Icon to Reward $570,000 in Tokens to Encourage Voting, Decentralization

The Icon Foundation, the team behind the Icon blockchain system, is providing 3 million ICX tokens— valued ~$570,000 — in expectation of their forthcoming Public Representative (P-Rep) elections. The reward program begins on August 26 and ends on September 24 for IXC token holders who choose to take part in P-Rep voting. Icon communicated the reward program news through a press release.

The reward program is an attempt, as per the press release, to encourage community participation in the so-called P-Rep polls and to expedite decentralized network control. In order to earn tokens from the rewards program, ICX holders must take part in voting and staking in the forthcoming P-Rep, so the rewards program functions solely as a motivation to join.

Min Kim, founder of ICON Foundation, explained the reward program by issuing the following statement:

“With the giveaway, we expect not just to re-distribute 3 million ICX for better decentralization and voting capabilities, but we also hope to encourage current ICX holders and ICON community members to transfer their coins to ICONex wallet, so they can properly stake and participate in the upcoming P-Rep elections.”

The foundation is allegedly constantly seeking to reduce its own stake in the network and is also inspiring voters to widen their delegates among the P-Reps. The aim, as they claim, is to ensure that the network stays decentralized by ensuring that there is not too much influence from foundation or first batch of representatives.

As described in a Decrypt study, many of its coins are presently controlled by the Icon Foundation, though not for long duration. The foundation moves to introduce a management framework, named Iconsensus, which changes the management model of the network to some kind of proof-of-stake mechanism.

This implies, however, that token owners must choose third parties to operate the network. That’s where the rewards program fit in, which Decrypt has assessed to be worth nearly $570,000.

Icon is a blockchain network, according to the press statement, which seeks to link blockchain initiatives together. This involves the creation of decentralized application (DApp) through alliances for public blockchain projects. Icon collaborated with the Japanese Messaging App Line in May 2018 through the Unchain Joint Blockchain endeavor.

Line intended to draw its mainnet blockchain nearer together with its DApps through the blockchain application of Icon, according to the study.