The ICON Foundation released its ICON Development Roadmap Update for the month of August on Wednesday.
According to the update, the ICON 2.0 migration is “near completion,” with the block import test run at 100% as of yesterday.
This is a big deal as it allows developers to completely migrate the network “in relatively short order.”
It will take between two to four weeks from the completion of testing and block importation to prepare the nodes and exchanges for the hard fork.
And that’s when the fun begins:
“At that point, ICON 1.0 will be stopped simultaneously at a predefined block height by a network proposal which will then mark the start of the ICON 2.0 era. The exact block height for the transition is currently being discussed. But we are hoping for a launch very soon.”
“Nymkappa,” a product manager at ICON, told The Iconist:
“Completing the block migration test is a major milestone in preparing ICON 2 mainnet launch. Core developers worked relentlessly for months on very challenging technical issues. Now that this is out of the way, we can focus on preparing a smooth network transition, which we hope to happen around the end of September.”
BTP and ICE
Meanwhile, on the BTP front, ICON’s first integration target to the Kusama parachain is complete.
ICON writes, “We are satisfied with our user acceptance testing results and have a wide test coverage to cover most use cases including extreme network conditions.”
By the way, if you are unfamiliar with the Kusama project — Polkadot’s “canary in the coal mine” — do check it out. It’s pretty cool, and not just because this writer happens to be a fan of Yayoi Kusama. And her pumpkins. One of which was recently damaged in a typhoon, sadly.
But we digress.
The ICON Foundation has also been building a web app to demonstrate the usage of Kusama smart contracts for “cross-chain token transfers, history, relayer information and more.” The app — provisionally named Nexus — will soon be open to the public.
Besides Kusama, ICON has completed its implementation for Binance Smart Chain, with review currently ongoing.
ICON writes:
“Users will be able to transfer from ICON to Kusama parachain and BSC and vice versa, enabling our first iteration of BTP technology for cross-chain interoperability.”
ICON also hints that the BTP ecosystem has expanded “quite significantly behind closed doors,” with active discussions ongoing with “many” potential blockchain partners. So expect more integrations in the near future.
Lastly, work on the ICE network — ICON’s separate blockchain for DApps — continues apace, with the ICON Foundation official onboarding the collaborating teams.
No word was given on the date of the upcoming ICE airdrop, though they did say they are “hopeful” they can share the details of the timing soon.
