ICON, often called the Ethereum of South Korea, has recently surged thanks to its technology partner, ICONLOOP, as it was selected to participate in a South Korean government program.

According to a blog post, ICONLOOP was selected to participate in the country’s “Cultivating Innovative Youth Talents 2018,” which is reportedly supervised by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT (MIST) and the Korea Institute for information & communications Technology Promoting (IITP).

The project’s goal is to “strengthen the national competitiveness in technologies and solving [the] youth unemployment problem through the cultivation of 5,400 youth talents.” ICONLOOP itself is set to be working with 53 members and provide guidance to students from the Baekseok University.

Reacting the news, ICX’s price jumped well over 20% to a recent high of over $0.96, before correcting to $0.88 at press time. The cryptocurrency is now up by about 10% in the last 24-hour period, and has notably seen its price rise nearly 80% since its $0.49 low on August 14.

Behind the crypto’s growth are other factors. Earlier this month the ICON team revealed it was planning to buy back $5 million worth of their own ICX tokens as part of their initiatives for this year, showing confidence in the project.

ICON has also reportedly partnered with South Korea’s largest insurance conglomerate, Kyobo, to develop blockchain-based applications for it. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kyobo which will reportedly “lead to collaboration on more projects to increase efficiencies in the insurance industry.”

Referring to the $5 million ICX buyback, ICON Foundation Council Member Min Kim stated:

[The] ICX repurchase program is a great way to give back to our community as well as reinforce confidence in our own project. In these times of uncertainty, we want to make it clear that our interests are fully aligned with our community for the long term.

Notably, as CryptoGlobe covered, other altcoins have been surging. Nano, previously known as RaiBlocks, saw its price surge 24% yesterday, after the Nano Foundation announced the former Vice President of Foreign Exchange at Citibank Andy Woolmer joined the project.

VeChain (VEC) is also up 10% in the last 24-hour period as it’s currently trading at $0.016, according to CryptoCompare data. The cryptocurrency’s price surged after reports revealed a Dutch homeowner will only sell his home for VET.

These price rises come at a time in which China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies continues, as search giant Baidu recently started censoring cryptocurrency-related discussions on its forums.