Dan Morehead an early cryptocurrency adapter and CEO of the hedge fund Pantera Capital said in an interview on Bloomberg yesterday that the funds biggest present position is in the Korean blockchain Icon. The statement surprised the host of the interview who didn’t seem to know anything about Icon or why the fund would be heavily invested in it.
ICON is a bridge to bring separate blockchain networks together
ICON is a blockchain ecosystem that was purpose-built with the goal of creating hyperconnectivity between other blockchains and financial networks. The ecosystem was designed by the blockchain development company The Loop which is part of DAYLI Intelligence, a subsidiary of DAYLI Financial Group, to allow decentralized apps (DApps) from one entity to exchange information or value with dApps from another.
Icon launched its Mainnet on January 24, 2018, which got them off the Ethereum network and onto their own unique blockchain network known as a “loopchain” which allows individual connected blockchains to maintain their own affairs but also vote on issues that affect the entire ICON “loop” of blockchains.
The ICON Community is also a single blockchain with its own governing system that uses Community Nodes (C-nodes) to represent gateways in which other blockchains can connect to the ICON Network. Each community member blockchain elects a Community Representative (C-Reps) to handle matters within the ICON network like transaction verification. C-Reps receive ICX tokens for providing this service.
The ICX token on the ICON Network has three main functions apart from being a store of value. They can be used to exchange money or assets of value across multiple blockchains, used digitally to verify identifications through ICON blockchain ID, and as a vehicle for processing smart contracts.
The ICON Network was designed to facilitate communications, payments, and contracts between different corporate institutions using separate blockchain based networks. For example a hospital, school, and insurance company all using different blockchains can use the ICON network as a bridge in order to reduce processing times and fees.
ICON Maybe the Future of Blockchain Technology
In order to bypass Korean regulations forbidding ICO’s in the country ICON, along with a group of other ICO’s was issued in Switzerland and began trading on the Bithumb exchange on March 21. The price of ICX was driven up at the launch when ICON announced and airdrop event for its customers which took the price of the token to $4, it trades today $4.30 according to Live Coin Watch.
ICON and its competitor EOS which also uses its own blockchain network are looked at by many as the best way to scale up the current blockchain ecosystem which is why investors like Dan Morehead see it as a winner in the long term.