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Some big news broke for ICON (ICX) today, one of the major cryptocurrency platforms based in South Korea.
ICON’s MainNet Version 3.0 has been released, as published on their Medium blog. ICON’s SCORE (Smart Contract on Reliable Environment) is now fully operational. SCORE’s main purpose is for the implementation of ICON’s smart contracts and network. This will allow for the creation of DApps on the ICON network.
Along with the release of Mainnet 3.0 which will allow DApps, the ICON team has also released a TestNet where developers can play with their blockchain projects before they go live. Ethereum and other blockchains have similar TestNets which serve the same purpose for developers. However, ICON also announced that in conjunction with this TestNet, they are also releasing what they call a ‘DevNet’ which is for supporting a local development environment via the AWS marketplace.
The release of MainNet 3.0 comes with a new Yellow Paper release. In case you don’t know, unlike a whitepaper, yellow papers are technical detailed essays outlining the technological capabilities of a project. One of the exciting new additions to ICON, as mentioned in the yellowpaper, is the change to their fee structure. Transaction fees were once fixed at 0.01 ICX, but will now be measured using an entirely new algorithm. This was also done to limit the fee burdens on DApps.
The new fee change is reflected in the ICON Tracker and ICONex. New functions have also been added, more importantly. These include, for example, the ability to add tokens, view smart contracts, and record data on the blockchain.
Since ICON’s MainNet launch in January, the ICON team has been keen on keeping their momentum going. However, the road has been bumpy for much of the year and the price has reflected this turmoil, falling some -90% from its all-time-high from a price of $12 to now under $0.60. Although the technological developments of ICON have been solid, some have complained of the team’s lack of community involvement and poor communication. However, it seems that with this bombshell of a release, many of these criticisms can be put to rest.
ICON claims that these new developments make them one step closer to their vision of “Hyperconnect the World” and makes their blockchain poised for mass adoption. With their many strategic partners named throughout the course of 2018, it seems that many others share their same vision and want to join them. However, we must see whether or not their lofty expectations can be matched with actual, real blockchain activity on the ICON MainNet.