As both cryptocurrency and blockchain technology become more and more mainstream, several projects are pioneering the push to incorporate this revolutionary tech into economies, markets, and industries worldwide. As international conglomerates, financial institutions, and national governments begin to incorporate blockchains, it is likely that this fusion will only grow.
One such cryptocurrency that has already seen adoption in a number of major industries is ICON (ICX), a South Korea-based project seeking to “hyperconnect the world”. As of today, ICON’s infrastructure is currently being used by a number of banks, hospitals, universities, insurance providers, and investment firms throughout South Korea.
ICX is a new project whose mainnet launched last week, on January 24. Until very recently, it remained largely unclear what exactly ICX did. However, on January 30, the ICON whitepaper was published, and it has left readers amazed and extremely bullish on the future of this cryptocurrency.
Essentially, the framework of ICON is a blockchain of blockchains. In the ICX ecosystem, communities such as universities, hospitals, or banks can create their own blockchains. Each blockchain operating under ICX, while autonomous from one another, connects to the ICX global blockchain system, coined the “ICON Nexus”, through the help of specific nodes that act as liaisons between individual blockchains and the Nexus.
Each community blockchain is independent of one another, but all communicate with the same global Nexus blockchain.
This is all made possible thanks to the loopchain technology incorporated by ICON. With loopchain, community-created custom blockchains can be created through a multi-channel approach, individualized through the use of smart contracts to match the exact speed and utility requirements of the individual community. This is a high-powered blockchain implementation with near instantaneous transactions that can scale to 9,000 transactions per second (TPS), according to the whitepaper.
An example of the community blockchain currently in use by South Korean hospitals, where each participant acts as a node and exchanges pertinent information outlined by the specialized smart contract.
ICON is differentiated from its competitors by the actualities and capabilities of its network. While many other projects plan to develop their technology to scale for massive and widespread use, and others also plan to penetrate a number of major industries, only ICON provides a blockchain protocol that is already scalable for worldwide adoption and is currently being used by a number of institutions, businesses, and industries.
As current ICON adopters expand their networks and usage of the cryptocurrency, it is highly likely that other industries and businesses will follow suit. While ICON may appear to have a huge valuation with a market cap of US$2.7 billion, the potential of this coin suggests that its future market capitalization could easily rival that of top competitors such as NEO or even Ethereum (ETH). At current prices, ICX’s market cap would require a growth of over 3,000% to match that of Ethereum.
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