Foundation run ICO, Individual Content & Skill Token (ICST), is offering entertainers a blockchain solution like no other. Here’s how they differ from the pack.
The World Wide Web opened the floodgates for academic and creative content providers to distribute their material to a global audience. What the internet did not do is kick the middleman and his fees out of the picture. PayPal takes a cut at the point of sale, whilst Spotify presents musicians with menial commissions and YouTube rewards consumers with annoying advertisements. Let us not forget the billions artists lose out on each year thanks to illegal download and streaming sites.
Blockchain can take some of the pain away from these talented content sharers by removing intermediaries and facilitating unimpeded peer-to-peer, or artist-to-fan, exchange. Many have recognized and leveraged this game-changing technology in support of content creators, but one Singaporean start-up stands out from the crowd.
ICST is administered by the People-Joy Foundation. According to the ICST white paper, the Foundation is an independent and non-profit entity that ‘maintains and promotes the democracy, fairness, transparency, security, and reliability of the community’. Whilst blockchain companies like Choon boast more favorable profit splits, the foundation run ICST removes the barriers to entry for content creators and consumers altogether. It provides a zero-fee platform where creators retain 100% ownership over their revenue. ICST even issues copyright certification, so artists can focus on the fun stuff like making and sharing their material, not processing applications.
Unlike many blockchain-based competitors, ICST is not running a multi-million-dollar token sale. Rather, its goal is to give the community a chance to own utility tokens now in anticipation of the platform launch in Q3, 2018. The ICST token can be integrated into any compatible platform, meaning the token can be traded and used across multiple existing and new content sharing platforms. The company has focussed its efforts on preparing artists for what’s to come, rather than urging ICO participation. Demonstrating its use case prior to launch, the company is running an #icstidol Instagram competition, which rewards participants with 30 tokens per submission until 30 June 2018.
ICST has secured partnerships with talent shows American Idol & the Voice as well as mobile streaming applications StarMaker & Uplive. They have even buddied up on the blockchain, partnering with virtual gifting platform, Gifto.
What’s more, ICST has backing from parent company Kunlun technology and its billionaire CEO, Yahui Zhou. Kunlun is a leader in gaming and application development in China. The company is best known for its multi-million-dollar acquisitions of gaming app, Angry Birds & gay networking app, Grindr. It also acquired, built and sold Musical.ly, a content sharing & lip-syncing music app much loved by teens around the globe. Zhou is all too familiar with the plight of aspiring artists and will lend his experienced hand to the platform’s development as one of ICST’s advisors.
Funding, philanthropy and formidable allegiances aren’t ICST’s only points of differentiation. The platform creates an innovative revenue model for content consumers, rewarding them with tokens for sharing, reviewing, reporting copyright breaches and other engagement activities. Not to mention, an ad and spam free content platform where they can find and enjoy the music, education or videos they love.
Marking an unparalleled entry into the market, ICST will have a user base of 60 million upon launch in Q3 this year, with StarMaker app the first to integrate the protocol. Learn more about ICST on the website or Medium blog. The platform also has a very active community on Telegram.
Join ICST Airdrop: https://www.westart.co/project/icst-airdrop
Share your talent and be rewarded, or vote for in the ICST idol competition: #icstidol
