Thread by @helloiconworld

A new EVM compatible blockchain called "ICE" is coming to ICON. ICE will become the application hub for the #ICONProject w/ its own native token.

What does this mean for the $ICX community? Keep reading 👇

2/ First, some background. These past few years, we've seen a proliferation of blockchain ecosystems throughout the industry. This explosion of growth has us more & more convinced in our thesis of a multi-blockchain world where each blockchain will act as its own digital nation.

3/ Read our thoughts on Digital Nations & DAOs:

medium.com/helloiconworld…

4/ ICON will connect these "nations", improving cross-chain trade and other activities utilizing our novel Blockchain Transmission Protocol technology (BTP), and we'll incentivize this growth through $ICX reserves (and the CPS).

5/ This is a doubling down on our view that cross-chain liquidity is one of the largest market opportunities that exist today. DeFi has already proven out an initial use case. Now, the focus for ICON turns to the launch & the growth of the BTP ecosystem.

6/ Feedback from industry teams has been great thus far, and we are looking forward to announcing integrations, and ramping up even more.

7/ Now let’s dive into the new stuff…

With the focus of ICON’s network on interoperability and the upcoming launch of BTP, we are very excited to announce an additional piece to our ecosystem; we are adding an EVM-compatible sidechain to the ICON Network.

8/ What does this mean?

We are launching a new network, but with direct ties to the $ICX token economy. This new network enables developers to iterate and innovate much faster by using tooling and code from the Ethereum ecosystem.

9/ With all this existing tooling, docs and standards, it will be much easier for developers to start building in the ICON ecosystem and easier for 3rd parties to integrate ICON into their services, all of which increase growth prospects for ICON.

10/ Additionally, we are adding eWASM support that puts us ahead of the game, preparing us for ETH 2.0 compatibility.

If you're wondering why we're doing this, please check out @0xPolygon's recent success as a good indicator of its importance…

11/ It’s also easier to enable EVM capability in this way vs. natively on ICON 2.0. Speed is a priority, as is the focus of the ICON network.

12/ So how does this impact the $ICX community?

In general, the current ICON network will continue to optimize for BTP, and begin focusing specifically on interoperability, becoming an #AggregatorChain, and driving volumes through the network.

13/ Note: increasing integrations of other networks and driving volumes will be the primary KPIs to look at when examining ICON's growth & proposition.

14/ Now, let's get back to ICE. A new network named “ICE” will become the application hub for the ICON ecosystem with its own native token that will be airdropped 1:1 to all $ICX holders via a snapshot (announced at a later date, but likely coinciding with the ICON 2.0 launch).

15/ Through the use of BTP, $ICX will be the governance token of the ICE network. $ICX will be used to vote for validators just as it is used for validators (P-Reps) in our current network.

16/ ICX holders will transfer $ICX to the ICE network via BTP, stake their $ICX, vote for validators, and earn ICE tokens as rewards.

17/ Not only does this provide an excellent early use-case of BTP, but it also increases fees earned. As mentioned in a previous post, all fees earned from BTP transactions are sent to the CPS and/or burned.

medium.com/helloiconworld…

18/ The network is currently being built, but by the end of July we expect it will be largely stood up and testable. A full launch to come later this year. And we will follow up with more details this week.