ICON! ICX!
The ICON system is fantastic in that it allows Communities to be almost completely independent. Unlike the Globalist tones of the whitepaper, the system is the opposite of Globalism. Each Community has near autonomy, in that it can have its own currency and sets its own rules, even its own consensus algorithm. Likewise, ICON allows the flexibility to create Communities in various different countries with various different laws and regulations for crypto companies.
Connecting all these different communities is the decentralized ICON Republic blockchain. This block chain uses ICX Coins. On top of this blockchain, third parties can create DAPPs that can interact with Communities and one another, or just be standalone operations. So we can now outline where ICX tokens are used: on the ICON Republic blockchain, when communities interact with one another, when communities interact with the ICON Republic, when communities interact with DAPPs, and when DAPPs interact with each other. The most important thing to note is that the ICX coin is not needed within Communities.
A great example is the hospital and insurance scheme outlined in the whitepaper and on ICON’s website.
The way they present the scheme, the Hospitals and Insurance companies are separate Communities in ICON. This means the ICX coin is put to use whenever Insurance Communities interact with Hospital Communities. However, this isn’t necessarily the case, as American Readers know. Some behemoths like Blue Cross would translate their entire network onto the blockchain as one Community, meaning that the ICX token would not get near the use. When you analyze what should happen to the ICX price as Communities are added, you always need to keep this in mind. All interactions within a Community do not require the ICX coin, so even a very large partnership could have little long term affect on the value of ICX tokens.