Following technical difficulties last Thursday, the 2nd ICONSENSUS live call has finally been released. P-Rep candidates in attendance were Draicon Ball, ICON Nexus, Gilga Capital, Somesing and ICONNECT.
As with prior sessions, Justin, also known as 2infiniti, was present as moderator. Here’s a recap:
On node strategy
Draicon Ball’s lead developer has over 7 years of full stack and blockchain development experience. When it comes to running a dependable node, they plan to focus on 3 things: reliability, availability and security. They will utilize a spare node in case of failover and will be keeping the block-producing node private to prevent malicious attacks. They are also currently evaluating cloud players such as DMS Security services. “It’s safe to say we are fully committed to investing our resources in node operation,” says David.
ICON Nexus has a strong technical team with experience running and setting up nodes on different blockchains. Their plan is to ensure a high availability for their node by utilizing a main node on AWS and a backup node on Google Cloud. In the event that something does go wrong with AWS, the backup node will still be producing blocks while they fix the main node. They also plan on running nodes based on the ICON specs and will be implementing security measures to protect those nodes.
Gilga Capital will be running their node on AWS using the recommended specs and will follow all required security procedures.
Somesing’s tech team has great experience developing various blockchain MainNet environments including, of course, ICON. They are currently running and operating their karaoke DApp on ICON, so they believe they can run nodes well. They also plan on using a security solution, which would prepare them for any possible attack attempts. They have had experience running an application in the past with 100,000 daily active users and 10,000 concurrent connected users. “We are confident that we can run a node,” says Jeff.
ICONNECT’s tech team have previously run nodes on IOST, EOS and interchains such as Telus, so they have vast experience running nodes and maintaining infrastructure. Their main tech developer has 8 years of systems administration experience. One of their team members is also a computer forensics and information security expert and she advises on risks, hacks and potential attacks. Their main node and the backup server are currently both bare metal, but they are considering upgrading to AWS.
On expanding the ICON ecosystem
Aside from Draicon Ball’s plans of building a decentralized Oracle ecosystem and providing interchain support, they also want to focus on building awareness, promoting ICON and increasing participation from stakeholders, the outside world and the ICON community. Currently, they are working on a DApp ‘Explorer’ where ICONists can explore DApps within the ICON network, try out and gain experience in voting, staking and receiving rewards, and much more. The beta version will be launching by the end of this month. They are also secretly working on a couple of unique but very practical DApps of their own.
“We came together as big fans of blockchain and ICON and its theme of hyper-connecting the world. We truly believe in a decentralized future and we want to be a part of that, building something greater together,” says David.
ICON Nexus’ proposal includes 5 goals: The first is to educate and excite the community, getting them involved in ICON through how-to guides. Secondly, they plan on running a highly available, stable and secure node. Thirdly, they are in the process of developing useful apps that the community can use. Fourthly, they plan on setting up meetups and AMAs to expand the ICON community. And lastly, if they get elected, they plan on sharing a percentage of their node rewards to get the community involved and give them incentive to hold ICX.
As Shez explained, they are “from the community, for the community.”
Gilga Capital’s biggest plan is to open an ICX Station in Toronto, Canada, which will help ICON’s ecosystem in 4 different ways: Firstly, they plan on helping with ICON deal flow by attending hackathons and university events throughout the country to represent ICON and source DApps that can work on the ICON network. Secondly, they will be helping with funding, making warm referrals to some of their investment partners to see if they would be interested in investing in projects that come out of ICON. Thirdly, they will be providing professional insight such as business model recommendations, next steps, investor pitch deck editing, and advisor, partnership and funding referrals. Finally, the team plans on doing event representation and hosting in Toronto.
“We will be posting a lot of content in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that,” says Rodney.
Somesing wants to focus on increasing the scalability of ICON by making them stand out from other ecosystems. As Jeff explains, from a DApp point of view, there are many mainnet options available to DApps. One of the most realistic ways of getting more DApps on ICON is for Somesing, and other ICON DApps, to perform well: making transactions, increasing volume and thus paving the way so that other DApps will be incentivized to build on ICON.
“We believe that by really focusing on utility and incorporating UX/UI in the ICON network itself, we can do it!” says Jeff.
ICONNECT’s proposal focuses on education, technology, consultancy, and governance. Regarding education, they will be sharing information with the ICON community through a weekly newsletter and updates on Telegram groups. They also plan on posting on ICON Africa meetups to inform the blockchain community and to get more developers onto ICON. In the coming year, they want to hold developer training sessions to help them build on ICON. Regarding technology, they have been building standards and Proofs of Concept for various organizations and working with the Africa Digital Assets Foundation. They are currently developing self-sovereign identity standards, which they hope to implement on ICON. In terms of consultancy, they work with various organizations on the continent and plan to onboard them to build on ICON. They also have plans to leverage their connections to bridge networks as part of ICON’s mission to hyperconnect blockchain protocols. In terms of governance, they will be putting up standards and participating in the ICON Republic to ensure that governance is solid.
“We would love to see the ecosystem have geographical diversity and a diversity of skills on ICON,” added Mandela.
For more information on each candidates’ proposal, head to icon.community’s candidate list. The Iconist will be releasing more interviews with P-Rep candidates in the future, stay tuned!
Watch the full discussion here:
