When crypto companies announce large partnerships their tokens usually head skywards. This has not been the case for South Korea’s Icon when news broke of a new partnership with Japan’s messaging giant Line. Seemingly gone are the days when a good news story or a social media shill would pump an altcoin.

According to reports Line has an estimated 200 million users, mostly in Japan and Thailand where it has become the chat app of choice. Its parent company, South Korea’s Naver, is involved in a wide range of digital communications technologies and its latest big project is blockchain. The joint venture will involve the development of a platform called Unchain which will build dApp services while expanding the ICON ecosystem.

The official announcement on the ICON’s medium page stated;

“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.”

The collaboration could potentially result in hundreds of millions of Line users adopting the ICON blockchain platform to access dApps. There has yet to be a widespread adoption of a blockchain based dApp platform by the masses however a few are striving for just that such as Tron which will be separating from the Ethereum network shortly.

This partnership signifies a solid long-term potential for adoption on a huge level which sits well with the ICON team’s motto of ‘hyperconnect the world’. The new independent blockchain lab will enable the LINE development team to start exploring the potential of the technology and its implementation into everyday software. ICON, often dubbed the ‘Ethereum of South Korea’, was the obvious choice.

Surprisingly ICX prices did not react and they have been down-trending for the past week. The digital coin has lost 9% on the week and is currently trading at $3.90 despite a huge spike in trade volume over the weekend. In the past 24 hours ICX has gained a little and is currently up 2.5% on the day, nowhere near its all-time high of $12.50 back in January.