ICON has released to the public the first two parts of its three-part Yellow Paper, which shares the network’s main operational policies.
The document refines the vision presented in ICON’s White Paper and presents the platform’s path towards full decentralization.
Let us take a look at Part I, “ICONstitution and Governance.”
“ICONstitution and Governance” is a reference manual on the ICON Constitution and governance model, specifying the rights and obligations of the participants in the ICON Network and explaining ICON’s decision making process.
Section 1 is an introduction of the philosophy of the ICON Republic, a philosophy of decentralization based on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s rhizomatic theory:
“Creation of manifolds from continuous connections and without being rooted in a single point. Cutting across structures and starting up again on new lines, not amenable to any structural or generative model, the world is itself susceptible to constant modification. A world where there is no single entryway but multiple entryways. And its entryways can be exits and exits can be entryways. This rhizomatic world is what the ICON Republic pursues.”
Section 2 is the ICONstitution, the foundational rules of the ICON Republic. Like the constitution of a political republic, it is composed of a series of articles, each one specifying the rights and responsibilities of the ICON Republic’s constituents
Section 3 outlines ICON governance. Being, as it is, a public blockchain network in which there are a large number of unspecified participants autonomously conducting their tasks, ICON requires a governance model that allows all participants to agree with mutual understanding. Accordingly, the ICON Network “allows each heterogeneous community to elect its own representative, allowing representatives to transact within a single network consensus rule on behalf of each community member.”
The result is a “decentralized governance structure based on indirect democracy, in which participants elect representatives and delegate voting rights.”
The ICONstitution provides for two kinds of representatives. Community Representatives, or C-Reps, represent each Community connected to the ICON Network. Public Representatives, or P-Reps, represent the overall interests of ICON users.
Representatives are tasked with managing, governing, protecting and nurturing the ICON Network.
To determine who may become a representative, the ICON Network evaluates participants according to their contribution to the network. To evaluate contributions, the network uses the ICON Incentives Scoring System, or IISS, calculated with weighted evaluation of several different metrics.
