https://www.reddit.com/r/icon/comments/7mvvyo/icx_from_a_korean_perspective/First things first, I am not Korean. I live and work in Seoul since years and got to know and love the country, the mentality and especially the people.
Since I see that more and more people decide to invest in ICX, often driven by the promising outlook of a Korean team behind it, I decided it might be interesting and hopefully helpful to provide my view from a “Korean” perspective.
So first of all: if you bought ICX because of its Korean background and because you think it will drive its price – you were right. But I think there is a bit more to it than just the typical arguments mentioned here.
As we all know, Koreans are crazy about the whole crypto world. On my way to work I take the subway and I don’t know how many people I see on their phone checking their portfolio and prices of cryptos. At my work no lunch break can go without at least two people talking about XRP, Litecoin, Ethereum but especially XRP. When XRP did its first major jump from around 0.26$ to 0.75$ one guy at work quit and is travelling the world right now. Koreans adopt everything new (especially when its technology) in a blink of an eye and their state is highly supportive when it comes to regulation, subsidies or such.
People in this subreddit always make a point that once ICX will be traded on Korean exchanges (Coinone is part of the parent company of Icon, as you probably all know) the price will rise significantly. That’s certainly true. Just like an introduction to any new exchange, especially when its offering a pairing with Fiat, pushes any coin, it will do the same for ICX. By the way, Koreans do know about Binance and more people than you might suspect are already on it buying “their blockchain”, as my friends here call it.
But that’s actually where it gets interesting: I think the main driver of any ICX price increase this year will be the patriotic (not say nationalistic) mindset of Korea. You consider yourself patriotic? How about this: In the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 the Korean government asked their people to donate money or gold to pay off the IMF`s debt ($58bn). Millions of Koreans donated their family gold, weddings rings etc., even causing the gold price world wide to drop. Korea paid off their debt way ahead of schedule and recovered from this crisis exceptionally well compared to other Asian countries. That’s the kind of mindset here. So, when I hear my colleagues talk about “their blockchain” I know ICX is backed by not just a great team and an actual product – it is backed by a country in which nearly every third working person is invested in cryptos.
And last but not least, their team is outright ridiculous. Being brought up in the West, you might have never heard about Seoul University, Korea University or KAIST. I heard people comparing it to Harvard or MIT. I hope they understand that they are not the “little brother of Harvard/MIT” they are equal substitutes. For a little more background: Koreans present the highest number of non-english-speaking students in the whole Ivy League. This country is completely over-educated (is that a word?). I work in a company providing supply-chain solution. Next to me sits Eunice. For her job she needs a profound understanding of Excel and a bit of logical thinking. She finished her Bachelor at Stanford which enabled her to do a PhD at Seoul university in Neuroscience. A PhD in goddamn Neuroscience… Her parents are still not happy tho haha. Anyways, hanging out with her friends from university makes me feel dumb and I have a doctoral degree as well… At least they tipped me about the pre-sale of ICX 😊 So when I saw what kind of guys are running this project, the insane funding they have and most importantly how much they all believe in it – I sold most of my stuff and got in.
But what I am trying to say is this: If you are in it for the short term – you will make a decent profit. But you should be in it for the long-term. Forget about the mainnet-launch and about the upcoming listings on Korean exchanges. These guys actually have a product which is working, and they are backed by basically whole Korea (not the north tho). My friends are pretty much all-in on this and there are 56 million more interested.
I hope this provided a little insight from a “Korean” perspective and was ultimately helpful to you😊 I am looking forward to hearing your feedback and make sure you visit Seoul one day, it is wonderful!
