AMA - Community Edition

Updated:

11) $5m buyback

12) Release of yp part 3?

13) It is allegedly possible that ICX supply can be doubled in only 4 years thanks to a whopping 20% annual token inflation

14) One of the things that got me excited about crypto was that there was no inflation. I'm a bit disappointed in Icons approach here.

Hey guys, I decided to compile my answers to a single thread so people have easier way of access. I'll continue to read through posts and answer to the best of my knowledge, so this list will update regularly.

1) Clear description how icx will go up by benefiting from the line partnership. -> 2 or 3 practical examples.

Don't forget Unchain is a joint venture, so Unchain is ICON's company as well, their success is directly beneficial to ICON. In a recent interview w Brad, Henry also shed some light regarding this JV and that it is way beyond a simple partnership agreement https://youtu.be/paFYyt1hVWc?t=155

2) Clear description how icx will go up by building private blockchains and connecting them. -> 2 or 3 practical examples.

I answered this to someone on telegram a couple days ago. Here's my example,

"So I asked what's the use for icx with private chains. They have no reason to connect to the public chain and they have no reason to tokenzie their business."

The missing link is interoperability. The private chains need a way to communicate w each other, this is actually how the ICON project was conceived. ICONLOOP(loopchain then) offered blockchain solutions to enterprises and consortiums, but they had no way to interoperate

So I think the argument originated from, if the design paradigm is emergent for private chains to go public, or interoperate through a public chain as a common block

We've heard about those use cases and see actual implementations from U-coin vending machines to hospitals making insurance claims etc

I agree in some cases it doesn't make sense for private chains to go public, if its designing a problem to solve, lets not do that

but i'd say, a random guess, that 90%+ of the private chains have a reason to connect, much like intranet/internet

Let me try another example, we've heard the hospital/insurance too many times

Let's say there's a trade financing supply system of a large manufacturer w thousands of vendors

before their enrollment, you'll probably need to do some identity and reputation check in the public chain (common services like ID validation should readily be available as a public service, like chainID)

that will validate their legitimacy.. then next step is prolly for the vendors who need the trade financing where they need a more complex system like a stable coin to avoid volatility.. and move the money around

instead of rebuilding a coin, they could adopt a coin system within the ICON network

then what happens next.. i guess disputes w goods lost or quality problems.. again, vendors can call for a public arbitration system where there'll be a network of lawyers who specialize in cross-border disputes or arbiters to provide the service

so we need a chain of services that can be called throughout the life cycle, interoperable between private and public chains

there are plenty more use cases, but its not a hard choice to make, its definitely possible to have a common meeting point while maintaining sensitive information within their local blockchain

In the example above, nothing is tokenized, their businesses are on the private blockchain without a native coin, but they use the common services from the public like stable coins or arbitration system

3) Monthly or quartal reports on partnerships, marketing, and the tech.

You mean something like this? https://medium.com/helloiconworld/icon-3q-achievements-8c42ea798a0b

4) Opinion why korean people dont bring icx volume on korean exchanges.

I don't think even president Moon has an answer to this :P But are people really this patriotic when it comes to money? Do Americans invest in American ICOs for being made in USA? I guess some will, but this is not (and shouldn't be) the main driving force of token demand.

5) Clarification what kind of understanding we should have about this 124 teampower - are they employees with 40 hours/week working contracts or just 2 hours, cooperations partners, freelancer, what ever.

I paid a visit to the KR office a couple months back, it was like a giant coding factory running full steam. I can attest to this, they're full time employees working around the clock.

6) Roadmap - stop giving yourself room for delays and interpretations by not offering a roadmap.

My suggestion on this one is to have a % completion roadmap with change logs. I think most people are more interested in progress, less deadlines.

7) Quarterly AMAs.

Sounds good.

8) Why the hell are ICON members still advisors at Sentinel Protocol, a ICO that promoted itself using icon as blockchain and then moving to EOS.

As far as I can tell, the two teams are still in good relationships. Timing was unfortunate, SP always had their first product (uppward) scheduled to launch shortly after their fundraising. Public presale also ended a lot faster than expected (scheduled to run for a week, ended in 3 minutes). During the period ICON was migrating to mainnet V3 and doing token swap. It made sense for them to deploy on a working platform, without compromising their schedule. Their team also said that they haven't ruled out the possibility to migrate back to ICON (although I think its less likely this day).

9) Spend some money on an english translation expert for you social media appearance.

The translations (YouTube subtitles) were a bit sloppy I agree, understandable enough but they should definitely spend more time proof reading, professional presentation is a thing.

10) How much from the received ICO money/ether has been provided directly or indirectly to iconloop.

The raised ETH from ICO are barely spent, you can check on etherscan from the contribution address.

11) $5m buyback

From the key announcement by ICON foundation’s CFO Jay, the repurchase program is a pending legal matter, after consultation with law firms they’ll proceed with the buyback. https://youtu.be/keDitkWssv8?t=160

The team stated two main intentions for conducting this program,

• Show the community the team’s long term commitment to the project even during times of uncertainty (bear market)

• Revitalize the community and expand ICON ecosystem, with the buyback tokens (incentive programs probably).

If you read between the lines from the buyback announcement https://medium.com/helloiconworld/key-announcements-from-icon-8ea0f5a18d6f

Repurchases under the foundation’s program will be made in open market or privately negotiated transactions subject to market conditions, applicable legal requirements, and other relevant factors.

What this is saying is that, the buyback has no intention to create short term pumps, otherwise all purchases would’ve been made in the open market under a timed schedule. What this also implies is that, there won’t be a public wallet with an open schedule, to avoid legal obligations (insider trading) or unintended purposes (manipulation).

So what is to be expected? Giving a deadline won't make sense because everything can be timed, so my take is that an announcement will be made after the repurchase has been completed. I don't think anyone can take advantage of this program but will still benefit directly with $5M worth of tokens off the market supply.

12) Release of yp part 3?

This is expectedly a highly anticipated yellow paper, as it will likely outline all the details we need to know about staking. This YP however is not just a simple table with your annual returns, this is also technically far more complex than the previous two YPs.

I provided a very simplified explanation for IISS in this thread: https://twitter.com/2infiniti/status/1020141186797846529

IISS is however a lot more complicated than this, it is a full AI based incentive scoring system to explore the optimal incentive scheme to vitalize the ecosystem. On top of incentives, it is also the base metrics for governance policies (voting). Incentives are designed with token economic studies, to reinforce target behavior, based on operant conditioning principles, eg. dormant accounts, distribution schemes based on activity levels, penalties for malicious nodes etc, and it is very difficult to get right.

If you look into the WP, IISS further explored with things like mitigation of inequalities, weighted average and adjustment, efficiency of IISS, fairness of distribution, prevention of misusage and many other topics explored in depth.

The point is, this YP is very complex, and personally I’d wish the team to take as much time as it needs to get it done right. IISS will ultimately decide the overall health of our ecosystem, its sustainability and well, our passive income.

With that said, I am also with you that I’d love to see the details asap, as I have plans to build a tool similar to the Virtual Step Calculator where people can easily calculate their returns. From the announcement at least, it does look like the team is close to completion and labeled the release "soon", so let's just have a little patience and let them do all the necessary last checks.

Also as a reality check, YPs are researches that need to be formalized, implemented and iterated enough times before an official release. So please don’t expect to start staking right away when YP pt3 sees the light.

13) It is allegedly possible that ICX supply can be doubled in only 4 years thanks to a whopping 20% annual token inflation

Please go to this thread for my explanation: https://twitter.com/2infiniti/status/1060397068852748288

14) One of the things that got me excited about crypto was that there was no inflation. I'm a bit disappointed in Icons approach here.

Most crypto token issuance models can be broken down into these 3 categories

• Finite supply with a hardcap, tokens issued over time. Eg. Bitcoin, Litecoin

• Fixed initial issuance, after that no more tokens will ever be created. Eg. Augur, Golem

• Continuous issuance. Eg. Ethereum, ICON

All of the above models can work in their own ways, depending on the behavior its trying to incentivize. Sustainable crypto economies are backed by a recursive loop of value transfer that all participants are incentivized to participate in. The goal is to create an incentive loop that all parties act in their own self-interest, then creating greater value.

Let’s take a look at bitcoin’s incentive loop, a simple model where mining is profitable, more miners create more security and security adds intrinsic value.

Mine bitcoin -> market dynamics decide value -> incentive to mine -> security of network increases -> more incentive to mine ←|

Augur’s case

Trusted prediction platform -> more stakes in events -> more incentive for REP holders to verify truth -> more people verifying, more trusted ←|

In ICON’s case, incentives are centered around i_score, which is a function of activities within the network. The incentive loop would look something like this

I_score rewards and governance control (votes) -> more incentive to participate in activities and governance policies -> increased network security and activity ←|

Similar incentive loop found in SCORE

SCORE staking (virtual steps) -> increased activities -> sustainable SCOREs ←|

Now for continuous issuance models, the goals are no different from other models. They want to issue tokens, just enough that it is optimal for maintaining security and encourage participations, creating a healthy incentive loop.

But can’t these models infinitely issue to a point where my money is worth next to nothing?

Yes, this is in theory possible. For Ethereum, with majority of network miners approving such change (say removing ice age), and a new Ethereum client to accommodate this change, resulting in an issuance similar to a 51% attack. Since issued ETH is also linked to the value of a single token, this will render ETH much less valuable. In practice, this is extremely unlikely to happen, as miners are financially discouraged by doing so, since they have much more to lose, just part of the game theory.

ICON’s issuance is a system implementation which depends on activities happening in the network. There are also preventive measures such as issuance upper bound and representative mitigations. I explained issuance model in full in this thread: https://twitter.com/2infiniti/status/1060397068852748288