Price discussion
Welcome to this week’s edition of RHIZOME Wire!
Moon?
Without question, the most exciting thing to happen within the ICON community this week has been the dramatic price increase in ICX. Following months of constant downward movement — culminating in a price slightly below ICO — many are beyond pleased to see the rapid price action. For some, it’s reminiscent of the bull market of 2017. It’s way too premature to predict if that’s the direction we’re going — we’ve had a few pumps like this throughout various points in the bear market — but it’s still nice to see.
However, if we are entering a new phase of constant price increases, being left behind can be potentially costly. With the parabolic increases of the following week, it made me wonder just how quickly things moved in 2017-18, so I did a bit of research.
Here is a snapshot of a 59-day span in late 2017 and early 2018:
Keep in mind, this is well after ICO. While the price initially shot up after ICO, it then kicked into a downtrend for an extended period of time. The $0.78 mark is where it began to build its uptrend.
It took 17 days for that price to basically double. It took another 19 days for that price to double. It then took 6 days to go up 31.15%. When all was said and done, it had gone up 1487.4% in less than two months before it started it’s long-term downtrend.
During parabolic moments, what generates the most momentum is that you no longer gauge prices increases in absolute dollars and cents, but in percentage increases. Right now, every increase of one cent feels like a monumental achievement. When the next bull market happens — if, and whenever it may be — gains in cents turn into gains in dimes which turn into gains in dollars. And that’s when things start to move quickly.
The Impact of Staking
During a brief conversation on Telegram, there was a discussion about what might happen if the price increases rapidly again — would whales sell as soon as they hit a reasonable profit?
My reaction to this has two parts. First, during a bull market, rationality typically flies out the window — even the savviest of traders and investors find it hard to avoid the idea that they may be selling “too early.” I don’t think the next bull market will be any different — that, any selling is met by equally fervent buying.
The second factor is the existence of staking.
Let’s pretend you’re an ICX whale who owns 200,000 ICX. You’re going to be earning about 100 ICX per day in staking rewards.
Let’s also pretend that the price of ICX goes up to $5. That means, by just doing nothing, you’re earning $500 per day. That’s $182,500 per year - doing nothing.
If you’re in that position — do you really want to sell your staked ICX?
Of course, some may just take their daily rewards and sell them on the open market, but it’s hard to tell if this type of gradual selling would have much of a negative impact — especially in the absence of whales “dumping.”
One way or another, we’re entering a new frontier with staking rewards, as few tokens offered the opportunity during the prior bull market, leading us with little to create a prior comparison.
News from ICON World
MakerDAO, Chainlink, and ICON
Several days ago, the ICON Foundation announced they will be hosting a meetup with notable projects MakerDAO and Chainlink.
On February 11th at 7pm (KST), we will host a joint meet-up alongside leading blockchain projects, MakerDAO and Chainlink. We are happy to host Kim Jin-woo, General Manager of Korean Community of MakerDao and Yeongin Lee, Korea lead for Chainlink. Bongan Ha, Cryptoeconomic architect of ICON, will also participate in the meet-up by discussing interchain and ICON’s roadmap.
Governance 101
Issue #3 of ICON Newsletter has been released. In the third issue of ICON Newsletter, Min Kim discusses the latest announcements and happenings within the ICON world.
ICX_Station Announces Support for ICONbet
We are excited to announce our support for ICONbet. At the time of writing, ICONbet has generated over five million transactions and over $140,000 average daily volume over the past week; it is the number one DApp on the ICON Network and in terms of dollar value of daily volume it hovers around the top 30 measured against DApps across all blockchain networks. Given the success in its early days we are excited to support the project in taking the next step forward.
Min Kim encourages ICONists to not delegate to the ICON Foundation node
Min Kim chimes in on twitter encouraging the ICON community to vote for other P-Reps and provides a few recommendations for P-Reps in the short-medium term.
ICON New York City meetup is underway for 2020
Corey Costa of the P-Rep team UBIK Capital is working alongside RHIZOME to organize a New York City ICON meetup later in the year.
RHIZOME’s accomplishments
RHIZOME team member, William McKenzie weighed in on twitter detailing a few of RHIZOME’s accomplishments thus far as a P-Rep.
ICON DAO brings SesameOpen to ICON
P-Rep team ICON DAO has been assisting SesameOpen in joining the ICON network.
Accordingly, SesameOpen has recently applied for an ICON community grant.
3 new partners join the My-ID Alliance
The My-ID Alliance has 3 new partners that have recently joined including - INITECH, SSensStone, and 8percent. Accordingly, there are now 47 My-ID Alliance partners.
New Features coming to MetrICX
RHIZOME team member, Brian Li teases a mockup for an upcoming redesign of MetrICX.
Dr. ICON demonstrates DID in action at ICON HQ
Dr. ICON shows Digitial Identification (DID) in action at ICON’s office in Seoul, South Korea. In the video, ICON’s DID protocol is used to enter the office building!
Blockchain Industry News
Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse Hints Firm May Seek IPO Within 12 Months - CoinDesk
I think over the next 12 months you’re definitely going to see IPOs in the crypto, blockchain space. I’m not sure we want to be first but we certainly don’t want to be last either, so I expect we’ll be on the leading side of that, not the lagging side,” Garlinghouse said.
Bitcoin Gold 51% attack highlights the weaknesses of proof-of-work | CryptoSlate
The 51 percent attack Bitcoin Gold experienced last week sparked an industry-wide debate about the security of the network. Many saw this as proof of BTG’s redundancy, but few focused on the problems in proof-of-work itself that enable these kinds of attacks to happen in the first place.
E Pluribus Unum: Four Class-Action Suits Against Bitfinex Over 2017 BTC Price Now One
Per an order dated Jan. 24 and filed Jan. 27 from Judge Failla of the court of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), four complaints have been consolidated. Plaintiffs Leibowitz, Young, Faubus and Ebanks — as well as assorted sub-listed parties in each of those cases — will now have their cases heard jointly.
Coinbase Custody Goes International With New Entity in Ireland - CoinDesk
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Coinbase said in a blog post that client demand for institutional-grade custodial services drove the move. Separately, a spokesman for the exchange said Coinbase Custody now has $8 billion in assets under custody, up from the $7 billion announced in November.
Our Network: Issue 6 - Spencer Noon
Our Network is a weekly newsletter presented by Spencer Noon. In this week’s issue, contributors within the communities of Tezos, Ethereum, Decred, Zcash, and Bitcoin shared data-driven insights pertaining to each of their respective projects.
Worth a read.