As we reported on Tuesday, ICX is on a serious roll.

Coincodex points out that ICON’s cryptocurrency has “exploded” by 366% is 2020 alone.

After a pretty depressing 2019, when ICX spent much of the year struggling, the coin has been on a tear since New Year.

As of Tuesday night (Korean time), it was trading at US$0.51, surpassing its 2019 high against the greenback of US$0.49 last April. It’s also surging against Bitcoin, trading currently at 5639 Sats.

ICX’s breakout drew the attention of Cointelegraph, which included it on a list of three “unknown” cryptos outperforming Bitcoin in 2020. They write:

“Some things to bear in mind; significant upwards rallies of this size cause FOMO (fear of missing out) amongst traders. However, such an upwards rally usually retraces and corrects to find new support areas.”

Why the surge?

A number of analysts point to the DID projects pursued by ICONLOOP, ICON’s technology partner. 

An industry insider told Join:D, the blockchain news outlet of South Korea’s major daily JoongAng Ilbo, that while there are no clear factors behind ICX’s rise, it seemed the fact that My-ID is about to launch is the biggest factor.

The news site also noted ICONLOOP’s recent unveiling of its DID-based entry control system “VisitMe.” The insider told the paper that while ICON’s DID platforms use public and private chains, it seems its public solutions have recently gotten a positive response overseas and that VisitMe, too, has had an impact.

Join:D also wonders out loud whether a recent announcement by influential tech entrepreneur-turned-politician Ahn Cheol-soo might be helping ICX’s surge, too.

Ahn, the founder of the antivirus software company AhnLab and a two-time former presidential candidate, recently returned to Korean politics, announcing he would form his own party.

At a press conference on Sunday, he told reporters that he would adopt blockchain solutions in his party’s administration, pointing to Estonia’s use of the technology in national administration.

Join:D says in some quarters, there is expectation that a Korean-made blockchain platform with close ties to the government could get adopted for use in an administrative system.

While the potentiality of ICON — which does, in fact, closely cooperate with public entities both national and local — getting tapped by a major political party is exciting, we at The Iconist are not quite sure if it’s driving ICX’s recent price movement. Especially since Ahn made his blockchain declaration just last Sunday, and ICX has been surging since the start of the year.

That said, if ICX maintains its momentum over the long run, it would demonstrate that blockchain companies that spent the crypto winter developing their technology, building products and establishing use cases might finally be seeing their efforts rewarded by the market.

“It’s great to see the hard work and progress we’ve made over the past six months finally reflected in the market. But there’s still a lot more to do and we’re excited about the things in store for the balance of 2020,” says the ICON Foundation’s Ricky Dodds. “Token price in this industry acts as a great marketing tool. Since the price increase we’ve seen user growth and active wallets increase significantly and we hope to drive even more growth in the ecosystem.”