ICON has released an updated version of its roadmap.
The updated roadmap makes it clear that the ICON team has travelled far on its path to “hyperconnecting the world,” particularly on the technological development side. Still, as is the case in any emerging technology, especially one as new as blockchain, many tasks remain to be completed, including those pertaining to scalability, governance and services.
Much done, but still lots to do
On the technology front, ICONLOOP has accomplished all it has set out to do so far in developing loopchain, its exclusive blockchain network, completing the architecture of the project’s core technology. They’ve also fully built ICON Service, which manages the ICON nodes by controlling the Token, SCORE and LevelDB. The team completed ICON’s developer tools to test and deploy smart contracts, T-Bears, too.
Still, there are things to do. The Interchain-BTP, which enables the use of DApps on different blockchains, is still mostly a work in progress, though the Interchain PoC for ICON’s private chains has been completed. Parallel processing – ICON’s solution to the scalability issue – is also under development.
On the governance side, the SCORE for ICON’s governance policies is complete, including built-in governance SCORE, runtime configuration and whitelist of Python packages. As for elections, the feature for electing ICON’s P-Reps is done, but the ones for electing representatives for DApps and ecosystem expansion proposals and representatives for the interchain ecosystem are not. The network’s Incentive Scoring System, or IISS, is currently under development, with the incentive distribution function for P-Reps and voters in the stabilization stage. The transaction fee system should be completed, too.
As for services based on ICON, much has been done, and much remains to be done.
ICON’s official wallet, ICONex, is up and running. ICONest, a coding-free platform for ICOs based on ICX, is also working. A tracker to look up ICON block data is operational, as is ICON’s wallet for Nano Ledger. Also complete are a reference smart contract for developers, ICON’s common utilities and SDKs for JAVA/Python, JavaScript and iOS.
On the other hand, DID – ICON’s decentralized identification service – is under construction, though an alpha version of the DID smart contract has been completed. Vault, a decentralized key management service, is also under development, with an alpha version in the stabilization phase. The secret vote service, STO platform and stable coin are works in progress, too.
And yes, the long-delayed (albeit with reason) DEX is still under development. The DEX smart contract for trading between IRC tokens and DEX for trading between tokens on heterogeneous blockchain based on BTP are in the stabilization phase, while the DEX service for trading between IRC tokens is under development.
The updated roadmap at least gives the ICON community a better sense of where the project is and it’s going. Some of the developments listed on the roadmap were not loudly announced when they were achieved, and so may be pleasant surprises, even to people who closely follow the platform. “This is another step in progress to improve communication with ICON’s esteemed community members,” says a member of the ICON team. “The roadmap allows the Iconists to find more information about the progress of projects under work and be updated with a list of completed items more easily.”
