Where ICON’s ICX Token is Accepted Locally and Globally
ICX is the token of the realm of ICON, an ambitious interoperability project for blockchain-to-blockchain communication. Its mission is to “hyperconnect the world” which it does, enabling blockchains to talk to each other without a digital middleman charging onerous fees at a mindblowing 9000 transactions-per-second. The ICX token is accepted as payment by +190 real-world merchants which range eclectically from Lord Underwear, a family-owned Greek underwear brand and a Slovenian purveyor of fine European lamps to Firearms Unknown based in the USA.
Who accepts ICX…
Should you buy ICX?
Or accept it as payment at your business and hold it as an investment? It’s supported by the cryptocurrency payment processors NowPayments and CoinGate, so sure — accept it as payment.
ICX, having been around since late 2017, has demonstrated some staying power, achieved token respectable token prices over $10, and is currently flirting with a top 100 CoinMarketCap ranking.
Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP) is the flagship, jewel in the crown, offering from ICON. It enables transactions between different blockchains, Ethereum and Chainlink, for example. Apparently, it works pretty decently to integrate Binance Smart Chain, Chainlink, Polkadot, Algorand, and some other blockchains. It’s sometimes called the next Cosmos — a network of interoperable blockchains.
Founded in South Korea, a very crypto-friendly nation. There’s little worry about bumbling politicians there crushing innovation in the blockchain space with heavy-handed regulation.
ICON also describes itself as something akin to a democratic republic, wherein those staking ICX gain democratic power to vote for C-Reps and P-Reps, determining the project’s direction.
But…
I wouldn’t bet on a token or project aiming to get hyper-competitive blockchains to seamlessly collaborate with each other because if ICON fails to do that ICON fails. I’m sure that the engineers at ICON are very smart and have figured out some clever ways for Chainlink to talk to Polkadot but are they accounting for human nature? Most humans don’t grow up inside much beyond grade-school tier squabbling with others — especially those they compete with. What happens when Chainlink and Polkadot are both salivating over a scare slice of economic pie in some profitable market and one blockchain decides (democratically or not-so-democratically) not to play so nicely with the other? That’s guaranteed to happen; the only questions are how often and how badly it will break the Blockchain Transmission Protocol.
If the ICON community and management had a little grander vision they would take some steps to promote ICX as a commerce coin and patronize the businesses that chose to accept it, instead of betting the farm on this one-trick-pony becoming a gleaming interoperability unicorn.
And we should also ask, do we want the world more hyperconnected? Many argue that’s at odds with a vision of a more decentralized world.
About ICON
From the whitepaper
ICX is the basic currency unit of the ICON Network. The fundamental economic activities that take place on the ICON Network are based on the functionality of ICX. To use the language from the description of cryptocurrency above, ICX is a medium of exchange for users on the ICON Network. The three ways that ICX is exchanged are “Minting”, “Staking”, and “Transferring”.
About Blockchain Transmission Protocol
BTP is as secure with 1 Relay as it would be with 100 Relays. Extra Relays simply ensure more reliability and liveliness.
from Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP) Architecture, Economics, and Key Differentiators
