What Is the Ice Open Network: Mobile Mining and Scalability

What Is the Ice Open Network?

Ice is a decentralized blockchain network designed for scalability and privacy with mobile mining features, enabling everyday users to participate in the network and earn rewards. 

Key Takeaways

• Ice Open Network (ION) is a decentralized network designed to power real-world financial transactions using a blockchain and a decentralized user identity system to aid peer-to-peer interactions in a zero-trust model.

• Ice network is a fork of the Telegram Open Network (TON); it extends the features of the TON network including the TON Virtual Machine (TVM) and its multi-threaded transaction processing architecture, and augments it with other features that make the network unique.

• Ice Open Network uses the PoS consensus mechanism and a mobile mining system powered by ICE, aiming to improve decentralization on the network by allowing more people to easily run a network node and participate in securing the network.

The Ice Open Network (ION) aims to enable everyday users to participate in the network and earn rewards, democratizing access to blockchain technology and allowing more people to contribute to and benefit from the decentralized ecosystem without needing expensive hardware or staking vast amounts of crypto with advanced technical knowledge. According to the project, ION is also designed to handle millions of requests per second.

ION is also designed for privacy and content ownership, giving users more control over their personal information. It is able to securely verify the authenticity of the transacting parties and be as decentralized as possible, opening up real-world applications where users can prove an identity attribute without disclosing the details around that attribute. 

Ice Open Network launched its mobile mining program in July 2023 and has onboarded over 9 million miners to date and its token, ICE, was listed on several exchanges in January 2023 as the ICE blockchain itself continues in development. But what is Ice Open Network?

Introducing the Ice Open Network

Ice Open Network (ION) is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain network designed for high throughput, widespread network participation, and decentralized financial operations. ION is a fork of the Telegram Open Network (TON). It extends the technologies developed by TON and hopes to build on the progress made on TON with additional features like decentralized identity, storage, and database solutions.

ION adopts the POS consensus system as a more agile, cost-effective, and environment-friendly consensus algorithm, it further improves the network’s decentralization by democratizing participation through its mobile mining feature. ION introduced the mobile tap-to-mine program in July 2023, allowing mobile phone users to operate the network’s client, run nodes, and earn tokens as a reward for contributing to the network’s decentralization. Ice network’s mobile mining program has onboarded about 9 million participants to the network.

The ION blockchain is currently in the testnet phase; at launch, the project developers hope to deliver a decentralized, scalable, and secure blockchain network that introduces features and use cases that open more possibilities for decentralized networks, like decentralized identity, file storage, and more. 

Team Background and Funding

Ice network is developed by Ice Labs, a subsidiary of Leftclick.io. Leftclick is a technology company that aims to redefine how individuals and businesses interact with technology by providing a suite of cutting-edge software products that cater to their unique needs. They are associated with a handful of other projects including Framey, Shifter, and Shapehost. The team behind the Ice Open Network project includes Robert Preoteasa, the CEO and co-founder of Framey – a Leftclick portfolio company.

There are no records of public funding programs for the Ice Open Network project at the time of writing.

How Does ION Work?

The ION blockchain is designed to handle huge amounts of transactions from millions of users. As a fork of the TON blockchain, it inherits several parts of the TON architecture including the parallel transaction processing model, the TON Virtual Machine (TVM), network sharding, and multiple blockchain operations. Thanks to the parallel transaction processing model, ION runs transactions through multiple threads, validating several transactions at the same time and achieving network consensus after each batch run.

Like TON, ION consists of a Masterchain, multiple Workchains, and several Shardchains. The Shardchains are autonomous parts of the network capable of processing transactions, they make up the work chain. By distributing the network’s workload across several shards, ION is able to achieve significant improvement in throughput and scale horizontally to accommodate a growing network workload.

Shard chains handle smart contract operations; they process transactions in parallel through the TVM and submit the transaction data to the consensus layer. Validators of the network verify the transactions and hash them into the network.

The Masterchain synchronizes the different factions of the network and handles operations like managing the native consensus system, overseeing the assets staked to the network, and coordinating validator activity. According to the ION developers, this design makes for a dynamic network capable of handling millions of transactions per second.

Ice Network Tap-to-Mine

Ice Network’s native token is mined via a tap-to-mine program on the Ice Network application. Participation is open to everyone who is able to run the application, although you will need an invite code to start mining. 

Tap-to-mine is a simplified mining strategy designed to lower the barrier to mining cryptocurrencies, scale network nodes, and reward participants for contributing to the security of decentralized networks. Tap-to-mine projects are usually mobile-based. Regardless of the platform, they feature time-based clicks that enable participants to run the network clients. This operation can also be a simulated form of the real network activity.

According to the project, over 9 million smartphone users around the world currently mine Ice Network’s native token on their mobile devices through the tap-to-mine feature.

How to Mine ICE

The Tap-to-mine program for the Ice network requires participants to log in to the application daily and tap the mining button to mine ICE. 

Ice Network also offers referral bonuses. If you are mining simultaneously with a friend you invited, you’ll both earn a bonus of 25% of your base mining rate, while if your friend invited more friends, you’ll also receive an additional bonus of 5% of the base mining rates of your friend’s friends. 

You can also earn additional bonuses based on your activities in the app, uninterrupted mining sequences, and checking news and announcements in the app. You can claim these bonuses within one hour of receiving the notifications, with the amount reduced every 15 minutes from the time the notification is sent. 

Users who consistently stay active for six consecutive days get a Day Off, and users who mine for 30 consecutive days get five Days Off. Day Offs keep the user online despite not logging in for the day; this only lasts for the number of days the user is eligible for a Day Off. Users who fail to log in daily are subjected to reward slashing. The slashing algorithm applies penalties to inactive users by reducing their already mined coins.

If you haven’t checked in after seven consecutive days, you can resurrect your account, canceling the slashing penalty. However, you can only use resurrection once. After 60 days, you will lose all your earned coins and you can no longer resurrect your account. 

While mining for the first phase of the project has ended, ION has released a new tap-to-mine project: Sunwaves.

Features of Ice Open Network

Ice Network hopes to develop a blockchain network that is capable of global adoption. The high-throughput fork of TON blockchain and the mobile-base Tap-to-mine features are one of the several strategies towards this goal, other features of the network contribute to this goal, and these include:

The ION ID – Decentralized digital Identity

ION proposes a decentralized, encrypted, and secure form of personal identity. The ION ID enables ION network users to create verifiable personal identities that allow them access to decentralized applications in the ION ecosystem. According to the project, this ID is stored off-chain and on the users’ devices, ensuring that the network doesn’t have direct access to the details. 

However, decentralized applications on the Ion ecosystem can authenticate users using the ION ID without knowing the users’ ID through selective disclosure and zero knowledge proofs. This way, it maintains the user’s privacy and also allows supported decentralized applications to verify their users. The ION ID hopes to solve the user verification challenges faced by blockchain as a tool for routine financial operations, and possibly even real world applications like whether someone is old enough to drink without revealing their birth date or actual age. 

Ice claims that the ION ID has the following attributes

Sovereignty: ION ID allows users to control the authentication process and how their personal data is used over the network.

Privacy: Users can set the assurance level for their IDs, this ranges from low to high. The assurance level controls the availability of data in the ID to dApps.

Security: User data on the ION ID is stored off-chain and encrypted with cryptographic keys. Only ID owners can decrypt this data at the request of the dApp.

Interoperability: The ION ID can be used on applications in the Ice network ecosystem and beyond. It is compatible with other decentralized digital identity systems. This feature aids the integration of the ION network with other platforms and services, and enhances the utility and reach of the ION ID service.

ION Connect – Decentralized Social Media

While social media is a vital part of our daily lives, most social media platforms are centralized and users have little control over their data. Issues like data breaches, poor handling of users’ data by platform administrators, and censorship of information have plagued centralized social media. As a fix, ION is developing a decentralized social media platform on the network. 

ION Connect is integrated into the Ice network application and allows users to communicate with each other. It claims to offer data privacy, no censorship, and most importantly, return the control of social media platforms to the users. Using Garlic Routing, ION Connect encrypts users’ messages, preventing eavesdroppers from accessing the details of peer communications on the platform. ION connect also supports ION ID, which enables the platform to manage user data and verifications without breaching their privacy. ION Connect is protected by ION nodes.

ION Liberty – Decentralized Proxy and Content Delivery Network

ION Liberty is similar to TON Proxy. It is an easy-access data-sourcing solution for applications that interact with the ION blockchain. As a content delivery network, ION Liberty caches data and multimedia on the ION blockchain, creating a readily available content network for applications. On their request, it easily releases the requested information to these applications. This enables CRUD applications to operate more efficiently with faster read and update requests. 

As a decentralized proxy network, ION Liberty improves privacy and censorship resistance on applications like the ION Connect. It enables nodes on ION Connect to conceal their locations, protecting them from potential threats. ION Liberty is designed to simplify node operations and dApp development on the ION blockchain. 

ION Vault – Decentralized Storage on the ION Blockchain

ION Vault is a decentralized data storage solution on the Ice network. It builds on the progress made on TON storage. Like TON storage, ION vault handles decentralized file storage via a torrent-based approach. Files stored on the network are split into shards and distributed across multiple storage nodes. These file shards are encrypted, ensuring file security and integrity as they transcend the network nodes. On request, the file shards are collated from the nodes and arranged accordingly. 

Through the process of file upload, sharding, and retrieval, the file remains intact. ION Vault integrates with the rest of the network, this allows applications on the network to leverage the vault for file storage. Users on the network can also access the vault using their ION ID.

ION Query – Decentralized Database

ION Query builds on the native structure of the blockchain as a database management tool. It takes a leaf from PostgreSQL and refines it for decentralization and high throughput. ION Query handles data on the network linearly, transactions are arranged in a deterministic order and processed serially. It combines this ordering model with the Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm to ensure that all validators in the network reach a uniform agreement on the state of the database after each transaction. This is also augmented with features like database hashing and checkpointing. 

ION Query makes for data integrity, resilience, and seamless validator integration on the ION network. ION Query comes in handy for decentralized applications on the network; DeFi applications can easily scale their data management practices thanks to the design of the ION Query. ION Query can also be used in voting systems, healthcare data, and supply chain management.

ICE Token and Tokenomics

The ION team announced on February 28, 2024, that it has completed the distribution of the ICE token to participants of its mobile-mining program. This marked the token generation event for the ICE token. ICE is the native token of the ION blockchain. With the launch of the mainnet, fees for transactions on the ION blockchain will be paid in ICE. 

Other use cases for ICE tokens include:

Network consensus: The ICE token will power the consensus system of the ION blockchain, contributing to the network’s security. As a POS network, validators will be required to stake an amount of ICE tokens to be able to run a node on the network. Rewards for this contribution will also be distributed in ICE tokens. Penalties for defaulting validators will also include slashing their staked ICE. Other holders can also join the consensus system by staking their ICE tokens with desired validators.

Governance: The ICE network’s governance is controlled by the community. Holders of ICE token make up the ICE DAO. DAO members decide on the direction of the project by voting on improvement proposals. The community will deliberate on proposed technological, financial, and administrative changes.

Network incentives: Nodes on the ION vault and the ION Query will be rewarded with ICE tokens. Other incentives, including promotional programs, will also be settled in ICE tokens.

Tokenomics

ICE is currently a BEP-20 standard token on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC). According to available data, the total supply of ICE is 21,150,537,435.26. This supply has been allocated to the consensus system, initial mining program, and further project development. 

• 28% distributed to the community for mining activity during the first phase of the project.

• 12% is allocated to the mainnet rewards pool to incentivize participation (locked for five years).

• 25% is allocated to the team to reward their contributions to the project and continued support (locked for 5 years).

• 15% allocated to the DAO, where holders will vote on how these funds will be used (locked for five years).

• 10% allocated to the treasury pool to execute strategic initiatives.

• 10% allocated for ecosystem growth and innovation (locked for five years).

ICE is currently tradable on PancakeSwap, and several centralized exchanges including MEXC, Kucoin, HTX, and Gate exchange. 

Final Thoughts

Ice Open Network’s decentralized identity system holds much potential; a zero knowledge verification system that could boost the adoption of decentralized solutions. It enables financial institutions to easily verify the authenticity of their users while users maintain their anonymity and privacy. It combines the benefits of a private system like the blockchain and the additional security provided by user authentication. In addition, mobile mining has a record of effectively onboarding more participants to decentralized networks. Other features of ION could be utilized as-is and also in the development of interesting applications and use cases of decentralized networks. 

Having said this, the ION blockchain is still in development, at launch, these features will be available to users and applied in their capacity. This article reviews the project, the proposed features, and how they work, only for educational purposes. It should not be taken as financial advice. Featured projects are not endorsed.