If you’re following the ICON Tracker – and it’s obvious from reddit that many of you are – you may have noticed a recent jump in the circulating supply.
A few weeks ago it was at 400 million ICX, but it abruptly jumped to 443 million and then to more than 473 million ICX. That’s an 18% increase, seemingly overnight and with nary a word from the Foundation. (This Foundation, not that Foundation).
So what happened? In the absence of information, conspiracy theories abounded.
Was it another airdrop? Nope. (CoinMarketCap didn’t even update their site after the last airdrop and still say ICX is at 387 million.)
Did it have to do with the token swap? Nope.
Did someone from ICON Â need to free up some extra tokens so he/she could finally buy a Lambo? Well… Not exactly…
As outlined in the ICON white paper (p. 28), ICON’s token allocation is as follows:
- Token Sale: 50%
- Foundation: 14%
- Community groups and strategic partners: 10%
- Team, advisors and early contributors: 10%
- Reserve: 16%
According to our inside source at ICONLOOP, the increase in circulating supply was thanks to tokens being distributed to groups 2, 3 and 4.
Our source wrote in an email: “Number 3 and 4 were allocated individually on a contractual basis. This explains why there seemed to be sporadic increases in circulation supply. Number 2 was allocated to cover operational costs, etc”.
So, now you know.
UPDATE Since our article came out, Min Kim has chimed in publicly on Twitter:Love how @TheIconistNews is doing investigative work bringing more transparency as a good media firm should do. We are nowhere near burning thru what we raised. We prefer to use $ICX to cover costs when vendors accept it. We see more vendors wanting $ICX. This is a good thing. https://t.co/1B79zybQIJ
— Min (@minhokim) November 4, 2018
