The latest AMA with Min Kim
Welcome to this week’s edition of RHIZOME Wire!
Min Kim’s latest AMA
Recently, Min Kim, Co-Founder of ICON Project and ICON Foundation Council member took the time to have an AMA with BiKi Exchange in their English telegram channel.
As there has been copious amounts of news and developments lately within the ICON ecosystem, the AMA provided lots of information for the ICON and Biki community to digest.
To start off the AMA, Min began by introducing himself and giving some background information on his career.
Hello, my name is Min Kim, Co-Founder of ICON project.
As a bit of background on myself, I started my career as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank, doing equity, debt, and M&A deals for technology clients.
Well, after that, I jumped right into the startup world holding C-Level positions in several companies.
Before ICON, I was the Chief Strategy Officer at one of the top fintech companies in the world called DAYLI. We got ranked in top 100 fintech companies by KPMG
It was there where I began exploring blockchain technology, and ultimately led me to the creation of the…(drum roll) ICON Project.
In short, I have finance background but work in tech for 15+ years in Silicon Valley
Min then proceeded to share more of the story behind his transition from traditional finance to blockchain, and ultimately - the conception of the ICON project:
The ICON project was founded by 5 members who previously worked together and started a company called theloop (now known as ICONLOOP)…
theloop was one of the first private enterprise blockchain companies in Korea. theloop developed a proprietary blockchain that was used by corporations experimenting with the technology as early as 2016.
This was like trying to expalin blockchain to peopel who didn’t understand blockchain.
And in 2017, given the interest in public blockchains and our own experience seeing the shortfalls of private blockchain, and the lack of scalability of Ethereum we decided to bring our technology to the public.
ICON is an interoperability project that seeks to allow value and information to pass through our private chains and our public chain. We also seek to become an interoperable blockchain with other public networks.
For those active within the ICON community, Min’s background and experience have been readily known. However, as the AMA began to progress further, Min provided some interesting answers and new information for the ICON community.
One question in particular was asked by a telegram user pertaining to the number of employees that are currently working on the public chain.
Q:
Hi Min, I am wondering how many employees ICON has working on public chain. Website shows 150 team members. There’s been several announcements for private chain usage so how many team members are working on public chain currently?
A:
I’d say we have about 140+. For public, I’d say 40-50%.
This is due to Enterprise needing a sales team.
Yes, as mentioned, we raised $8M+ for private chain business. So yeah, we’ve grown big.
The aforementioned question has been one I’ve seen pervading within the community for quite some time. While it’s more than apparent that ICON is well-funded, this has been the first confirmation from the ICON Foundation regarding ICON’s staff and their current roles - apart from the list of members on the website.
As the AMA further progressed, Min provided some new information pertaining to public chain usage and more adoption of broof - which requires and uses ICX for transaction fees:
ICONLOOP provides a suite of innovative decentralized ID (DID) products. One product, broof, is a digital certificate system currently used by 15 enterprises including POSTECH University and Saramin, the largest job placement platform in Korea. Broof is a blockchain-based online certificate issuance service that allows you to issue, manage and view certificates.
This product runs on ICON public chain and uses ICX. And is seeing increased adoption in Korea.
In fact, Broof received some headlines recently. Given the threat of the coronavirus and the risk of hosting large congregations, POSTECH university, the MIT of Korea, issued their diplomas online using our broof product (and ICX).
While it was previously known that POSTECH issued 828 graduate certificates using broof and subsequently, ICONLOOP signed an MoU with Saramin HR to utilize broof and it’s digital identification service, MyID - the mention of 13 other companies already using broof comes as news.
With developments ongoing in the world around COVID-19, specifically affecting students, the opportunity for increased broof adoption in these times are significant. As students are no longer attending in-person lectures due to the risk of having large congregations, and Zoom video conferencing statistics are rising by the day - it would come to little surprise if we began to see more educational institutions issue graduate certificates using a digital certificate issuance service.
Since broof requires ICX and uses the public chain, and given the developments ongoing within the world, it would not be faulty to conclude further and continued adoption of broof will likely continue within 2020.
However, moving forward within the AMA, Min shared some key milestones ICON has achieved to date:
On the product side, outside of broof, ICONLOOP has also created another digital identity project, VisitMe. VisitMe is a building access system currently being tested in Signature Twin Towers, one of the largest buildings in Seoul.
MyID (formerly DPASS) is a personal ID application, approved by the Financial Services Commission under the regulatory sandbox. ICONLOOP leads MyID Alliance, the largest blockchain consortium in Korea with 57 members including Samsung Electronics and Shinhan Bank.
On the technology side, all of these products are powered by ICONLOOP’s proprietary loopchain core blockchain engine, which is also licensed to top tier enterprises including Japan’s LINE Corp, Seoul Metro Government, and CENgold, the largest gold exchange in Korea.
ICON public chain also runs on this same engine and we expect private to public chain interoperability to be available in the coming months which should increase adoption of our public chain.
Additionally, we just released our next generation algorithm, LFT2. LFT2 improves upon the PBFT algorithm by reducing network load and increasing throughput. Our algorithm was recently audited and given high marks by KAIST, one of the leading research institutions in Korea.
What may come as more news to the ICON community is where it was mentioned by Min that MyID was “formerly DPASS”. With the launch of ICONLOOP’s MyID service slated to be released this year, it will be worth watching how ICON performs in the wide-open DID market. Given existing developments in the world, the timing for DID technology usage such as broof, and MyID could not have been planned at a better time.
Furthermore, with a growing list of large companies as MyID Alliance partners spanning several sectors, the potential implications for DID adoption is readily apparent.
Finally, to conclude the AMA, Min provided insight into some of the challenges ICON has experienced thus far and how they have been overcame.
One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced since launching ICON Project is onboarding new developers and entrepreneurs into our ecosystem. The number of blockchain developers is still very small compared to the total market. That said, since implementing our unique Public Representative and staking design (ICON’s incentive scoring system) last October we’re seen a large increase in development activity including: new applications, wallets, dashboards and other tools. Our network is designed to reward contribution and is one of the most attractive from a rewards perspective for both validators and stakers.
Now, our chain powers several of the leading DApps across the entire blockchain space including ICONBet, Somesing, Stayge, Webloc and others. And this year we expect to see even more activity focused on gaming, decentralized finance and DAOs.
Lastly, we’ve always been seen as a Korean project but in reality, we’re much more global. Yes, our core focus is Korea in the enterprise side. However, we have a substantial presence in US and Europe and a growing presence in other key markets, such as China. We are continuing to work on growing outside of our home market.
I’ll say we have the best blockchain developers in Korea. Most experienced now that they’ve been working on ICON and private chain for 4 years.
We appreciate Min Kim taking the time to participate in yet another effort to shed more light on the ICON project!
News from ICON World
Somesing is featured on the front page of the App Store
ICON karaoke DApp, Somesing was recently featured as “Today’s App” on the front page of the Apple App Store.
ICX has been integrated into Exodus wallet!
ICON Hyperconnect x Block Arrow Capital
P-Rep team ICON Hyperconnect has recently formed a new partnership with a digital asset management fund based in Chicago, IL - Block Arrow Capital.
ICONbet has started a new promotion for DAOblackjack
Min Kim shares a list of P-Rep twitter accounts
Min Kim has started a twitter list for the ICON community to keep track of updates from several P-Rep teams.
Towards Success of Enterprise Blockchain in your Business
The Crypto Valley Association's Enterprise Blockchain working group will be hosting an upcoming AMA with notable guests including - Josh Choi of ICONLOOP. Be sure to register here!
ICON is ranked #4 in State of the DApps
ICON has been ranked #4 within state of the DApps, comprising of other top projects and their level of DApp usage/growth.
While the numbers are not precisely “spectacular,” it’s a positive mention for the ICON project as there are currently only 7 DApps within the ecosystem. Whereas, some larger projects according to CMC ranking have more DApps and are ranked lower than ICON.
Props to Chainode Tech.
The Iconist is running for P-Rep
ICON Foundation announces a media collaboration with BTC Manager
A few times we hear within the community that “ICON is not doing enough marketing”. With this recent collaboration, we can put aside some of those remarks.
Blockchain Industry News
Inside China's Plan to Power Global Blockchain Adoption - CoinDesk
In the October announcement of the BSN's internal testing, the Chinese government envisioned a variety of use cases. These included smart city applications, which use sensors connected to the internet to collect data and glean insights for managing public resources; in particular, the alliance mentioned energy conservation. It also listed identity registration and data storage as opportunities for BSN.
MakerDAO Users Sue Stablecoin Issuer Following ‘Black Thursday’ Losses - CoinDesk
The suit alleges the Maker Foundation and associated parties – including the Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation, the Dai Foundation and the Maker Foundation – “intentionally misrepresented the risks associated with CDP ownership” resulting in the loss of $8.325 million in investors’ money on Black Thursday.
Binance CEO reveals more details on its Bitcoin debit card - Decrypt
When Binance announced the Binance Card, it touted Visa as the card processor, claiming that it will open the door to more than 40 million Visa merchants worldwide. But then the Visa logo was quietly scrubbed from the promotional images on its website. Speaking today, Zhao didn’t explain why.
Facebook's Libra to launch stablecoins for each major currency - Decrypt
The project will now focus on providing individual stablecoins for specific fiat currencies, such as USD, EUR and GBP, as well as its Libra Coin. Instead of being backed by a basket of fiat currencies, the Libra coin will now be backed by the stablecoins. Smart contracts will keep its price linked to the combination of stablecoins.