1. Token introduction
ICP token is the underlying token of Internet Computer. It was launched by the Dfinity Foundation in May 2021. Internet Computer is an open source general computer blockchain network designed to solve the problems of poor security, data monopoly and user data being faced by the traditional Internet. Problems such as abuse, to put it bluntly, are the Web 3.0 you have been hearing about. In the future, almost any Web 2.0 service can be migrated to the ICP network. It can be said that Dfinity has realized the grand vision that Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, has always wanted to realize, which is to provide an Internet world that is secure, never goes down, has private data and cannot be tampered with at will. It is worth noting that the ICP network is the only decentralized network that has integrated the BTC and Ethereum networks, and does not require the use of cross-chain bridges for token transfers.
2. Token Financing
DFINITY has gone through three rounds of financing, raising approximately US$166 million:
On February 14, 2017, the seed round financing was US$4.2 million, and the token price was approximately US$0.0362, accounting for 24.72%. It was an ICO round of community financing; (Unlocking cycle 48, May 2021 - June 2025)
On February 7, 2018, the strategic round of financing raised US$61 million. The token price was approximately US$1.8978, accounting for 6.85% of the initial token allocation of the main network. The investors were A16Z and Polychain Capital. (90% unlocked)
On August 28, 2018, the largest venture capital round raised a total of $102 million, accounting for 4.75% of the mainnet’s initial token allocation. Fundraising cost $4.5765 per token and was led by A16Z and Polychain Capital, with participation from SV Angel, Aspect Ventures, Village Global, Multicoin Capital, Scalar Capital, Amino Capital and KR1, as well as members of the DFINITY community. (all unlocked)
Therefore, the highest financing price was US$4.5 in 2018, and the lowest was US$0.0362. The highest price of Ethereum that year was 1,600. Three years later, the ICP mainnet was launched and the highest price was 2,000. The overall market value was 2000*500 million, even exceeding that of Big Pie and Ethereum. The total market capitalization, and the lowest financing cost is only 0.0362, which is the main reason for the continuous decline.
In the distribution of ICP tokens:
Pre-sale: 24.72%+6.85%+4.75% = 36.32%.
Dfinity Foundation holds: 23.85%.
Team members hold: 18%.
Airdrop: 1.25%
Others: including voting rewards, project marathon rewards, node operators, consultants and developer subsidies, etc.
3. Advantages of Internet Computers
ICP is the world's first Layer 1 public chain that runs at network speed, is infinitely scalable, and can carry any number of smart contracts to calculate and store any amount of data. However, it is different from second-generation public chains such as Ethereum in that it does not follow The chain structure of the blockchain has designed a unique network structure in order to adapt to large-scale network loads and take decentralization into consideration.
Its technical features mainly include: full-stack decentralization, multi-development language compatibility, no need for users to pay Gas, self-governance system and stable Gas model. Specifically:
Full-stack decentralization: The services deployed by users include front-end HTML and back-end contracts, which are deployed in the container (smart contract) of the ICP network. The service can be accessed through the browser and does not rely on any centralized server (such as AWS and Alibaba Cloud) , including DNS resolution and firewall technology are not required.
Compatible with multiple development languages: Currently, ICP network deployment smart contracts support: Motoko language (a development language specifically used for ICP), Rust, Typescript, and Python. In theory, any development language that can be compiled into WASM will be supported, so in the future, C language, Java All are possible.
Decentralized Internet identity: ICP identity login does not require traditional Web2 email addresses, mobile phone numbers, usernames and passwords, etc. It only requires that the device supports fingerprint devices, face recognition, USB key login, etc., and of course also supports mnemonic phrases. Therefore, it does not need to install a wallet. You can create a wallet in nns.ic0.app and use the browser to invoke fingerprint login.
Reverse Gas and Stable Gas Rates: The Gas consumed in ICP is called Cycles and needs to be converted by consuming ICP. Cycles is anchored to 1 SDR under algorithm regulation (SDR can be regarded as a stable unit based on comprehensive multi-national legal currency calculations), while the pricing of Cycles in the ICP network is fixed in storage and requests, so the Gas of the ICP network can be It is predictable and not tied to the ICP currency price (the higher the ICP price, the more Cycles can be redeemed, and vice versa), making it easier for hardware providers to stabilize their budgets.
Chain-Key technology: Chain-Key is the core technology behind ICP. The specific mechanism is that the ICP blockchain creates a unique public key of only 48 bytes, and any device can verify the ICP network. (I don’t quite understand this either)
Unlimited expansion: ICP can achieve seamless and smooth expansion. It can not only automatically generate new subnets based on network load conditions, but also does not need to stop services during the expansion process. For users and developers, the expansion process is imperceptible. Therefore, he has implemented a natural sharding mechanism that will not cause downtime due to increased network demand (Solana). Give it a try during Double 11 when you have time.
Community governance: DFINITY operates a decentralized token governance system called Network Nervous System NNS, which is a governance system that can help the DFINITY network achieve self-evolution.
There are many more, I won’t list them all...
4. ICP’s inflation-deflation model
The total supply of ICP is not fixed and belongs to the infinite issuance model, so the burning must be greater than the minting to produce deflation, just like Ethereum. ICP has two main uses, one is to lock open neurons, and the other is to convert it into Cycles as fuel. To put it simply, it is to manage and pay network fees, and of course it can also be used as a network payment carrier.
ICP’s NNS governance voting rewards: The amount of ICP created by NNS each year starts from 10% of the total supply, decreases year by year for 8 consecutive years, and stabilizes at around 5% per year after the 8th year.
NNS will also pay legal currency-based remuneration to IC's node providers, and the remuneration will be remitted in the form of additional issuance of ICP corresponding to the legal currency value; however, considering the ratio of the overall value of the existing IC network to the total value of the node, the node provider's Payments represent, at most, a small fraction of the value of the existing IC network and are unlikely to result in an increase in ICP supply, but in the extreme case if ICP prices fall significantly while paying node operating expenses remain the same, this could Significant increase in issuance, but the NNS community can control it through proposals.
The IC smart contract service uses cycles to pay for the processing power and storage capacity of the IC. Cycles can be purchased using ICP. ICP and cycles are one-way exchanges (that is, cycles can no longer be converted into ICP). The IC network always anchors the value of 1 trillion units of cycles to the fiat currency of 1 SDR. SDR is the value of the International Monetary Fund's basket of world currencies, with 1 SDR equal to approximately $1.44. Anchoring mechanisms in cycles are useful in assessing the scale of developer and user usage of the IC network, but they do not affect the underlying value estimate of the ICP. IC's storage cost is very cheap, about $5 per GB per year, which is 3.62 times the cost of AWS RDS storage, but IC's data is replicated at least 7 times by default, while AWS's storage is not.
Conclusion: There is no upper limit on ICP supply. Inflation comes from additional issuance payment node fees + NNS governance benefits, and deflation mainly comes from network consumption converted into Cycles.
Valuation of ICP
In addition to DeFi, IC Network also supports social media, metaverse, peer-to-peer services (such as chat), multiplayer games, identity management, video playback, etc. Its market value is actually not suitable for comparison with the current mainstream public chains because it targets the entire Web2 crowd. Therefore, based on the valuation calculation of a senior ICP holder, refer to the top 10 AWS users:
Netflix: $19 million
Twitch: $15 million
LinkedIn: $13 million
Facebook: $11 million
Turner: $10 million
BBC: $9 million
Baidu: $9 million
ESPN: $8 million
Adobe: $8 million
Twitter: $7 million
The current global cloud computing market size is approximately US$450 billion, growing at an annual rate of 18%. This represents spending on storage, compute, networking and systems software. IC will replace all these services. Therefore, if we assume that the initial segment accounts for 50% of this market as estimated above, IC now has a target market size of $225 billion. It is worth noting that this figure obviously does not take into account the potential of IC as a front-end for all decentralized services and a series of advantages. This market size estimate is relatively conservative.
If IC can acquire 7% of users from these initial target verticals within 5 years, this would be equivalent to developers spending $15.66 billion annually on IC services. Based on inequality (5) above, this means that ICP’s price is at least approximately $553: ($15.66 billion)/(470 million x 6%). In 8 years, as the cloud market develops and ICP inflation drops to a steady state of 5%, the base price will rise to $660.
This is why I can see $200. In the long run, if the ICP network is successful, it will not be particularly difficult to exceed $1,000, and so far no Layer 1 public chain can do what the ICP network does. Web2 services can be implemented, so the moat of ICP is extremely deep!
Finally, writing an article is not easy. If you like it, give it a like or comment!
Source cited in this article:
Dfinity Foundation ICP White Paper
https://dropstab.com
https://medium.com/coinmonks/whats-the-value-of-the-internet-computer-ic-33a6713a3371
DFINITY (ICP) Research Report
