ICN: The financial backer behind Xiaomi bets on Web3 full-stack cloud. What is the strength of the 470M valuation?

At the end of May, ICN (Impossible Cloud Network) @ICN_Protocol announced that it had received strategic investment from NGP Capital, with a valuation of US$470 million. Many people's first reaction was: "Xiaomi invested in Web3?" Although this was not a direct move by Lei Jun, it was made by NGP Capital, the hard-core fund that had bet on Xiaomi, Helium, and WorkFusion. This means that ICN is not a storytelling project, but a real infrastructure player favored by traditional hard-core capital.

➤ What is ICN? Why is it favored by long-term institutions?

ICN is positioned as a full-stack decentralized cloud, dedicated to building the infrastructure layer of the decentralized Internet, a permissionless, composable cloud platform that integrates storage, computing, and networking. It not only provides Web2-level performance and experience, but also has the anti-censorship and community-driven characteristics of Web3, challenging the monopoly of centralized giants such as AWS and Google Cloud.

➡️This is not an abstract vision, but a project that has been implemented in the European market:

- Revenue strength: In 2024, ICN has achieved an annual revenue of 5 million US dollars, serving 1,000+ corporate customers, with a growth rate of over 2,000%. The reserve order exceeds 250PB, the real-time operation storage is 50PB, and 20-50 million files are processed daily, which has real market verification.

- Leading position in Europe: As the fastest growing cloud service provider in Europe, ICN was founded by serial entrepreneurs. The founder Kai Wawrzinek has the experience of listing on the Nasdaq of Goodgame Studios, and the team has received 31 million US dollars in financing (1kx, Protocol Labs, etc.).

- Community and nodes: With 250,000+ community members and 220,000+ test network users, its HyperNode + SLA Oracle model encourages participation through high-first-low-last rewards (18.4% released in the first month), and node sales revenue exceeds 12 million US dollars.

- Future plans: The mainnet and $ICNT tokens are expected to be launched in Q2 2025. It has been confirmed that multiple centralized exchanges support it. The brand is active in global events such as PBW and Token2049.

Unique highlights: ICN is called "AWS of Web3" not only because of its full-stack architecture, but also because it has achieved commercial results before the token is issued. Compared with the closed systems of Web2 giants, ICN provides an alternative that is censorship-resistant and has a low threshold;Compared with other DePIN projects, ICN's multi-business integration and B2B verification are more competitive.

➤ Comparison and economic model of ICN and other DePIN projects

Compared with "point-like projects" that only focus on a certain resource (such as Filecoin is limited to storage, Akash/IO.net focuses on computing power), ICN has chosen a more difficult but more valuable route-to be a "decentralized AWS" with a unified architecture and modular composability:

In addition, the HyperNode + SLA Oracle double-layer structure proposed by ICN also refreshed the node model, encouraging the community to participate in platform construction by "contributing resources to get profit sharing", opening up channels for future B2C expansion.

Economic model:

The total supply of $ICNT is 700 million (700,000,000), which is expected to be gradually released within 60 months (5 years). Node rewards, ecological development, and team allocation all adopt a decreasing or linear release method to avoid excessive selling pressure in the short term. The team and investors will not unlock in the first 12 months, reflecting long-term commitment.

➤ Outlook for the next stage of the DePIN track

The DePIN track is moving from single functions (such as storage and computing power) to full-stack infrastructure. ICN has seized this trend, especially when AI and data services place higher demands on computing power and architecture. Decentralized cloud has become the "water, electricity and coal" of Web3 due to its low cost, strong elasticity and high controllability, and is an indispensable infrastructure.

Potential of ICN:

🔸Full-stack vision: The integrated design of storage + computing power + network makes ICN a "one-stop" solution for developers and enterprises, and may support decentralized AI, social and other scenarios in the future.

🔸Community-driven: Through node dividends and $ICNT tokens, ICN promotes B2C growth, similar to the bottom-up model of the Bitcoin miner community.

🔸Challenge Web2 giants: ICN's ultimate goal is to compete with AWS and Alibaba Cloud, provide enterprise-level services in a decentralized way, and avoid censorship and lock-in risks.

Conclusion: Web3's cloud should not be defined by Web2 giants

ICN is promoting a less noisy "infrastructure revolution". It is not about improving a certain functional module, but rebuilding the entire technical foundation. It makes people think again: Should the decentralized world also have its own AWS?

We have all witnessed Xiaomi's investment story. Today, its investors are investing in a new future in Web3.

⏰The project TGE is coming soon, and some current participation angles are for reference: the previous Galxe Galaxy mission has ended, you can pay attention to the HyperNode plan and participate in the low-threshold node construction; or participate in social posting.

Log in to the official website: /world.icn.global Select the country and link the wallet and Twitter. Try to use the old wallet to link, because it involves the anti-witch Github score test, remember to mark#ICNTWorldDominationwhen posting

If you are interested, you can follow the official @ICN_Protocol or Chinese @ICN_China to learn more about the latest developments of the Q2 mainnet and tokens.