Detailed thoughts/research on ICON (i.e. Korean Ethereum). Being listed today on OKEx and Binance. (Super bullish on this one, I'd love some comments for/against.)
by tatitude
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7kj2xx/detailed_thoughtsresearch_on_icon_ie_korean/I am more bullish on ICX than ever before and plan on increasing my position via OKEx, possibly doubling my 30 Eth position depending on how low the price drops. Thoughts on price: I don't give a lot of credence to the HitBTC futures but I DO pay attention to the trend they reflect. I've seen many ICOs with futures trading below the ICO price. ICX is currently at a crazy premium. Will ICX trade at >$3 on day 1? I don't think so. But I'm willing to bet good money (and will bet good money) that it will trade well north of $3 within the next few months assuming we don't have another massive market correction. My two cents.
New information in the last few months marked with "UPDATE:"
Website:
https://icon.foundation/en/Team:
On the site. Lots of folks that went to the best Universities in Korea (Seoul National is the Harvard of Korea, KAIST is the MIT of Korea). Lots of American educated folks too. Biz guys that worked for top tier investment banks (JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank).
Parent Company:
ICON is a project of Dayli Financial Group. Dayli used to be called Yello Financial Group and it is an arm of Yello Mobile. (Techcrunch source) (Article about name change) Note that theloop is the company that built the underlying blockchain technology. They are also owned by Dayli Financial Group. It appears many Korean companies take this "conglomerate" approach which has made research a bit tricky. In summary, Dayli Financial Group, Icon Foundation, theloop, Yello Financial Group --> all the same company.
Furthermore -- Yello Mobile is HUGE. They are one of the largest startups in Korea with a valuation north of $4b. (Source) We're talking about the largest mobile start up in Korea...a start-up that was started by a team that spun off of Kakao, the most popular app in Korea that almost everyone uses (similar to WhatsApp or WeChat in China). Confused yet? Basically, by Korean standards, this is as big as it gets.
Vision
UPDATE: I wanted to throw in something I've heard one of the ICON Council members say many times in interviews on Youtube. They view blockchain networks akin to cellular networks. There will be many of them, they will be regulated, and there will be incredibly successful regional networks in addition to international networks. ICON is the first blockchain network in Korea focusing on pulling that country towards blockchain adoption (see article linked at the bottom of this post). They're setting up dozens of partnerships and side chains that they're building themselves for clients with the goal of connecting the entire ecosystem using ICX. This is a BIG vision that, in my opinion, makes a ton of sense. ICON isn't just saying, "Here's our network, come use it" -- they're signing up industries and those industries are paying up for their own blockchain networks that will become part of the ICON ecosystem. We haven't really seen something this "professionalized" in crypto yet, besides perhaps Ripple.
Partnerships/Other:
Announced partnership with Ripple (source)
UPDATE: Furthermore, SBI (the company that partnered with Ripple to bring Ripple to Asia, (source), also invested in Yello Mobile, e.g ICON. (Source.)
27 Financial firms in Korea
Korean Financial Investment Association (source and good article)
The "Financial Firms" mentioned in the above article are VERY legit. Daishin Securities has close to a $1b USD market cap and 185 employees on Linkedin. Kiwoom's market cap is well over $1.5b USD. The others also manage billions or hundreds of millions US.
Signed an agreement with Woori (appears to be the second largest bank in Korea) to create something like Tether but for the Korean Won. (source)
They own Coinone, the second largest crypto exchange in Korea. Source (Click on cryptocurrency and then look under trading)
They have a partnership with multiple universities including Sogang University. Source
UPDATE: The university group blockchain project is called U-Coin. Latest tweet showing a prototype vending machine at Sogang University. The other side of that vending machine has the ICON logo on it. It was posted in Telegram but I can't find it again.
Insurance consortium with hospitals and insurance companies:
https://www.theloop.co.kr/businessUPDATE: Latest tweet on the insurance project from ICON team.
UPDATE: A weak point up until now has been community communication. The team asserts that they are looking for a professional, full-time CMO. They've also posted a teaser screen shot of a clean new website design that's on the way. While marketing/communication has been weak, ICON has one of the strongest technical teams of any project I've seen. Ever. Most of the technical hires are not listed on the website.
UPDATE: The regulations brewing in Korea are good for ICON. First of all, they got their ICO in and finished before ICOs were banned (similar to NEO in China) and second, they're doing everything by the book, working with regulators, etc. That's why the KYC took so long. But remember, this is a long-term GOOD thing for the project. Regulations create moats. Moats keep out the competition.
UPDATE: The community didn't seem to love the fact that the first exchange to list ICX will be OKEx. That's because most crypto folks today haven't been around long enough to know what OKEx is or was (OKCoin, one of if not THE largest crypto exchange in the world pre-China crack down.) It's currently returning to it's former glory and volumes are crazy high. Getting listed on OKEx is a big freaking deal for a brand new ICO. And Coinone is certainly coming. I think it's a great idea that they aren't launching with the exchange that they own. This shows more strength.
ICO Terms:
150k Eth, first round caps you at 30 eth per person, then 100 eth, then 1,000 eth. I maxed the pre-sale and am planning on doubling down assuming I get a reasonable price discovery here in the next few days.
Advisors:
Don Tapscott is the big one. He wrote one of the definitive books on blockchain with his son who runs a crypto hedge fund. Here's him speaking. Here's his son Alex speaking at Google. Here's a Bloomberg article that mentions their investment.
UPDATE: They also added Jehan Chu as an advisor. He's a pretty big deal and has been around the space for a LONG time. Here he is on Bloomberg TV mentioning South Korea. He doesn't mention ICON (and does mention two other investments) but I'll give him a pass given that he's on an American TV show.
Other:
Korea is obsessed with crypto (based on trading volumes) and they are early adopters of nearly every new technology -- usually way before China or the US.
Other Articles:
READ THIS ARTICLE (page 2 has best info)
