ICON saw a tough year of trading in 2019 as the cryptocurrency dropped by a total of 50% from the opening price of $0.236 to the closing price of $0.113. It did manage to reach a high of $0.46 within the first half of the year, however, like most altcoins, it continued to create fresh new lows during the second half of the year.

Nevertheless, ICON rose from the ashes in 2020 as it increased by a WHOPPING 446% already. The cryptocurrency surged from the opening price of around $0.113 and climbed beyond the 2019 high to reach the 2020 high at around $0.593 - all within the first 6 weeks of trading within the new decade!

Take a look below;

The price has since retreated slightly as it trades at around the $0.33 level (as of mid-Feb 2020). Despite this retracement, ICON is still up by a tremendous 200% in 2020 and we can only expect it to continue higher once the retracement has completed.

You see, ICON has some great things going for itself. Apart from all the partnerships that you must already know about, including Samsung and LINE Messenger, they have new partnerships with the likes of Chainlink to bring off-chain data into their smart contract platform. Additionally, the team took things one step further when they released their new product, ICON Vote, to the public - allowing ICX a solid voice in the direction they would like to take the platform.

For the reasons stated above, and more discussed below, I believe that ICX has the potential to surge by a further 200% in 2020 to reach my target price of $1.00 at some point during the year. Bear in mind that it is already up by a total of 200% at the current $0.33 price, so in total, if ICON reaches my 2020 prediction, it would have increased by an enormous 820%! Now that is some SERIOUS growth but totally achievable in this industry.

In this article, I’ll firstly cover a range of topics that I believe will influence ICX in reaching my $1.00 target during 2020 and then analyze ICX on the daily chart to highlight some areas of resistance on the way toward the target.

What Is ICON?

ICON is a project that is developed to tackle interoperability between blockchains. It was launched in 2017 by a South Korean fintech company, Dayli Financial Group, after raising over $40 million in their ICO.

They started out their project with the intention to connect any blockchain together as they felt that value should be able to be transferred without the need to go through a middle man such as a cryptocurrency exchange.

ICON’s main chain is known as the “loopchain” (not to be confused with Loopring), and it is an enterprise-focused type blockchain that also allows for the deployment of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). Through a system known as the ICON Republic, the loopchain is able to gain interoperability with other blockchains as it acts as the communications channel between the networks. The Republic consists of C-Reps, community representatives, and Citizen Nodes.

The functioning of the ICON ecosystem can become quite complicated as it involves Representational channels, SCORE policies, ISS, and Smart Contracts. If you do want to learn more about how it all functions, take a look at this article.

ICON Vote Announced

ICON recently released its “ICON Vote” system which is basically a governmental platform for decisions on the blockchain. It finally allows for verifiable communication with P-Reps and ICX investors by introducing a voting mechanism in which users who hold ICX can cast their vote on proposals.

Prior to the launch of ICON Vote, P-Reps would only communicate with ICX investors via social media such as Telegram and Twitter. This never provided a clear indication to P-Reps about what ICX holders wanted and ICX holders never felt like they were really heard.

With the new voting mechanism integrated, ICON moves closer toward a Decentralized Autonomous Organization in which everybody has a say about the direction of the platform through their voting power.

Low Development Activity Could Cause Concern

One concerning thing about ICX is the fact that Developmental Activity seems to have plummetted. Data from Santiment shows that the activity from the developers has been falling ever since September 2019. It is showing some signs of rebounding and increasing, however, this is not a pretty graph that is about to follow;

Partnerships

Partnerships are a place where ICON seems to excel. It is probably due to the fact that the organization that founded ICON is very well connected within South Korea.

ICON and Samsung

One of their biggest partnerships is the one with Samsung. They have a signed Memorandum of Understanding with Samsung as they intend to use ICON’s Chain ID system for the Samsung Pass application.

This will use ICON Chain’s ID to basically allow for biometric identification systems for security inside all Samsung Phones.

ICON and LINE

The partnership with LINE involves the two entities coming together to create Unchain, a blockchain network built for the Line messaging application. Unchain is created to produce a host of dApps that we can presume would be integrated into the Line messaging app at some point in the future.

ICON And Chainlink

One of their latest partnerships is with Chainlink. Announced toward the end of January 2020, the partnership is slated to bring off-chain data into the ICON ecosystem.

Chainlink is basically an oracle project that allows off-chain data to be integrated into smart contracts and used on-chain. It basically can take information and data from data feeds to allow conditions in specific smart contracts to be triggered. The data can be anything from weather patterns, asset prices, election outcomes, population growth figures - pretty much anything that ha statistical data.

The great thing about the Chainlink Oracle is that it is decentralized and works on a reputation system so the data received off-chain is likely to be highly accurate the majoirty of the time.

This partnership now allows for anybody building ion the ICON blockchain to bring real-world data into their blockchain-based business in a secure method. This opens up for the potential to build powerful decentralized financial dapps.

The first integration from this partnership is expected to be an ICX/USD pricing oracle that can be utilized by any ICON dApp. This will allow these dApps to take the price of ICON against the USD and utilize it within the smart contracts on the dApp.

ICON (ICX) Price Analysis

LONG TERM - DAILY CHART

What Has Been Going On?

Taking a look at the daily chart above, we can see the pretty dull trading action in 2019. The cryptocurrency was never really able to break above resistance at $0.45 (although it did spike higher). In fact, it was never even able to come near the 200-days EMA.



After reaching the 2019 high in July, ICON started to tumble an eventually even went on to create fresh lows when it broke beneath the February 2019 low at $0.182 during October 2019. It continued to drop further lower to reach the 2019 low at around $0.108.

Well, we can ignore this dampening trading action during 2019 because when we look to 2020 we can see how well ICON has performed already. During January and February 2020, the cryptocurrency literally TOOK OFF.

If penetrated above the 200-days EMA and climbed much higher above the 2019 price high to clock in a 2020 high of around $0.60. It has since fallen slightly, however, we can see that it remains supported at $0.3177 which is provided by a short term .5 Fibonacci Retracement level.

One really important signal to point out here is the fact that the 100-days EMA is about to cross the 200-days EMA which is considered as a very long term bullish signal and a trend shifting technical indicator.

Are We Bullish Or Bearish (as of February 2020)?

After already breaking the 2019 high, we can certainly say that ICON is strongly bullish. It would need to break beneath the support at $0.30 for this to become invalidated. It would need to fall further beneath $0.20 before being in danger of turning bearish.

If the sellers do push lower, the first level of support is expected at $0.3177 (.5 Fib Retracement). This is followed by additional support at $0.30.

Beneath $0.30, added support can be expected at $0.268 (.618 Fib Retracement), $0.25, and $0.226 (100-days EMA & 200-days EMA). Beneath this, we can expect extra support at $0.20 and $0.198 (.786 Fib Retracement), although, I do not expect ICON to head so low anymore.

Where Is The Resistance On The Way Up TO $1.00?

On the way up toward $1.00, the first level of resistance lies at $0.40. This is followed up with resistance at $0.44 which is provided by a long term bearish .382 Fibonacci Retracement level. This bearish Fib Retracement is measured from the September 2018 high to the December 2019 low.

If the buyers continue to break resistance at $0.5, additional resistance lies at $0.54 (bearish .5 Fib Retracement), $0.62 (1.272 Fib Extension), $0.65 (bearish .618 Fib Retracement), and $0.676 (1.414 Fibonacci Extension level).

If the bullish run can continue to push ICON above $0.70, higher resistance then lies at $0.758 (1.618 Fib Extension), $0.787 (bearish .786 Fib Retracement), and $0.884 (bearish .886 Fib Retracement).

If they can break the resistance at $0.90 and $0.96, they will then be clear to make an attempt at the 2020 price target of $1.00.

Conclusion

I strongly believe that ICON has the potential to continue to increase by a further 200% from the current price to reach $1.00. This would mean that ICON surged by over 800% in 2020, however, they have some fundamental drivers (discussed above) that can back this price surge.

If ICON can continue along their developmental curve to reach interoperability between blockchains and continue to develop major high profile partnerships, such as the likes of Samsung and Line, this project will certainly reach $1.00 in 2020.