Greetings from the ICON Team,

2018 has come to an end and 2019 is upon us. As the ICON Team has strived for blockchain mass adoption over the past year, in the 4th quarter our motto was ‘Mature for a Greater Leap.’ We focused on strengthening the governance, technology and capacity of the ICON project.

Specifically, the ICON Team solidified the foundation for the full expansion of the ICON ecosystem and innovation in governance with our token swap support, the release of our technology roadmaps, the release of our Yellow Paper Part 3 — ‘IISS,’ and the first teaser of the ICON P-Rep election, ICONSENSUS. We also presented a blueprint of the relationship between ICON and ICONLOOP, and released an FAQ portal, one of the meaningful steps to improve communications with our fellow ICONists.

Below we take a brief look at Q4 2018, outlined with reviews.

Loopchain, which is the core blockchain technology behind the ICON Network, powered by ICONLOOP, continues to be used in real world applications.

ICONLOOP has been exclusively selected as the sole operator of the ‘Seoul blockchain-based ISP Project,’ which is commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As part of the project, ICONLOOP analyzes the status of unit activities and information services for ‘realizing online certification without documents’ and is currently developing a plan to implement it step-by-step. Additionally, ICONLOOP, as an entitled business partner for the ‘FinTech Demonstration Project 2018’, has launched ‘Lifelong Healthy Life’ service in beta version with Kyobo Life Insurance Co., Korea’s largest life insurance company.

Furthermore, in recognition of its contributions to the development and popularization of the blockchain industry, ICONLOOP was honored to receive the Korean ‘Minister of Science and ICT (MSIT) Award’. The ICON Team will continue to explore use-cases of blockchain technology with partners in a wide range of fields, aiming to ‘achieve interoperability with the ICON Public network and the ICONLOOP Private networks.’

ICON has been building the ecosystem for blockchain developers through online and offline education programs such as Studypie and monthly developer meet-ups. These programs cover basic concepts of blockchain to how to write an ICON Smart Contract ‘SCORE’. Also, as an official technology partner for the AWS Partner Networks, we’ve launched the ICON Development Network in AWS Marketplace, supporting developers in helping to build their ICON TestNet efficiently.

Additionally, we are continuing our efforts to expand the ICON public ecosystem and global partnerships in the public sector with newly recruited team members. Including Former Programme Lead of UN Specialized Agency, ITU, and Platform Experts from Korean tech giants, Kakao and SK Planet.

ICON has been working globally with major blockchain companies to expand our blockchain ecosystem and offer technical support for ICON DApps. Recently, we launched our Singapore accelerator program ‘TRIBE’ in cooperation with TRIVE Ventures and PwC Singapore’s Venture Hub.

TRIBE, the first blockchain accelerator supported by the Singaporean government institution (ESG), will discover and promote new DApp projects as a Singapore launchpad of the ICX Station, in partnership with our additional ICX stations based in Seoul and San Francisco.

Also, ICON will also strive to ensure the integrity of the ICON network and vitalization of ICON developer community through our code audit alliance with our strategic partner LayerX, a Japanese blockchain consulting firm.

ICON’s vision of interchain has become more specific with the long-awaited technology roadmap and Yellow Paper part 3 — IISS. Going forward, the development status and objectives will be updated transparently on a monthly basis, divided into four phases (in research, in development, stabilization, and completed) and three categories (loopchain technology, governance, and services based on ICON). Given our priority to strengthen the stability and security of the ICON platform, ICON has cooperated with HackerOne in a bug bounty program with 100,000 hackers, to proactively discover network vulnerabilities.

The ICON Team will continue to strengthen our blockchain platform by reinforcing these items.

The ICON Team participated and sponsored various blockchain events such as Korea Blockchain Expo, LINE LINK DEV, Digital Economy Forum, Blockchain Grand Week, and Devstamp. In addition, ICON, as the title sponsor of the San Francisco Blockchain Week (SFBW), providing a variety of intensive development programs to support adoption among general consumers, academia, and developer communities.

Lastly, we introduced three blockchain-based services (identification, voting, payment) at the Seoul International Digital Festival (SIDiF) allowing citizens to feel the practicality of a blockchain use case.

We are excited about what the future holds and are preparing to take a big leap forward based on the foundation we laid out in the fourth quarter. We truly appreciate your interest in the ICON project and are looking forward to working with you in the new year!

Thank you,

Hyperconnect the World

ICON Team

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ICON official community

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