Community concerns and questions

What up all? First time posting here. Super stoked

Had a chat with Benny on Twitter and he suggested I post here. Some things myself and others have asked over the past year I feel haven’t been addressed on Twitter (maybe they have here).

1 - Remember that 5mil token buy back from like 2 years ago? When’s that happening?

2 - Are the recent bug tokens burned? I read there’s a lawsuit going on with them. Shin V Icon foundation.

3 - Can we start a section in the forum for P-reps to drop their monthly progress updates?

4 - Voter stagnancy and voting in general seems to be a problem with icon. The foundation seems to be taking back control and moving away from voting with the new IISS/Grant program. Are there plans to go away with voting and go to a flat rate p-rep payment? Can we start a thread as this is a huge topic.

5 - Are there any plans to hire a permanent public relations person? There was that one lady (forget her name) back in 2017 who was great.

6 - Public vs Private chain development has been a big point of contention among the community. Some feel the public chain has been abandoned and left in the hands of P-reps who aren’t doing anything. Others think it’s the foundations job, others fee other ways. Can the foundation comment on their feelings towards the public chain, what they are planning, hopes, thoughts, etc.

Y’all know I’ve been down with $ICX before the ICO. I feel it’s good to ask questions and discuss things, not just cheerlead all the time. I got nothing but love though. Cheers bros

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Hey Cali, welcome to the forums!

While I can’t answer some of these definitively, I’d like to discuss my point of view on a few of them.

First, the 5 million dollar “burn” was actually a commitment to buy back tokens, not burn them. Unfortunately I don’t know much more then that, but I do recall it being said that they can’t publicly announce it beforehand because it can breach securities laws or something, which makes sense. I would certainly like to know more too.

As far as Voter Stagnancy, it might be worth your time to read up on the proposals for ICON 2.0. First a process has been proposed to redistribute “inactive” votes across the network to combat this. The grant program, as it currently stands, is a stop gap solution until the contribution proposal fund is put in place and is not meant to be the “norm” going forward, as far as I know. Additionally there are no plans to remove the voting system from ICON and replace it with a flat payment (which shouldn’t be the case). This is primarily because a system like that makes it possible to attack the network with something called a Sybil attack, where a P-Rep could create many nodes and take over the network and earn more rewards too. I’m sure there are other reasons that’s not being implemented, but I know that is one major concern.

Lastly, as far as the Public vs Private chain development: I still don’t understand this narrative. The way ICON is designed and built P-Reps are, in fact, supposed to be the public network champions and pioneers. The ICON foundation is not supposed to have complete control over the process otherwise it wouldn’t be truly decentralized and the ICON foundation is supposed to be another P-Rep the same as others.

People need to look at the public chain as a “resource” rather then the objective itself. The public chain exists to supplement and support the overall direction this market is heading (interoperability), but specifically was created in response to a growing demand for interconnected block chains that were and continue to be developed by ICONLOOP. P-Reps primary responsibilities (remember, the ICON Foundation is a P-Rep too!) are to operate the infrastructure that ICON depends on safely and securely. In other words, P-Reps are first and foremost the stewards of the ICON network.

ICON differs in its goal of delivering a DPOC chain instead, by encouraging it’s P-Reps to also contribute to the network growth. This applies as much to the ICON Foundation as to any other P-Rep. But the way the network rewards this has needed refinement and continues to go through those iterative processes. In ICON 2.0, effectively the “contribution” portion of the DPOC is going to happen through the CPF instead. This way there is more clarity on how it’s supposed to work in a decentralized manner.

But, back to the point, the ICON Foundation is just another P-Rep but the fact is the ICON project was built and continues to be upgraded by them. THAT is their contribution because without the ICON network none of this would be possible. This saying floating around twitter about the “45 million” “invested into icon” makes them solely responsible for the growth of ICON is fundamentally absurd and anyone pushing that narrative clearly don’t understand the project in general. This also completely overlooks ICONLOOP’s relationship with the Foundation and their efforts which are, arguably, an extension of the ICON Foundation’s efforts.

Essentially people are mad because ICON decided to approach this industry sensibly by first building a customer base that was otherwise skeptical or timidly interested in advancing into block chain (private businesses) and then introducing the real power and potential to those clients through the public chain.

TLDR: I disagree with the idea that the public chain is “abandoned” or some similar narrative and always have. People just can’t see the forest for the trees and want to pin their frustrations about a lagging price or market on -something-.

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Hey @Cali thanks for taking me up on my suggestion and transitioning over to the forum. Happy to answer these questions where I can and hope to see you as active here as you are on twitter.

1.) 5M Buyback - Unfortunately, legal counsel advised the foundation to abstain from sharing any information publicly regarding the buyback due to the lack of regulatory clarity. For obvious reasons, the foundation does not engage in market manipulation activities of ICX prices, which may include sharing more information than necessary, and hence, jeopardizing the ICON project. I don’t see the purpose to this question other than hoping for market impact, which is not aligned with the goals and purpose of the foundation.

2.) We are aware of the complaint. We don’t believe that the theory of the case has any merit. We will provide an update on the token burn as soon as we can.

3.) Sounds good to me, feel free to start it up and promote it. When the CPS launches (December 2020) we will also add another column when voting on ICONex that shows which teams have voluntarily decided to manage the CPS which will be a good barometer for who is going above and beyond in terms of governance responsibilities.

4.) “moving away from voting with the new IISS/Grant program” - I wouldn’t agree with this. There are no plans in doing away with staking + voting. Flat rate per P-Rep creates a massive incentive to Sybil Attack the network. You actually get paid extra for conducting a Sybil attack. I’ll be starting a thread on Vote Stagnancy later this week, but generally speaking you can start a thread on anything you would like, as you have done here.

5.) Currently Public Relations are handled by a professional third party, Transform Group. They are quite experienced in blockchain and you can see a list of some of their previous clients on their website.

6.) This narrative that “public chain has been abandoned and left in the hands of P-reps who aren’t doing anything” is simply not true and comes from a lack of understanding of this industry and public blockchain networks in general. It’s hard to argue with belief - you can believe whatever you want, but there is absolutely no evidence at all to support this narrative. ICONLOOP works for ICON to build the public blockchain. ICON Foundation does not pay ICONLOOP to work on private blockchains and will never pay ICONLOOP to work on private blockchains. Any work outside of public blockchain that ICONLOOP does is not paid for by the ICON Foundation. ICON 2.0 Batang is a more advanced version of our network that ICON is currently working on. FUD will always exist I suppose, but people saying public chain has been abandoned when ICON is literally in the middle of a massive public blockchain project is just clearly false. I hope you see beyond this baseless FUD.

Additionally, I would say that the most successful project ICONLOOP has ever worked on has been the ICON Public blockchain. I don’t see any private blockchains with nearly the success of our $200M network.

Some feel the public chain has been abandoned and left in the hands of P-reps who aren’t doing anything.

People that make this argument need to take some time to understand how public blockchain networks operate and grow, and that a public blockchain is not a product operated by one entity and ICX is not a security/equity/stock in any company.

Public blockchain tokens should not be managed by just one entity. If they are, they would likely be a security (similar to buying Apple Stock), not a public cryptocurrency. People that expect the ICON Foundation to be the only entity working on the ICON Project just don’t understand public cryptocurrencies and would be better off sticking to traditional markets. If ICON were the only one with the ability to promote, build on, develop, and grow the network, ICX would likely be a security, and even worse, it would be a project that nobody cares about because there is no community. Public blockchains need communities of investors, validators, influencers, and developers. They must be decentralized. That’s where the community comes in; that’s where P-Reps come in. Some will be good, some won’t be - it can never be perfect in a decentralized network that anybody has the ability to participate in.

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Hey Brandon and Benny,

Thanks for the replies! Stoked to be onboard the forum. I have read your replies several times and enjoyed them. I did have a few points id like to make but appreciate your time and conversation as I am and will continue to be a huge fan of icon.

New Question 1 -
Does the foundation plan to limit the rank of p-reps who are eligible for vote allocation? I was under the belief that this program was for lower ranked p-reps to gain a higher spot for visibility, not bump a p-rep into, or higher into, the top 22.

I’ll be very interested to participate in your voter stagnancy thread! Looking forward to it.

New Question 2 -
“This narrative that “public chain has been abandoned and left in the hands of P-reps who aren’t doing anything” is simply not true and comes from a lack of understanding of this industry and public blockchain networks in general. It’s hard to argue with belief - you can believe whatever you want, but there is absolutely no evidence at all to support this narrative”

I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my questions, however I’d have to disagree with this slightly. Yes it is not 100% abandoned and dead, however a look at the top 10 p-reps will also say that it’s not bustling. I posted a tweet tagging the top 10 p-reps asking what they are doing, like 1 bothered to even respond. A certain p-rep has been working on a mysterious ‘drone’ project forever (while being given tens of thousands in ICX per month), others are here (by their own admission) to collect rewards with self staked tokens and not contribute. The top 10 list right now, I believe (along with many others) supports this claim.

What is the foundations view on this “self-stake and do nothing” approach from some p-reps?

Thanks again! Stoked to be in the forums!

Appreciate the respectful discussion and glad we moved over to the forum:

Does the foundation plan to limit the rank of p-reps who are eligible for vote allocation? I was under the belief that this program was for lower ranked p-reps to gain a higher spot for visibility, not bump a p-rep into, or higher into, the top 22.

The delegation program has evolved several times and could evolve again if somebody has a specific suggestion or new idea. Personally I like how it’s running for the most part.

Right now, in my opinion, we’re seeing the closest thing to DPoC we have ever really seen. ICON gives 1M delegation to teams that are actively contributing by working on a grant. Teams that are working on a tangible project with accountability (they must produce monthly reports) receive votes and network resources. With this method we help ensure that network resources are going toward teams that give back to the ICON Ecosystem. If you have a suggestion on how to change or alter the program I’m all ears, but keep in mind simple is better as to not burden the process with administrative work. The first delegation program, where people applied to it and were assigned a certain amount of delegation, took significant time from many people to manage.

I really don’t want to start naming names on a public forum and starting up some drama, but I just want to say that I disagree with this statement as well. In my view, 8/10 (maybe 7/10) of the top 10 p-reps have made a meaningful contribution to ICON, either through development or from purchasing ICX. As I said previously, some will be good and some will be bad, but the top 10 p-reps account for every single grant ever paid and several projects that are either in development or live. We can chat in DM on telegram if you want to discuss this further (@Benny_Options).

I wont speak for all of ICON, but I really want to break this narrative that self-staking is bad. Not sure how it started, but it should be squashed ASAP, along with the “public chain is abandoned” narrative. It really surprises me that any community member would attack somebody for buying and holding ICX. If all P-Reps bought as much ICX as the self-staking teams, ICX price would be higher, period.

Take a step back from the ethos of “Delegated Proof of Contribution” and please think purely in economics. The price of ICX is based on supply and demand. I would love for every P-Rep to buy a lot of ICX and self-stake it. It takes YEARS for the amount of supply generated by their rewards to outweigh the demand they created; meaning if I create demand of 5M ICX (buy 5M ICX) and self-stake, it will take several years for me to generate 5M ICX of supply (earn 5M ICX worth of staking + p-rep rewards). ICX price is a marketing tool and helps funding. It brings in developers, investors, etc. and helps grow our community. So to directly answer your question, I am happy to see people buy ICX for the purpose of self-staking. Buying ICX is the most direct way to contribute to increasing demand for ICX. The absolute worst case scenario is somebody that has a ton of votes from the community and owns 0 ICX. They create no demand and only increase supply. They have no skin in the game and earn ICX with 0 investment other than server costs, that’s why we pushed for the bond requirement and that’s why I personally would support raising the bond requirement as high as the community would support.

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Appreciate the chat Benny, it’s been very informative and interesting.

A simple change I would suggest to the delegation program would be to limit it to teams outside the top 40. I think once a team cracks this number they can move up easier than a team deeper down the list. Or reserve a large chunk of the delegation spots (eg 4 out of 5 available delegations or whatever) for lower teams.

I hear what you’re saying about people buying and holding ICX. It’s obviously a good thing and I’m.all for it. I see P-reps as those looking to contribute to icx by building and earning rewards based on voted they received for what they have built. If you want to buy and stake icx great, but does that make a p-rep? In the future are all P-reps just going to be the top 22 biggest holders? It’s not a negative I guess but definitely something that others have brought up and goes against what some see as a p-rep.

Anyway thanks for the chat man. Very stoked to be here and looking forward to chatting more in the future

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I think pretty much every thing Scott said is spot on. Take a second to check the amount of tokens NEOPLY bought and what % of the circulating supply that is. Do the math on having 5-10 more groups such as them and it starts looking really spicy.

Something I’d like to suggest here is that someone extract the data on what is community vote, and what is private investment vote, and then visualise them side by side.

@BennyOptions_LL one thing I disagree with you on is increasing the bond requirement. I naturally disagree because it financially impacts my P-Rep, but as a matter of fact it financially impacts our entire network, you included.

Every ICX that is saved instead of spent actually contracts our spending, slowing growth. ICONation could have used the ca 500,000 ICX saved (to put towards the bond) on funding ecosystem growth. We have to keep saving until we reach our bond goal before we can start large scale ICX investing into projects.

Ultimately the argument I’m making is that I think the ICX saved (that would have been dumped) is not worth the ICX forced into savings (that would have been well invested instead). A bond is essential though, lets be clear there too.

I want to point something out to the community too. Ubik is 2 people and they work across multiple networks, ICONation is 5 and we are fully dedicated to ICON, we both have the same amount of votes but for one team bond saving is a nightmare, for the other it’s much easier.

Community, when you ask to lower P-Rep rewards, or increase bonds, it actually ends up impacting hard working teams quite negatively.

Thanks for reading. Hope everyone is well! Cheers for this awesome discussion thread @Cali

I would also slightly disagree on the statement about Transform group’s professionalism as I do not personally think that any professional entity engages a marketing campaign for their clients with fake twitter accounts with artificially boosted follower counts but I agree with the rest that Scott and James said :slight_smile: