ICON DIGITAL ASSET REPORT:ICX Review and Investment Grade

Crypto Briefing Research Department

September 13, 2019

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com

Project Profile ........................................................................................ 3

Fundamental Factors ............................................................................. 4

Grade ................................................................................................... 5

Summary .............................................................................................. 6

Market Opportunity ................................................................................ 7

Underlying Technology ........................................................................ 11

Ecosystem Development ..................................................................... 15

Token Economics ................................................................................ 20

Core Team .......................................................................................... 22

Roadmap Progress .............................................................................. 25

Token Performance ............................................................................. 28

Conclusion .......................................................................................... 35

Disclamer ............................................................................................ 36

Contents

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ICON ICX

Key Metrics ICO Information

Current Price

Market Capitalization

Top 10 Addresses Combined

ATH Price

30-Day Average Price

24H Volume

30-Day Average 24H Volume

Sharpe Ratio

$0.202127

$100,020,324

47%

$12.64 (Jan 09, 2018)

0.212210

$10,574,503

15,510,560

-0.41

Sep, 2017

$0.11

$42,750,000

N/A

494,838,153 ICX

800,460,000 ICX

ICO Dates

ICO Price

Public Allocation

Private Allocation

Circulating Supply

Total Supply

icon.foundation

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Fundamental Factors

Market Opportunity

Core Team

Ecosystem Development

Token Performance

Underlying Technology

Roadmap Progress

Token Economics

6.7

7.5

6.0

5.0

6.9

5.0

7.0

Combined Score: 6.4

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C

GradeUsability issues present substantial issue for token; significant uncertainty,

but project still demonstrates moderate progress on development or

ecosystem fronts, having passed important milestones, albeit with delays.

Adverse conditions in the market pose major risk to value of token.

Methodology

For a full description of our methodology, please click on:https://simetri.cryptobriefing.com/methodology/

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Since its launch in 2017, ICON has touted itself as a protocol that would “hyper-connect the world”. Its value proposition relied on an interoperability layer that connects siloed blockchains, allowing for seamless transmission of value.

However after 2 years of work, crucial elements are still missing. Despite having a sizeable and well-equipped team, ICON is facing hurdles with respect to low user adoption, missed deadlines, and a small ecosystem - as well as prioritization issues that have stalled progress.

While “reprioritization” is the team’s preferred term for ICON’s state of affairs, it appears that the project is being forced to recalibrate itself in hopes of populating the ecosystem. Despite these changes,

the project has met roadblocks attracting node operators to secure the network.

The situation has been worsened by the gap between the project’s public and private chains. With the synergies between the underlying token and ICON’s enterprise solution unclear, the projects growth efforts appear scattered and unsustainable. Meanwhile, the competitive landscape is not static, and rivals continue to one-up each other as they battle for developer and user attention.

ICON’s saving grace could be rolling out interoperability features and successfully transitioning to the proposed node structure. Until then, the project will face an above-average level of risk, and the ecosystem development will likely continue to stagnate.

Summary

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE IS NOT STATIC, AND RIVALS CONTINUE TO ONE-UPEACH OTHER AS THEYBATTLE FOR DEVELOPERAND USER ATTENTION

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ICON’s central value proposition has been achieving interoperability between siloed blockchains. While the network offers smart contract functionality, and thus enables dApp development, it is far less competitive as a pure dApp play than some of the bigger networks. The interoperability-focused platforms are still in the early stages of market entry, which gives ICON a much better shot at establishing a presence in the segment.

Interoperable blockchain networks could become the backbone of the new digital economy. As such, the total addressable market here is the entire blockchain space, headed to $3T by 2030. At the same time, the dApp sector has a chance to disrupt the traditional mobile application market, forecasted to reach $311B by 2023.

Interoperability seems like the logical next-step in the evolution of blockchain technology. The segment is currently in a nascent stage, with a few emerging projects in a market that is still largely untapped. As a result, this market lacks a clear-cut leader, leaving room for new players to emerge.

As far as the actual technology goes, the interoperability playing field is more or less level, with several prominent players in the market. Among them are Cosmos, whose mainnet launched recently (March 2019), and Polkadot, which is also getting ready to roll out its product.

Cosmos still hasn’t unveiled its Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol, while Polkadot just rolled-out its Kusama network on August 23, but it is only an early-stage pilot.

ICON’s Blockchain Transmission Protocol (in-house technology for interchain communication) is still in the making.

None of the market participants have implemented a fully-functional interoperability solution yet. Given the team’s strength, this leaves a chance for ICON to fill this gap, gaining much-needed traction and potentially growing its user base as a result.

Market Opportunity

Summary

• Competing with traditional players will be an uphill battle for ICON, given its financial resources and brand recognition

• From the perspective of dApps, ICON is lagging behind rivals in most key metrics

• ICON’s real market opportunity lies in the interoperability space, where there are still no first-mover success stories or dominant incumbents

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Beside interoperability, ICON is looking to make inroads into the decentralized application market. However, here, ICON is falling behind in terms of attracting user and developer interest.

The South Korean project’s adoption metrics pale in comparison with those of rivals, with no indicators of reversal in the foreseeable future.

As first-mover, Ethereum has the most decentralized applications built on it. Despite serious scalability issues, Ethereum remains the go-to platform for dApp developers and smart contracts. The Ethereum status quo is already hard enough for projects like ICON to disrupt, and if Ethereum 2.0 fixes its scalability bottlenecks, it will even further assert its status as market leader.

Some of the other competitors of ICON in the dApp space include EOS and TRON. The former leads in terms of on-chain transaction volume, while the latter is the fastest growing dApp platform, which puts the two in a different league compared to ICON.

On top of that, EOS and TRON wield financial resources that are an order of magnitude more that ICON’s. As such, these competitors are serious threats to the project’s market opportunity.

On the whole, ICON is losing the race to fast-growing dApp players. The project’s fight for a share of the dApp market is hampered by sub-par adoption rates. As competing projects make further progress, it will be increasingly harder for ICON to make a name for itself as a dApp platform.

As well as vying with players in the blockchain space, ICON has to compete with corporate giants from the traditional space. Not only are legacy companies wielding large financial resources and superior brand recognition, they are also accumulating patents, which adds urgency to ICON’s development.

SOME OF THEOTHER COMPETITORSOF ICON IN THE DAPPSPACE INCLUDEEOS AND TRON

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Competition in the Blockchain Space

Project Name Ticker Launch Date Key Features Market Cap

ICON ICX Started in 2017Launched in Jan 2018

- LFT/dPoC hybrid consensus- Government partnerships- dApps in Python or Java- 9000 tps

- PoW consensus- Turing complete smart contracts- Biggest dApp ecosystem

- dPoS consensus- 3000 tps- No fees- 1 sec confirmation

- Tendermint PBFT- Cosmos SDK in Golang- Solidity smart contracts on Ethermint- 1000 tps

- dPoS consensus- 2,000 TPS- Cloud nodes- Low staking barrier

- GRANDPA hybrid consensus- Rust-based Substrate with Wasm interpreter- dApps on Parachains- 1000 tps

$136.8M

$22.3B

$3.9B

$713.3M

$1.0B

$110.6M

Ethereum

EOS

Cosmos

ETH

EOS

ATOM

Started in 2014Frontier launched in 2015

Started in 2017Block producer elected in 2018

Started in 2016Launched Mar 2019

TRON

Polkadot

TRX

DOT

Started in 2017Mainnet launched in 2018

Started in 2017Launch scheduled for Q4 2019

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Traditional firms pose a real competitive threat for ICON’s private chain. As such, the project is facing looming competitive pressure from the likes of IBM and SAP, who are making strides in the enterprise domain.

IBM is currently #1 in enterprise solutions, bringing distributed ledger technology (DLT) to heavyweight clients such as Visa and Walmart. According to a survey by Juniper Research, 65% of companies would let IBM deploy the technology in their own business. SAP is another corporate powerhouse with a specialized blockchain division; the company offers cloud-based BaaS solutions to enterprises seeking to leverage DLT tech.

Competing with corporate giants will be an uphill battle for ICON, as these companies are capitalizing on their brand awareness and customer trust, and have massive financial resources at their disposal.

All things considered, ICON has a chance to carve out a niche in the interoperability segment. Meanwhile, the picture in the dApp space is bleaker, with well-established players being miles ahead in terms of key metrics. As interoperability rivals gain steam, ICON needs to show tangible progress in order to remain competitive.

Project Name Ticker Competing Product Key Features Market Cap

IBM IBM Blockchain PlatformIBM - The company is operating in over 170 countries- One of world’s largest employers with over 380,000 employees- Several thousand customers worldwide- 500+ blockchain engagements

- The company is operating in over 180 countries- Over 335,000 customers- Over 95,000 employees

$122.04B

$533.9BSAP SAP Blockchain SolutionsSAP

Competition in the Traditional Space

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ICON’s technological approach to becoming a mixture of a dApp platform and a universal connector between blockchains looks promising. However, the team has been too slow to deliver on its milestones. While some of the network’s functionality is live, major technological features remain on paper, hampering further development of the platform.

At the core of ICON’s architecture is loopchain, a flexible high performance blockchain. The network utilizes Loop Fault Tolerance (LFT) consensus, a modification of Byzantine Fault Tolerance mechanism that some call a ‘gold standard’ for blockchains because of its security.

Underlying Technology

Summary

• ICON has a good technological concept• At this stage the network is only partially functional and the

main features are still in development

• The team cannot push the technology further because it is still stuck with beating initial milestones

Scalability Comparison

Project name Ticker TPSConsensus Protocol Time to Confirmation

ICON

EOS

Polkadot

Ethereum

Cosmos

instant

5 sec

N/A

6 min

N/A

ICX

EOS

DOT

ETH

ATOM

9,000DPoC

3,000DPoS

1,000GRANDPA

25PoW

1,000PoS

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Although, loopchain has been successfully utilized in ICON’s private solution it still has not been fully implemented on the mainnet, slowing down further upgrades of the main network.

Still, LFT’s speed should potentially put ICON in line with the market leading dApp platforms like EOS and Tron and create a solid scalability advantage over Ethereum. In the test environment, ICON’s transactions per second reach around 9,000. If this number remains similar under real conditions, the project will be competitive in terms of throughput.

The smart-contract functionality has already been implemented, and feature ICON’s Smart Contracts on Reliable Environment (SCORE).

Every ICON smart contract is executed within a container separated from basic blockchain process, which adds a level of security, since vulnerabilities in the smart contracts don’t harm the blockchain. Moreover, ICON’s smart contracts have versioning capabilities which makes updates quick and easy.

ICON smart-contract execution | Source: icon.foundation

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For its smart-contracts, ICON utilizes a widely-used programming language, Python, which could potentially attract, a large community of developers, estimated to be around 4.3M professionals.

However, while ICON is mostly ready as a dApp platform, its

Blockchain Transmission Protocol (interoperability solution), is still under development. ICON uses a two-tier structure, where each blockchain is connected to the mainnet via a portal, similar to the Zones and Hub of Cosmos.

ICON Blockchain Transmission Protocol | Source: icon.foundation

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Still, this approach to interoperability is yet to be tested under real world conditions, and could potentially face unexpected problems. Hence, it could further stall ICON’s growth.

Previously, ICON has had many issues keeping pace with its roadmap (most of the original milestones were missed). In the past the team has done a lot of development in private, but since Q4 2018 has started to commit on GitHub. The added transparency creates optimism that the project will do more to adhere to its roadmap targets.

Due to the fact that major updates are still in development, overall technological progress appears to have stalled. As such the project’s current technological proposition does not satisfy intended business needs. Given the team’s history of delays, there is significant risk that it might take significantly more time to make ICON fully functional and stable.

GitHub Activity | Source: github.com

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ICON has struggled to catalyze ecosystem growth. The network has suffered from a lack of participation on both a node and dApp level. In the absence of a focused effort on developing the ecosystem around public chain, the project will likely continue to stagnate.

Nodes comprise the backbone of a decentralized network. ICON is gearing up for the completion of its long anticipated first round of node elections, but is struggling to draw enough interest from the community.

The blockchain is supported by two main types of nodes:

ICON is currently in the process of electing their first set of P-Reps, since all the current nodes are being run by the ICON Foundation.

Once the election is completed, there should be 100 P-Reps nodes, but only 22 of them will have permission for block validation, and voting on network policy changes. The remaining 78, will be known as sub P-Reps and will run citizen nodes, that will act as backups and have to be ready to jump in to replace a P-Rep if one is to act maliciously or go offline.

Ecosystem Development

Summary

• ICON’s first node election is lacking in candidates, which may compromise the level of security and decentralization

• The public chain is yet to benefit from the enterprise chain’s successes

• ICON’s mainnet has few dApps at this time and little evidence of this improving in the near term

1. Community Representatives (C-Reps)A C-Rep proposes and votes on policies that represents the interests of one or more communities in the ICON ecosystem. Eventually, these nodes are expected to validate transactions but as the first elections are expected at some point in 2020 this functionality is not yet operational.

2. Public Representatives (P-Reps)A P-Rep verifies transactions on the ICON Network, but unlike a C-Rep, it proposes and votes policies that maximize overall interests of the stakeholders and communities on the network. As neither of these nodes are currently operational we have no examples, thus far, of what these policies will entail exactly.

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The ongoing election has been previously postponed due to a lack of candidates, showing significant problems with regard to candidate turnout. Currently, there are only 77 candidates up for this election, which falls significantly below the 100 nodes that were intended.

More recently, the project has decided to allocate 3M ICX ($570,000) to incentivize community members to participate in voting for P-Reps. The new election is slated for late September, and while the turnout numbers have not been released, the initiative shows a lack of confidence in drawing organic community engagement.

Since there is a lack of node operators, there is a risk that the network may get more centralized and less secure.

Similarly, the present token distribution also hints at high level of centralization. The top-10 addresses holding 47% of the circulating supply, while the #1 address possesses over 18% of the tokens.

Like many larger projects, ICON depends on a centralized entity, ICONLOOP, Inc (formerly theloop) to drive its development. The company is part of the Dayli financial group, a Seoul-based group that provides solutions for the financial industry based on artificial intelligence, blockchain, chatbot-advisors and cryptocurrency. This affords ICONLOOP great local connections among both governmental bodies and the business community.

Account№ Balance (ICX) USD Value Percentage%

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

hx1729b35b690d51e9944b2e94075acff986ea0675

hxcd6f04b2a5184715ca89e523b6c823ceef2f9c3d

hx9f0c84a113881f0617172df6fc61a8278eb540f5

hx562dc1e2c7897432c298115bc7fbcc3b9d5df294

hx9863ef724865df73254cf48a387248b09edf1082

hxf8d82f4106a4fed996d18607cb779828deb8ed23

hxb1194df1cd06ba4731a67385a4a6aed544a45514

hx0cc3a3d55ed55df7c8eee926a4fafb5412d0cca4

hx3f945d146a87552487ad70a050eebfa2564e8e5c

hx6b38701ddc411e6f4e84a04f6abade7661a207e2

144,215,820.2484

128,073,500.4400

34,000,000.0000

13,705,184.5833

8,253,859.1804

8,205,433.3493

8,200,000.9980

8,004,600.0000

8,004,600.0000

8,004,600.0000

29,404,516.962

26,113,219.823

6,932,343.310

2,794,383.667

1,682,899.573

1,673,025.911

1,671,918.296

1,632,077.508

1,632,077.508

1,632,077.508

18.0189

16.002

4.2481

1.7124

1.0313

1.0252

1.0245

1.0001

1.0001

1.0001

Top 10 Addresses | Source: tracker.icon.foundation

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ICONLOOP is also behind the non-profit ICON Foundation, which is responsible for promotion and development of the public blockchain.

As such, ICONLOOP’s team is tasked with driving the adoption of both the public chain solution and the private enterprise solution. The latter provides a revenue stream for the company, but does not utilize the ICX token.

Furthermore, it is unclear if and when the ecosystem around the public chain will be able to onboard benefit the private chain clients. As such, the benefits for the public chain are largely ambiguous.

Concerningly, business development is largely focused on ICONLOOP’s enterprise solution, instead of ICON’s mainnet. With partners such as Amazon’s AWS and Samsung Electronics, the private chain solution appears more credible than its public counterpart.

Further, development of ICONLOOP’s high profile applications

such as a Seoul based customs clearance project and a Korean National election system has been underway. However, with no clear statements on what chain these application will be deployed onto, the community can only speculate on its effects for the network.

As far as public chain initiatives, ICON has launched the ICX Station, and accelerator which has released 8 of the currently active dApps, as well as the dApp Booster Program (DBP), which “allows a decentralized application to receive delegation, which would result in funding through block rewards, from all ICONists”.

However, so far, ICON has only about a dozen dApps deployed on the mainnet, none of which have gained large user numbers or major brand recognition.

These include, DPASS, a blockchain-based self-sovereign identity authentication service, and ZenSports, a P2P sports betting network that facilitates real-time in-game betting.

CONCERNINGLY, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IS LARGELY FOCUSED ON ICONLOOP’S ENTERPRISE SOLUTION, INSTEAD OF ICON’S MAINNET

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While some of these projects are interesting examples of what ICON’s network may be able to support going forward, they are still too early-stage to have a significant impact on the adoption rates of ICON.

The successes of previous initiatives and the future successes of recently launched ones are valuable to the health of the ecosystem. However, the project still has a long way to go before its dApp network may be considered mature.

ICON’s Public Chain vs Private Chain Ecosystem | Source: spec-rationality.com

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Also, while ICON has enjoyed a sizable social media following, it has faced challenges communicating with its audience.

Overall, ICON’s ecosystem is lacking in some very significant areas and requires a more concerted effort directed towards its development.

The ICON Foundation has put most of its business development focus on its enterprise-oriented blockchain, which has cannibalized the public chain effort. Furthermore, structural issues regarding node elections, decentralization and security may create additional obstacles for growth. As such, the growth prospects for the ecosystem remain questionable.

Community Involvement Comparison

35.4k

Polkadot

44.5k

Cosmos

313k

EOS

163.4k

ICON

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Token Economics

ICON has a complex token economy that follows the popular trend of DPoS-based systems. Staking is likely to help in attracting nodes and limit the potential selling pressure during the network’s bootstrapping stage. However, the concept has many variables and whether they will work out positively for the project will only be evident once the network becomes fully decentralized.

Currently, the main use-cases for ICX, ICON’s native token, are mostly staking, voting and speculation.

• Block reward - the block reward in ICON is unique as it’s dynamically calculated for each block and distributed not only to the nodes that create blocks, but also to 100 Public Representatives (P-reps), participants of the Ecosystem Expansion Projects and participants of the DApp Booster Programs.

• Staking - the network offers between 6% and 36% (reward formula can be found here) rewards depending on the amount

of tokens staked. At the current staked rate the annualized return exceeds 25%, which is high compared to the competition.

• Voting - each user that stakes tokens can delegate their votes in ratio 1 ICX = 1 vote to participate in the governance within the network and to vote for P-Reps, Ecosystem Expansion Projects and DApp Booster Programs.

• Transaction fees - transaction fees are estimated in ‘steps’, where 1 ICX = 100M ‘steps’. For seamless dApp usage the network offers virtual steps and fee sharing to make it possible for the developers to pay fees for their users.

• Speculation - ICX is traded on a variety of exchanges, predominantly Binance with 40%+ of all trade volume.

Summary

• The token economy is still not fully functional since the node election has yet to take place

• Dynamic inflation model may present unforeseen issues

• ICON presents high staking rewards to attract more users to its ecosystem

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The project looks quite appealing for users looking for yields, which is positive for a project that is just starting to attract node owners. Moreover, it is a good mechanism to keep the supply side of ICX constrained as nodes will be inclined to keep their rewards to increase the potential profit. Hence, there are not likely to be any damaging sell-offs at the project’s initial stage.

The total supply and inflation rate of of ICX tokens are not fixed. More than that, the token economy can become deflationary if the network is used extensively. Block rewards can be fully sourced from transaction fees when the network activity is high. Otherwise, when network usage is low, new tokens are minted, increasing inflation.

However, while ICON is already facing problems attracting node operators and voters to its ecosystem, it will need to increase the staking yield to incentivize potential ecosystem players. Given the current low node count, the effect of this could further increase centralization.

Ultimately, ICON’s token economy has a good theoretical foundation because it employs concepts that helped similar projects to sustain themselves. However, as the first node election is still in process this model is untested in the field and unforeseen issues may arise in the future.

Supply Comparison

Project name Ticker Current Supply Inflation, % annual rate Total Supply

ICON

EOS

Cosmos

Ethereum

Tron

Polkadot

800M

1.0B

237M

Unlimited

99.2B

10M

ICX

EOS

ATOM

ETH

TRX

DOT

493.2M

929.6M

190.6M

107.5M

66.6B

N/A

0-20

~1

7-20

~4.6

~0.5

N/A

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Core Team

Since ICONLOOP is the tech company that is contractually obliged to build the ICON public chain, many of the staff work on both projects simultaneously.

The team behind ICON currently includes 150 members: 93 in development, 44 in business/marketing, and 13 in operations. By blockchain standards this is a considerable number, which shows that at least on paper ICON has the human capital to accomplish its vision.

To ensure organizational and communication efficiency among a globally distributed team, ICON holds weekly meetings involving

all team members, where strategy and goals for the coming week are discussed.

Overall, it is good to see that ICON’s team features a well-balanced mix of software developers and business/marketing staff. The sheer size of the team makes it stand out from other blockchains. With that said, ICON’s track record calls into question whether the project’s vast human resources are leveraged effectively.

Summary

• A history of missed milestones suggests organisational and communication inefficiencies

• Private and public chains share many staff, a questionable approach

• One of the largest development teams in blockchain (147 members)

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KJ Eee (Foundation Council)

KJ is also the founder of Nomad Connection and CEO of DAYLI Intelligence (ICONLOOP’s parent company). He was a team manager at SecureSoft, a leading internet security software company in Korea. KJ got his B.S. in Computer Science at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH).

JH Kim (CEO of ICONLOOP)

JH holds a B.S. in Computer Science from POSTECH, and the Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) qualification. JH has almost 20 years of hands-on experience working in information security.

The ICON core team combines technological prowess and business acumen from industries including finance, IT, and blockchain. Organizationally, the main entities behind the ICON Network are the ICON Foundation and ICONLOOP.

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Min Kim (Council Member)

Min got his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business and started as an Investment Banking Analyst at Deutsche Bank, after which he migrated into the startup world, earning expertise as a corporate director and Venture Capital investor.

Hoon Lee (Chief Strategy Officer of ICONLOOP and DAYLI Intelligence)

Hoon majored in Aerospace Engineering and got a Ph.D in Management Technology from Seoul National University.

Jae Kim (CFO of ICONLOOP and DAYLI Intelligence)

Jae worked as a CPA at PwC, specialising in strategy and IT operations. He holds 2 B.A.’s, one in Political Science and one in Philosophy from Korea University.

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Roadmap Progress

The first iteration of the ICON whitepaper was published in August 2017, in the midst of the ICO boom. The project was touted as the be-all-end-all blockchain connector that would usher in an era of interoperability. However, ICON has failed to reach most milestones, and a number of deliverables were delayed indefinitely.

By consistently missing milestones and leaving the community in the dark as to the development progress, ICON has witnessed a lot of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The poor track record has also manifested in the underperformance of the underlying ICX token.

Summary

• ICON has experienced reprioritizations in terms of core deliverables which led to production delays

• The roadmap lacks timelines and fixed deadlines

• Low P-Rep turnout may cause additional delays in the election process and steps towards network decentralization

Original Roadmap | Source: docs.icon.foundation

Nano Technological Roadmap | Source: docs.nano.org

Date Version Description

2017 Q3

2017 Q4

2018 Q1

V1 RC

V1 GA

V2

• Nexus Testnet launch

• Nexus Mainnet launch• Reserve channel open• IISS implementation• DEX(Ethereum/ICX) launch• Wallet Web/iOS/Android

• Representation channel open• Public channel open• A.I. advisor launch

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The best explanation of ICON’s seemingly poor product delivery is reprioritization. Indeed, Scott Smiley (Co-Head of Acceleration) confirmed that delays in releasing core technical deliverables were caused by a shift in focus to decentralizing the network via the P-Rep election.

Still, the indefinite delays in core infrastructure components (e.g. Community Representatives) are highly alarming, in the light of the project’s grand promises.

Starting in early 2019, ICON added a roadmap section to its website. However, it only informs the viewer about the rough

development stages without any timeframes or deadlines. Although this is a step towards transparency and credibility, the absence of measurable milestones limits the community ability to oversee progress and demand accountability from the team.

As far as ICON’s interoperability value proposition goes, the “Blockchain Transmission Protocol” roadmap category lists plans for a proof-of-concept for both the public and the private chains. Again, there is no concrete timeline to be found. Still, it appears that interoperability is the team’s second biggest priority, after the P-Rep election is brought to completion.

New Roadmap | Source: icon.community

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As far as communicating progress goes, besides a high-level roadmap ICON relies on monthly development updates on its Medium page. Despite being retrospective in nature, these reports give the community some evidence of ongoing development.

ICON has had multiple reprioritizations throughout the project’s

lifetime, often without any warning for the community. On top of that, ICON’s current roadmap lacks a timeline, which makes it difficult to see what direction the team is moving in. Finally, the project is already encountering stumbling blocks in terms of P-Rep participation, which may result in further delays.

P-Rep Election Roadmap | Source: medium.com

Roadmap Content Timeline

CampaignSchedule

A brief introduction about the campaign was announced.

Pre-registration of P-Rep candidates starts in off-chain environment. The entire process is managed and run by communities. Candidates who participate in P-Rep preregistration will benefit from the communities in a variety of ways

The commencement of the P-Rep Pre-registration has been officially announced. The slogan, story of the campaign and the meaning of ICONSENSUS will be delivered.

A blockchain election, a cornerstone of decentralization, begins. P-Reps will register on the ICON Network, and ICONists will be able to vote for the candidates. Once certain circumstances are reached, the ICON Network will be fully operated by the P-Reps.

During the genesis P-Rep Summit, the birth of Genesis P-Reps as well as commencement of the decentralized ICON Network will be declared.

Dec. 2018

Mid-Jan. 2019 ~ Sep. 2019

Mid-Jan. 2019

Sep. 2019

4Q. 2019

1stAnnouncement

P-RepPre-registration

2ndAnnouncement

P-RepOn-Chain

Registration& Election

The GenesisP-Rep Summit

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Although ICON’s native token, ICX, saw stellar growth during the ICO craze in 2017-2018, it suffered severely from the following bear trend and lost over 98% from its ATH. What makes matters worse, ICX didn’t benefit from the spring uptrend in the market.

Moreover, after the trend was over, ICON took a hit from Bitcoin dominance, which pushed its token’s value in BTC down even further.

Token Performance

Summary

• Compared to the competition, ICON has lower trading volumes that causes higher volatility at times

• The fact that Binance is the project’s major exchange brings some positivity

• Bitcoin dominance negatively influenced the token’s price in 2019

• ICX has weaker performance than the rest of the altcoin market

ICX, SAW STELLAR GROWTH DURING THE ICO CRAZEIN 2017-2018, IT SUFFERED SEVERELY FROM THE FOLLOWING BEAR TREND AND LOST OVER 98% FROM ITS ATH

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Price Comparison with Blockchain Competitors | Source: coingecko.com

Generally, ICX price correlates with those of its competitors, but it has weaker performance than some larger projects like Ethereum and EOS.

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Market Cap Comparison with Altcoins | Source: coingecko.com

ICX performed worse than the rest of altcoin market in terms of market capitalization since the beginning of 2019. This showcases

that ICON was not as well positioned to enjoy sustained growth as some of the other projects.

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 31

Price Comparison ICX/BTC | Source: coingecko.com

Moreover, ICON’s value was pressured by significantly increased BTC dominance from the beginning of 2019.

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Volume Comparison | Source: coingecko.com

With low daily trading volumes ICX lags behind its competitors, which signifies overall smaller interest from the crypto community.

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In terms of 30-day volatility, ICX showcases some volatility spikes, but generally stays in the ballpark of its competition.

30-day Volatility Comparison | Source: coingecko.com

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It is encouraging to see that the majority of ICX trading happens on Binance, which is proven to have a low percentage of wash trading.

Ultimately, ICX has performed poorly following the surge caused by

the ICO bubble. Combined with the damage done to ICX by growing BTC dominance, this makes the outlook for ICON pessimistic.

ICX Volume Distribution | Source: cryptocompare.com

Binance

FCoin

OKEX

ZB

HitBTC

USDT

BTC

ETH

KRW

BNB

ICX Volume by Currency ICX - USDT Volume by Exchange

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Despite making a splash at the time of its ICO, ICON has been struggling to achieve meaningful adoption rates since. Over the last two years, usage of its public chain has not grown in the way the founders and early-stage investors may have hoped. Naturally, these patterns have manifest in the underlying token’s downward price action.

Additionally, the state of technological development is also not where it should be at this stage, with many of the initial milestones still under development, and some sitting on the back burner indefinitely.

Moreover, the upcoming P-Rep election could be jeopardized if the participation thresholds are not reached by late September. Judging

by the previously low turnout, ICON runs the risk of its election being postponed. Such an event would further undermine community trust.

Unless ICON executes its plans concerning interoperability and the P-Rep election in a timely fashion, it will likely continue to slide down the CoinMarketCap rankings.

All things considered, ICON’s risks outweigh its strengths, which is why it is initiated with a C.

The author(s) of this report is/are invested in the following coins: Bitcoin, Ethereum, ICON.

Conclusion

ICONRECEIVESA GRADEOF C

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