???? In Jiangnan, there are tangerines, which remain green even through winter: Against the trend
This coin was discovered in Binance Alpha; at the beginning of August, the market was declining, but $ICNT seems to show signs of rising against the trend.
On the daily level, the tested support level showed a long upper shadow at the end of July, and the trading volume has been increasing in the past week. We need to observe for a while longer to confirm the support level.
???? Is it because the ground air is warm, that there is a heart that endures the cold: Diving into exploring differentiation
The market of the new coin still needs observation. However, the price support may be related to the project fundamentals. On the surface, the Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) appears to be an unremarkable dePIN project, but diving into research reveals that this project actually 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, as well as Builders and $ICNT stakers. Among them:
Hardware suppliers establish ScalerNode nodes to execute storage, computing, and other tasks.
HyperNode nodes are the verifiers 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 are key users who develop and establish applications using various hardware resources of the ICN network.
$ICNT holders can choose nodes for staking and receive corresponding rewards.
The entire dePIN network generates revenue by providing external services such as storage, computing, and rendering, and then rewards are provided to nodes and token stakers.
❚ Dive in
But in fact, other dePIN projects are either storage, computing, or network service types. However, the Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) is building a comprehensive, integrated, and composable dePIN network.
The ICN network is about to be a comprehensive dePIN network composed of various hardware such as storage, CPU, GPU, network facilities, etc. At that time, builders can use distributed hardware combinations in the ICN ecosystem to build truly decentralized applications.
Therefore, the future ICN will be a large dePIN, a decentralized large-scale computer ecosystem.
???? Market
❚ On the surface
Official Twitter @ICN_Protocol and platforms like CoinMarketCap show that the official website of ICN is icn.global.
❚ Dive in
According to the LinkedIn of ICN's CEO, we can see another platform the CEO is involved in, Impossible Cloud, whose official website is impossiblecloud.com.
This is a cloud storage platform established in 2021, whose advantages are: compliant with European technical standards; unlimited hot storage; built-in ransomware protection software; 80% cost savings compared to Amazon's AWS; while also supporting AWS S3's API.
In other words, ICN's foundation is a technologically mature cloud storage platform, and it has many high-quality enterprise clients in Europe.
If you only look at the ICN official website, you might question the website's data: 'Supported over $7 million in ARR for more than 1,000 enterprise clients, backed over 80PB of active storage, deeply integrated with $10 billion ecosystems, etc.'
But if you go to the Impossible Cloud website, you will see feedback and praise from these enterprise clients about Impossible Cloud.
While the service providers of Impossible Cloud actually come from the dePIN network—Impossible Cloud Net (ICN).
According to the search trends of 'Impossible Cloud' on Google, it is indeed more popular in the European region. Moreover, $ICNT has already been listed on Kraken, an American exchange, but its main users come from Europe. This indicates that ICN is compliant in Europe and the US and has a better market foundation in Europe.
The two major features of the ICN market: one is having a large number of enterprise clients, and the other is having a better market foundation in Europe.
???? Ecosystem
❚ On the surface
According to official website data, the total TVL of the ICN network is 79.82M $ICNT, approximately worth $16.6 million.
Node distribution is mainly in Europe, extending to North America, Brazil, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
❚ Dive in
Dune data shows that according to data updated 17 days ago, a total of 28,840 nodes in the ICN network have been sold, worth 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 not low.
???? Can recommend Jia Ke, but the obstacles are deep: The potential from Web2 to Web3
The CEO of ICN—Dr. Kai Wawrzinek is an elite entrepreneur who graduated from Heidelberg University, with rich successful entrepreneurial experience in gaming and VC, and was a board member of well-known companies. Because the projects launched on Binance Alpha and Kraken are reliable, I won't go into detail about other team members.
Focusing on the CEO's resume, we can see that Impossible Cloud was founded in 2021, while Impossible Cloud Network was founded in 2023, and the $ICNT token TGE will be in 2025.
Therefore, ICN is a project transitioning from Web2 to Web3, and it is one that does things first and issues tokens later.
However, besides Dune, there currently isn't third-party data on the ICN network available on platforms like Defillama or TokenTerminal.
These are some obstacles that are not conducive to promoting Web3.
Of course, for ICN, which has been online for only about a month, this is also where the potential lies.
???? Destiny is only what one encounters, cycles cannot be sought: Active operation
The author of this poem is the famous Tang Dynasty minister Zhang Jiuling, and this poem is excerpted from his poetry group (Ganyü) written during his exile, expressing his feelings through tangerines.
"Destiny is only what one encounters, cycles cannot be sought"; fate is often encountered rather than sought, as cycles are difficult to trace, only this line of poetry is unrelated to the tangerine.
This point of ICN is different from Zhang Jiuling; the project is actively promoting integration with Web3.
For example, recently the ICN network provided 50TB of cloud storage as rewards to 5 Web3 projects. And 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.
For instance, the Web3 data platform Messari released an analysis report on ICN, and it is expected that there will be ICN on-chain data analysis tools launched in the future.
???? Just saying there are peach and plum trees, does this tree not have shade: Advantage comparison
If other excellent dePIN projects are 'peach and plum', then ICN can be considered the 'tangerine' among dePIN, not inferior to other 'peach and plum'.
???? ICN vs Aethir
ICN and Aethir have similarities in that they both provide enterprise-grade services while targeting the Web3 market.
The first distinction is that Aethir is primarily a decentralized GPU network serving fields like AI and cloud gaming, providing computing services. Meanwhile, ICN is currently decentralized cloud storage, which is about to develop into a large dePIN integrating various hardware.
The second distinction is that Aethir's main market is currently the Asian market, while ICN originated in Europe and has a greater influence in the English market. It is also expanding into the Chinese market through a Chinese account.
???? ICN vs Filecoin & Arweave
Currently, ICN mainly focuses on storage services, making it comparable to Filecoin and Arweave.
The first distinction is that on the demand side, Filecoin and Arweave primarily serve the Web3 field. In fact, there are very few Web3 applications that utilize Filecoin. However, ICN's service targets include not only enterprises in the Web2 field but also various dApps in the Web3 field.
And ICN is expanding its hardware service types beyond storage.
The second distinction is that on the supply side, there are currently over 1,400 active miners in Filecoin, over 400 active miners in Arweave, while ICN has sold about 30,000 nodes, with 1,009 different node operators. Moreover, the ICN mainnet has only been online for a month, and the enthusiasm of participants is higher.
???? Written at the end
Diving into exploration, focusing on project progress and ecosystem operations, comparative analysis, etc., we can find that relative to what is seen on the surface, the ICN network's products are actually more distinctive, its ecosystem is larger, and its operations are more active.
???? Products are more distinctive
Unlike existing dePINs, the ICN network product will be a decentralized integrated network composed of multiple hardware.
For enterprise users, the existing ICN network decentralizes monopoly profits, allowing enterprise users to obtain high-quality, low-cost services.
For Web3 users, in the future, builders can build decentralized applications based on ICN without needing to purchase storage on one dePIN and computing power on another dePIN... just one ICN network, which on one hand forms a larger scale economy and provides lower costs; on the other hand, hardware matching within the same network can achieve higher performance.
Thus, ICN's products will be a large dePIN of high quality and low cost.
???? Ecosystem is more scalable
Although the ICN mainnet has only been online 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 (about 30,000) in the Web3 field.
???? More active operation
ICN is actively transitioning from Web2 to Web3 by providing hardware services to Web3 applications as rewards, collaborating with exchanges and Web3 platforms to promote the integration of the Web2 and Web3 ecosystems.
So, in the dePIN ecosystem, while the fragrance of 'peach and plum' is known to all, the benefits of 'tangerine' may be little known—just saying there are peach and plum trees, does this tree not have shade?
