As many ICONists are aware, Markus Jun has left Deblock, ICON’s VC and accelerator partner, where he was Head of Research for the last six months. In his good-bye note on Medium, he writes that ICON has done much despite the brutal downturn in the crypto market.
“My time at Deblock and ICON coincided with one of the worst downturns in the cryptocurrency market,” he says. “In spite of this, I can say that the ICON team has made incredible progress.”
If you’ve been bleeding out these last two months and are looking for reasons to be optimistic about the future, read Markus’ post in full. And if you need more cheer, check out News BTC’s follow-up to Markus’ announcement. They note that while other ICO projects are going belly up, and even big startups are laying off staff, ICON might have what it takes to slog through the bear market, bloody but unbowed:
“At the time of the ICO, ICON’x ICX token sale raised close to 75,000 ETH. Their smart contract split the funds into 30 separate Ethereum wallets. Between December 2016 and November 2018, ICO team moved circa 70% of their funds to other portfolios – perhaps as part of a sale. After the post-ETH crash adjustments, the team holds around $5 million in ETH reserves.
The figures prove that ICON is far from being insolvent at this time, in contrast to several other ICO projects that have either gone out of business or in a money crisis.
[…]
ICON, with a provable business model and an increasing use-case among well-known organizations, could still survive the bloodbath owing to an actual demand for service.”
The Last Two Weeks in the ICON Republic:
The Graduate School of Information Technology of POSTECH has – in collaboration with ICON – opened an online course on blockchain. The school offers the course to executives and employees of KT, the Korean telecom giant.
- Best ICON Wallets In 2018 (Dec. 4)
Unhashed names the year’s three best wallets for ICX – ICONex for the web, Trust for mobile and Ledger Nano S as a hardware wallet.
Josh Choi, the former Programme Lead of the International Telecommunication Union, joins the ICONLOOP team as Director of Public Affairs, tasked with working on the governance of the ICON network and growing its ecosystem. The International Telecommunication Union is the specialized ITC agency of the United Nations.
- South Korea Push for Major Cryptocurrency Adoption: ICON (ICX) Fundamentals Are Moving Forward (Dec. 9)
A dive into ICON wallets, courtesy of a member of the ICON Community Alliance (Hx57).
- ICON to Participate in ‘DevStamp 2018′ (Dec. 13)
Edward Ryu, the CTO of ICONLOOP, will give a presentation and take part in a panel discussion on Dec. 18’s “DevStamp 2018,” Korea’s largest blockchain developer community day. Nomad Connection researcher Nara, too, will lead a training session.
The Aion Foundation says it has liquidated almost half its cryptocurrency holdings to ensure the project remains stable in difficult market. CEO Matt Spoke estimates the project has about 18 months of runway.
The Maekyung Media Group and DAYLI Financial Group have partnered to launch D.STREET, a dedicated media channel for news and commentary about the blockchain industry. It’s a good source of information if you can read Korean.
- Young Leaders Writing the Legend of Blockchain Venture Successes (Dec. 14)Â In Korean*
ZDNet Korea takes a look at some of the young pioneers leading Korea’s blockchain space, including ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim.Â
Wanchain’s recent upgrade bridges the blockchains of Bitcoin and Ethereum, a monumental achievement for the project. Despite this, the price action is still struggling because of the bear market.
