ICON to Conform to Industry Standard Methodology for Calculating Circulating Supply

Recently, some in the community may have noticed a big increase (by ~10 million ICX) to ICX circulating supply.

The supply increase was related to the previous announcement regarding ICONFi’s support for ERC20 ICX:

“To kick off this offering, the ICON Foundation has partnered with ICONFi to mint the first 50 million ERC20-based ICX tokens. This 50 million ERC20 ICX is fully collateralized by the same amount of ICX locked here.”

In the coming weeks, ICX circulating supply will increase further, however, as we adopt a methodology that is increasingly being used by exchanges and crypto projects as the standard methodology of circulating supply: tokens that are “circulating in the market” and “in the public hands”

Historically, the ICON Foundation has adopted a more conservative methodology of circulating supply used in the equities market that excludes unlocked/vested supply held by insiders. In other words, circulating supply did not include unlocked tokens internally controlled by the ICON Foundation.

Though we believe that this methodology, based on the free-float methodology used in the equities market to calculate publicly traded shares, provides a more accurate representation of circulating supply, we have decided to adopt the crypto industry standard methodology of circulating supply to comply with exchanges and to avoid confusion within the community.

Over the next few weeks, ICON Foundation and our partners will be updating how we calculate circulating supply so that it reflects the widely adopted methodology that includes all tokens that are unlocked and vested. Please note that all ICX tokens have been unlocked since 2020.

This means that eventually, exchanges and other information sources such as CoinMarketCap will calculate and display circulating supply based on the following formula:

Circulating Supply = Total Supply - Burn Address

On the ICON Tracker, the change in methodology will be reflected by the “ICX Supply” total equalling that of “ICX Circulation.”

Please note however, that none of this implies that additional tokens have been or will be released to the public, and especially not sold on exchanges. The increase in supply merely reflects the adoption of a new methodology of circulating supply, which adds the previously excluded reserves held by the ICON Foundation and its partners.

Just because we will be adopting a new methodology for calculating circulating supply does not mean that the token reserves held by the ICON Foundation and its partners will now be “circulating in the market” and “in the public hands.”

ICON Foundation continues to build toward its vision every day and will continue to prove itself over time.

Thank you for being part of our journey!

For answers to any questions, please join our community of ICONists on Discord.