Obviously, today hasn’t been a great day in the crypto space.
In the interest of promoting the mental health of the community, allow us to present some reasons for optimism.
- ICX is up against BTC and ETH (OK, I haven’t decided whether that’s optimism or gallows humor).
- The recent field testing of ICON Bridge went smoothly, seamlessly allowing users to mint NFTs on Harmony using ICX. Interchain minting is a big deal, and really points the way forward to a future of interoperability.
- Work continues unabated on BTP 2.0, i.e., the full, trustless version of BTP. With work on ICON 2.0 essentially complete, the entire public platform team on ICONLOOP is working on BTP, and they’ve reportedly solved the biggest problem — the gas fee problem.
- Once BTP 2.0 goes live, it will usher in an era of unprecedented interoperability between blockchain networks. Polkadot, BNB Smart Chain, NEAR Protocol, eventually Ethereum… to quote one of this writer’s favorite films, the net is vast and infinite.
- With Bitcoin and Ethereum crapping the bed and Celsius near collapse, nobody is talking about LUNA anymore (OK, that was gallows humor. And untrue — people are still talking about LUNA, and for good reason).
- Major ICON-based DeFi platform Balanced continues to build, and more importantly, having been bitten early, it now takes proactive steps to avoid disasters: see the recent Stability Fund.
- ICE/SNOW continues to make steady progress, bringing ICON closer to interoperability with not only the vast Polkadot ecosystem, but Ethereum as well.
- ICON has excellent NFT infrastructure like Craft Network and an awesome NFT community full of not only creative artists, but also dedicated fan bases (see the Tamashi Tribe, for example).
- While we’re talking about NFTs, here’s reason for optimism, courtesy Studio Mirai: “Some of the most successful companies/projects in the space are built during the bear market and grow in the bull market. Now that once bluechip NFTs like BAYC and CryptoPunks have been tainted, those companies behind them will need to rebuild and rebrand to find success.”
- Also speaking of NFTs, development continues with HAVAH, the BTP(ish)-powered “NFT entertainment platform” being developed in part by ICONLOOP and the ICON Foundation. By bringing interoperability to NFT gaming and entertainment, HAVAH could represent a major development in blockchain gaming.
- Things are happening in the metaverse space, too, thanks to projects like Eclectica and Alter.
- ICON and ICONLOOP did pretty well under a political and regulatory regime in Korea that was less-than-crypto-friendly. Imagine what they could do now that the politicians now running the show are much more open to crypto (big caveat: that attitude could change depending on how the current volatility in the market works itself out).
- We’ve seen this before. During the crash of 2018, ICX went from USD 11 to USD 0.18. Four years later, the network is still alive and kicking. When the market turns south, ICON just shuts up and builds.
