Identity”, offers identity verification, age verification, biometric e-signing and authentication services. Through the alliance, YOTI will ensure ID registration and issuance via their mobile app, and MyID will be used to verify the personal information. “DIDs will replace ID cards in future distribution markets,” said White.

Jongyoon Kim, CEO of Yanolja, a hotel booking app, said, “In many occasions, our customers use different login information when they use our service. With MyID, we can avoid this.” Instead of waiting in long queues at check-in, MyID could verify client identities much more quickly and thus improve customer experiences.

ICONLOOP CEO Jonghyup Kim took the stage last to emphasize a new paradigm shift. “As the ID management paradigm shifts from centralized to self-sovereign, ownership is shifting from service provider to user,” he said. “We are ready to open a new paradigm, one where people can own and administer their data based on consensus, in a decentralized environment.”

First half of 2020: Personal info certification in financial sector (Focus on “Untact”, ie. non-face-to-face, processes in the financial sector)

Second half of 2020: MyID available on mobile (expand MyID partners to non financial sector)

First half of 2021: Mobile ID Platform (People can utilize and manage their personal data via mobile)

ICON Swift iOS Tutorial: Part 1

ICON CORE by RHIZOME, UBIK Capital, ICONation, and Sharpn

Today, RHIZOME announced ICON CORE, a developer-focused portal and toolset designed to improve the process of onboarding developers on the ICON blockchain. To create ICON CORE, RHIZOME will be collaborating with fellow P-Reps UBIK Capital, ICONation, and Sharpn.

ICON offers a variety of SDKs (software development kits) in various languages including Python, Javascript, Java, Swift, C#, C++, and PHP. The goal of ICON CORE is to extend the basic documentation available on icondev.io by providing a well-documented codebase for a variety of real-world applications of the ICON blockchain in various programming languages.

The use case is clear. Imagine you are a Swift developer who is interested in developing on the ICON blockchain. You see a Python-based tutorial, but can’t find the equivalent material written for Swift. At this point, you may choose to either learn a little Python, or move on to another task. With ICON CORE, the goal is to remove the potential for friction in the learning process, and to make development on ICON more accessible for developers of all backgrounds.

To start, ICON CORE will focus on building an initial list of mini-projects in Python, Javascript, Swift, and .NET, as these four programming languages cover a large range of developers worldwide. At a later stage, the remaining SDKs will be incorporated, and provide localized versions of the portal in various languages.

ICX Station

ICONation

Paradigm

Paradigm Fund has issued new reports on the following cryptonetworks:

block42 Blockchain Company