“No platform without DApps”

Projects having blockchain platform services are struggling to expand their range of activities to attract better decentralized application (DApp) teams. What is most notable is that they are trying to form partnerships with DApp teams and support them. ICON, one of Korea’s leading blockhain projects, has revealed its sectoral partners following Klaytn that disclosed 16 DApp partners.

Efforts to build ecosystem with sectoral partners

ICON’s DApp partners are largely divided into advertisement and data (weBloc, Airbloc Protocol); sharing economy (Blue Whale, LogisticsX); games and sports (ZenSports, Meca Coin); contents (Somesing, AC3); finance and trading (Velic, Carbonium); and beauty, entertainment and travel (Stayge, Cosmochain, DiscoverX).

The most recent partners are AC3, a U.S.-based viral marketing platform linking consumers through digital contents and education marketplaces; Velic, a Singapore-based comprehensive finance platform for crypto assets; and Somesing, a social music service.

ICON’s DApp partners are likely to increase gradually. ICON, which is running the global accelerator program ICX Station, plans to set up a branch in Tokyo soon. Currently, the company is operating its accelerator program in Seoul, San Francisco and Singapore.

ICON also created ICON LAP100, an enterprise blockchain alliance, in its bid to co-develop enterprise-focused blockchain solutions with 100 companies and startups in various fields including biometric verification, certification issuance, payment and settlement and medicine. Participants in the alliance include Raonsecure, Digitalzone, DataAlliance, Matrix2B, OWDIN Network, Charzin, TheVita, Liwonace, Cryptofuture and TeamK.

Reorganization of platform network

On Thursday, ICON began a pre-registration process to elect “P-Reps” who represent its network. The representatives will be elected via votes by ICON token holders. The 22 elected P-Reps will be responsible for producing and verifying blocks and adjusting the network’s token policy and guidelines for transaction fees.

After the election of P-Reps, ICON plans to launch the Ecosystem Expansion Project (EEP) designed to offer incentives in return for contribution to open-source activities and network growth and the DApp Booster Program (DBP) that would provide rewards according to DApp service distribution and rankings.

ICON will also release its decentralized exchange (DEX) and identification system in the first half of this year. DEX will support the peer-to-peer exchange between ICON token ICX and ICON mainnet-based tokens. /shim@decenter.kr

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