Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
April 27, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- On the surface, with
ICX, the ICON
foundation appears to be promising the payment coin
of the future. In truth, this is not all that the foundation wants
to accomplish with this project. The Icon network at large that
facilitates ICX payments has been touted in the
crypto-space as a possible solution for connecting
nearly all existing blockchain-based networks.
Its self-stated mission is to be
this connection as well as to be the network that truly starts the
snowball effect of decentralization becoming the new norm.
Essentially, after an analysis of the ICON white paper, it appears
that this involves being the technological glue for basically any
blockchain project.
This is a lofty endeavor, to say
the least. Dan Morehead of Pantera
capital, the self-styled first U.S. Bitcoin investment
firm, seemed to say that his company is betting on ICON and Bitcoin
to lead the way for the blockchain industry as well as the
world.
What’s the technical basis for such
support? The ICON network is based around a complicated set of
technologies that it claims make it possible for any blockchain
network to connect with any other blockchain network, via ICON at
the center.
It all begins with two technologies
called Nexus and Portal. According to one source, the ICON network
is structured with the Nexus technology at its center and the
portals around it, connecting the network’s communities to the
Nexus.
These communities would be other
blockchain projects or cryptocurrencies that joined the network to
get connected and share data.
According to the ICON foundation as
well as other secondary sources, the Nexus is
simply a blockchain that run more than one channel
at once or facilitate more than one type of data transfer, at
once.
Overall, this also means that the
ICON network can run its own consensus network to maintain network
security while allowing the networks that join ICON to do the
same.
Every portal is effectively a node
which the Icon foundation calls a C-rep on the network.
C-reps are effectively ICON’s equivalent of Masternodes, except
that a few key, significant difference exists between them. The
first and most important difference is that C-reps are elected by
the communities that join the ICON network and act as their
representatives in all voting as well as in helping to maintain
ICON’s security.
Their reward for doing this
establishes the relative equivalence between C-reps
and Masternodes. In helping to
maintain the ICON network’s security, the C-reps receive a
percentage of the block reward. Apparently all rules related to
C-reps are voted on and created by the community, so in theory,
there is no centralization involved involved in this
process.
The only argument that might be
made for the existence of a relative level of centralization is
that the functioning of the ICON network controls the network
security of all of its communities, to an extent. Even so, since
all communities retain their
original consensus algorithms and everything
related to their security when they choose to be a part of ICON, it
could be argued that the network is and will be,
decentralized.
All in all, if everything works in
the way that ICON wants it to in the future, especially related to
network security, then it could be one of the blockchains that
brings crypto to the currently unaware parts of the
world.
By: BGN Editorial Staff