We are now growing out of the initial phase of ICONs decentralization and into the phase that will define ICON’s status as a blockchain for the foreseeable future.

Of the time of this post, there are 33 of 66 P-Rep candidates operating a productive node. Which means there are currently 11 Sub P-Reps. The exact amount and distribution of Citizen Nodes are still unclear to us.

With the total voter percentage at a little above 23%, voter participation has slowed, which is common amongst distributed projects. Voter distribution has continued to concentrate on the top P-Reps, albeit at a slower rate now.

With that being said, we would like to reiterate some information in this post for the ICON community on how we can continue to align incentives for P-Reps, Sub-Preps and Citizen Nodes for the sustainable decentralization of ICON.

Firstly, it’s important for voters to understand that whether you vote for a P-Rep or Sub P-Rep the rewards you receive from delegation are the same, and you can also split your vote to up to 10 different P-Reps. So it makes sense in the long term to spread your stake across a few different P-Reps and Sub-P-reps to align incentives.

Secondly, we would like to bring to light a proposal recently created by Block42 that is an attempt to reach a broader distribution of P-Rep rewards through Sub P-Reps in the event that the Main P-Reps go down.

Finally, we would like to reiterate the nature of the Pocket/Figment proposal because we believe this is the most complete solution for incentive alignment and sustainable decentralization of the ICON blockchain and ecosystem.

Pocket Network is a relay network for blockchain infrastructure, with an economic incentive layer that rewards nodes directly.

This means that any nodes connected to Pocket that are servicing applications will be generating revenue outside of the P-Rep rewards via the POKT token economics. This added incentive will work to continually grow the ICON node network into one of the more resilient blockchains in the space.

The relay network within Pocket Network coordinates application requests randomly to a given node-set in the network. So by design, any application connected to the ICON endpoint in Pocket Network will run on decentralized infrastructure. In the event that a node goes down for any reason, Pocket Network will automatically route the request to another random node in the network.

Pocket Network guarantees DApps resilience, while also providing a much needed additional incentive for node operators to maintain productive nodes in the network.

We encourage any voters to read through the Pocket/Figment proposal and our most recent development update and if you see the value that this will bring to ICON decentralization, delegate with us.

Pocket/Figment P-Rep — https://tracker.icon.foundation/address/hxe886f81684bbecddd69a608093fb88624c94d20a