💠In Jiangnan, there are red oranges, still green in winter: A counter-trend exploration
I discovered this coin in Binance Alpha. At the beginning of August, the market was declining, but $ICNT seems to show signs of counter-trend exploration.
The daily chart is testing support levels. At the end of July, a long upper shadow appeared on the daily chart, and trading volume has been increasing over the past week.
💠Is the earth's warmth inherent, with a heart that endures the cold: Delving into differentiated exploration
The price support may be related to the project's fundamentals. The Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) appears to be an unremarkable DePin project on the surface, but a deeper investigation reveals that this project has its merits.
🔷Products and Services
❚ On the surface
On the surface, the ICN network is similar to most dePIN projects.
The ICN network consists of two types of nodes: ScalerNode and HyperNode, along with Builders and $ICNT stakers. Among them:
Hardware suppliers establish ScalerNode nodes to perform tasks such as storage and computation.
HyperNode nodes are the validators of the ICN protocol, responsible for evaluating and supervising ScalerNode nodes to ensure the integrity and reliability of the ICN network.
Builders in the ICN ecosystem use various hardware resources from the ICN network to develop and establish applications, making them key users of the ICN ecosystem.
$ICNT holders can choose nodes to stake and earn corresponding rewards.
The entire dePIN network generates revenue by providing external services such as storage, computation, and rendering, which are then distributed as rewards to nodes and token stakers.
❚ Delving deeper
In fact, other dePIN projects are either focused on storage, computation, or network services. However, the Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) is building a comprehensive, integrated, and composable dePIN network.
The ICN network is set to be a comprehensive dePIN network composed of various hardware types, including storage, CPU, GPU, and network facilities. In the future, Builders will be able to use distributed hardware combinations within the ICN ecosystem to create truly decentralized applications.
Thus, the future ICN will be a large dePIN, a decentralized large-scale computing ecosystem.
🔷Market
❚ On the surface
The official Twitter @ICN_Protocol and platforms like CoinMarketCap show that the official website of ICN is icn.global.
❚ Delving deeper
According to the LinkedIn profile of ICN's CEO, we can see another platform he is involved with, Impossible Cloud, which has the website impossiblecloud.com.
This is a cloud storage platform established in 2021, with advantages such as: compliance with European technical standards; unlimited hot storage; built-in ransomware protection; 80% cost savings compared to Amazon's AWS; and support for AWS S3 API.
In other words, the foundation of ICN is a technologically mature cloud storage platform with many high-quality enterprise clients in Europe.
If you only look at the ICN official website, you might question the data presented: "Providing over $7 million in ARR to more than 1,000 enterprise clients, supporting over 80PB of active storage, deeply integrated with a $10 billion ecosystem," etc.
However, if you visit the Impossible Cloud website, you will see feedback and positive reviews from these enterprise clients about Impossible Cloud.
And the service provider of Impossible Cloud actually comes from the dePIN network—Impossible Cloud Network (ICN).
According to the Google search trends for "Impossible Cloud," it is indeed more popular in Europe. Moreover, $ICNT has already been listed on Kraken, a U.S. exchange, but its main users come from Europe. This indicates that ICN is compliant in Europe and has a better market foundation in that region.
The two main features of the ICN market are: a large number of enterprise-level clients and a better market foundation in Europe.
🔷Ecosystem
❚ On the surface
According to official website data, the ICN network has a total TVL of 79.82M $ICNT, worth approximately $16.6 million.
Node distribution is primarily in Europe, extending to North America, Brazil, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
❚ Delving deeper
Dune data shows that, based on data updated 17 days ago, a total of 28,840 ICN network nodes have been sold, valued at approximately $12.72 million.
Among them, there are 1,009 independent node operators.
The number of nodes in the ICN network and its level of decentralization are quite significant.
💠Can recommend guests, but the obstacles are deep: Potential from Web2 to Web3
The CEO of ICN, Dr. Kai Wawrzinek, is an elite entrepreneur who graduated from Heidelberg University, with extensive successful entrepreneurial experience in gaming and VC, and has been a board member of well-known companies. Since the project is reliable and has been launched on Binance Alpha and Kraken, I won't go into detail about other team members.
Focusing on the CEO's background, we can see that Impossible Cloud was founded in 2021, while Impossible Cloud Network was established in 2023, and the $ICNT token TGE is set for 2025.
Thus, ICN is a project transitioning from Web2 to Web3, and it is one that prioritizes action before issuing tokens.
However, apart from DUNE, there is currently no third-party data for the ICN network on platforms like DefiLlama and TokenTerminal.
This presents some challenges for Web3 promotion.
Of course, for ICN, which has only been live on the mainnet for about a month, this also represents potential.
💠Fate is only what one encounters, cycles cannot be sought: Active operations
The author of this poem is the famous Tang Dynasty minister Zhang Jiuling. This poem is excerpted from his poem collection "Ganyù," written during his exile, expressing his feelings through the red oranges.
"Fate is only what one encounters, cycles cannot be sought," fate is often something that can be encountered but not sought, and since cycles are hard to trace, this line of poetry is unrelated to the red oranges.
In this regard, ICN differs from Zhang Jiuling; the project is actively working to promote integration with Web3.
For example, recently, the ICN network provided 50TB of cloud storage as rewards to five Web3 projects. These five Web3 projects belong to different types of Web3 applications. This means that the ICN ecosystem is expanding outward from these five different types of Web3 applications.
Additionally, the Web3 data platform Messari has released an analysis report on ICN, and we look forward to the subsequent launch of on-chain data analysis tools for ICN.
💠Empty words about peach and plum trees, can this tree have no shade: Comparative advantages
If other excellent dePIN projects are "peach and plum trees," then ICN can be considered the "red orange" among dePINs, not inferior to other "peach and plum trees."
🔷ICN vs Aethir
The similarity between ICN and Aethir is that both provide enterprise-level services while targeting the Web3 market.
One difference is that Aethir primarily focuses on a decentralized GPU network, serving fields such as AI and cloud gaming, providing computing services. In contrast, ICN is currently a decentralized cloud storage service, which will develop into a large dePIN integrating multiple hardware types.
Another difference is that Aethir's main market is currently in Asia, while ICN originated in Europe, having a greater influence in the English-speaking market. Additionally, it is expanding into the Chinese market through Chinese accounts.
🔷ICN vs Filecoin & Arweave
Currently, ICN primarily focuses on storage services, making it comparable to Filecoin and Arweave.
One difference is that on the demand side, Filecoin and Arweave mainly serve the Web3 field. In reality, there are very few Web3 applications utilizing Filecoin. However, ICN's service targets include both Web2 enterprises and various dApps in the Web3 field.
Moreover, ICN is expanding beyond storage to include other hardware service types.
Another difference is that on the supply side, there are currently over 1,400 active miners for Filecoin and over 400 for Arweave, while ICN has sold around 30,000 nodes, with 1,009 different node operators. Furthermore, ICN's mainnet has only been live for a month, and participant enthusiasm is higher.
💠In conclusion
Through in-depth exploration, attention to project progress and ecosystem operations, and comparative analysis, we can find that, compared to what is seen on the surface, the ICN network actually has more distinctive products, a larger ecosystem, and more active operations.
🔷Products are more distinctive
Unlike existing dePINs, the ICN network product will be a decentralized integrated network composed of various hardware.
For enterprise-level users, the existing ICN network decentralizes monopolistic profits, allowing enterprise users to obtain high-quality, low-cost services.
For Web3 users, in the future, Builders can create decentralized applications based on ICN without needing to purchase storage from one dePIN and computing power from another… all they need is one ICN network, which not only forms a larger scale economy providing lower costs but also allows for higher performance through hardware matching within the same network.
Thus, ICN's product will be a high-quality + low-cost large dePIN.
🔷Ecosystem is more scalable
Although the ICN mainnet has only been live for a month, network development began in 2023, and the enterprise-level cloud storage platform has been in operation since 2021. ICN currently has a large number of enterprise-level users (1000+) and has sold a considerable number of nodes (around 30,000) in the Web3 field.
🔷Operations are more active
ICN is actively transitioning from Web2 to Web3 by providing hardware services as rewards to Web3 applications and collaborating with exchanges and Web3 platforms, promoting the integration of Web2 and Web3 ecosystems.
Therefore, in the dePIN ecosystem, while the "peach and plum trees" are well-known, the benefits of the "red oranges" may be less recognized—empty words about peach and plum trees, can this tree have no shade.
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