ICN represents the vanguard of Web3 technology's infiltration into core enterprise IT systems.

Written by: Haotian

There has been a significant yet underrated news in the DePIN sector recently! @Impossible_Cloud (ICN) has recently received strategic investment from NGP Capital, with its valuation skyrocketing to $470 million. It's worth noting that NGP Capital is an early investor in Helium and Xiaomi. The question arises, what gives ICN such a high valuation recognition? What unique aspects does this project, which claims to disrupt AWS, possess? This article will comprehensively dissect the technical business logic:

1) The traditional cloud computing market is monopolized by the three giants: AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, forming a kind of "new centralization" — data, computing, and network resources are controlled by a few companies. This directly leads to several challenges:

1. "Platform tax" is increasingly high: Giants raise service prices year by year, forcing enterprises to accept rising cloud costs;

2. Vendor lock-in is becoming deeper: Once a business runs on a particular cloud, the migration costs are exorbitant, making it nearly impossible for users to escape;

3. Data sovereignty no longer belongs to enterprises: Your data is actually stored on someone else's servers, and privacy and security completely depend on the platform.

In simple terms, ICN aims to establish a decentralized cloud infrastructure network, allowing enterprises to regain data sovereignty, reduce costs, and avoid vendor lock-in. This is also the core value proposition of DePIN — to reconstruct traditional physical infrastructure using blockchain technology architecture and Tokenomics, reclaiming control from centralized hegemony.

2) How does it achieve this? At first glance, ICN's technical architecture seems complex, but simply put, it breaks down the traditional integrated cloud service into a three-layer "checks and balances" system:

1. Hardware Layer: Equivalent to the "infrastructure workers" of cloud services, contributed by global hardware providers (HPs) with enterprise-grade hardware, rather than ordinary PCs or idle computing power. This is crucial because enterprise clients would never place their core business on unstable consumer-grade hardware. This model theoretically allows ICN to aggregate more computing power than AWS and Google have accumulated over the past 15-20 years, similar to the impact of the sharing economy on the hotel industry;

2. Service Layer: Equivalent to the "application developers" of cloud services, where service providers (SPs) build various cloud products on top of hardware resources. Using the analogy of Lego blocks, this layer emphasizes composability, reorganizing infrastructure like building blocks to spawn more innovative services;

3. Monitoring Layer: Equivalent to the "independent referees" of cloud services, where SLA Oracle nodes (SLA-ONs) are responsible for monitoring and verifying service quality. This layer directly addresses the common "malicious verification" problem faced by DePIN projects — how to ensure that the hardware indeed provides the claimed performance? Traditional DePIN relies on "trust," while ICN introduces a verifiable proof mechanism.

These three layers are coordinated through the ICN Protocol (ICNP), with market-based pricing and automatic execution of penalties and rewards, forming a self-regulating ecosystem.

Compared to storage-based DePIN projects like Filecoin and Arweave, which generally rely on "trust" to solve verification issues, ICN's three-layer decentralized architecture is akin to equipping cloud services with a "cheat-proof system," effectively addressing the inherent pain points of DePIN.

3) Unlike many blockchain projects that issue tokens first and then develop a roadmap, ICN has chosen the opposite approach by focusing on business implementation and revenue generation first. According to disclosed data from the project, it already has over 1,000 enterprise clients in Europe and the U.S., with annual revenue exceeding $5 million and a growth rate of 2,000%. By the end of 2025, the contracted ARR is expected to reach $32.7 million.

ICN's business strategy is also quite clever; it uses "storage" as an entry point, focusing on serving B2B enterprise clients. Why storage? Because once enterprise data resides on a platform, it naturally creates "data gravity," leading to subsequent migration of computing and network services.

This approach, targeting a customer base with strong willingness to pay and stable demand, allows ICN to establish a stable cash flow rather than relying on burning investor money to survive.

4) It is also worth mentioning that its Tokenomics perfectly aligns with its business logic, appearing relatively pragmatic.

1. Staking mechanism: Hardware providers must stake ICNT to access the network, which acts as a "margin" to ensure service quality and prevent malfeasance;
2. Payment medium: Service providers use ICNT to purchase resources, creating real demand;
3. Reward tool: Oracle nodes and hardware providers earn ICNT rewards for their contributions.

This design makes the token the "lifeblood" of the network rather than a speculative tool, with its value derived from actual business scale rather than hype.

Unlike most DePIN projects that rely on continuous high inflation subsidies to attract participants, ICN's Tokenomics follows demand growth, avoiding the "mining—selling—collapse" death spiral. It should be noted that this sustainability has significant implications for the entire DePIN sector.

Finally, it's worth adding that the ICN team has a solid background from Europe and the U.S.:

Co-founder @KaiWawrzinek, Ph.D., previously founded Goodgame Studios, which indirectly went public on NASDAQ; core team members have extensive experience in gaming and cloud storage, and the CTO holds patents related to storage; the project has also secured $18 million in funding, with investors spanning both Web3 and traditional sectors.

As an early investor in Helium and Xiaomi, NGP Capital, backed by Nokia and managing $1.6 billion, further endorses ICN's development prospects.

That's all.

According to market forecasts, the global cloud infrastructure market has an annual revenue of approximately $313 billion, expected to reach $837.97 billion by 2034. ICN's goal is to become the "AWS of Web3," and even capturing a small portion of the market presents significant business opportunities.

However, in my view, ICN represents the vanguard of Web3 technology's infiltration into core enterprise IT systems. Importantly, projects like ICN, which pragmatically integrate the advantages of Web2 and Web3, are paving a more feasible path for the enterprise-level application of blockchain technology.

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