Though ICON has global aspirations – the Blockchain Interoperability Alliance is proof enough of that – one of the network’s greatest strengths is its dominance in its home market: South Korea.

In Mineable, David Sail looks at the recent positive price movement of ICX and points to ICON’s success in building a network with some of Korea’s heavy hitters:

“It’s pretty clear that ICON has remained the absolutely dominant blockchain platform of Korea with deep ties to the government, and business deals with the largest corporations and consortiums in major industries.”

In Dapplife, Christopher Williams quotes the DAYLI Financial CSO, who said before ICX’s launch, “If we connect every single company in Korea or even half of Korea on our network, that’s a massive success story.”

ICON’s list of friends in high places include the likes of Samsung, NAVER Line, SK, Woori Bank, Nonghyup Bank, the Ministry of Information and Communication and, as noted above, Seoul Metropolitan Government. This is just the tip of a very big iceberg of relationships. As we’ve said before, many of these partnerships are in their early stages. But even if only a handful of them pan out, it could mean big things for the network.

ICON has been pushing the real-life adoption of blockchain technology, too. We got a taste of that last week when Seoul Metropolitan Government issued its mobile letters of appointment to members of its Blockchain Governance Team using ICON’s public blockchain.

NAVER and KakaoTalk – Korea’s preeminent search engine and chatting app, respectively, demonstrate that homegrown services can dominate the local market, even in sectors traditionally commanded by American giants like Google and Facebook. Could ICON become the NAVER or Kakao of the Korean blockchain space?

Time will tell.

The last two weeks in the ICON Republic

Bidding starts on March 15. They’ve got more details, too, if you’re interested.

You’ll recall that the Kyber Network’s investors and partners include Wanchain and ICON.

So, that’s what Wanchain’s up to, according to founder Jack Lu.

Money quote: “The Korean government and Samsung wouldn’t partner with just any project that comes along they have to believe in the team and the product they’re offering.”