#icon Community Insights & Market Sentiment

The countdown to ICX hitting zero has begun, but the market doesn’t seem to have caught on yet. ICON Network announced it will cease operations by the end of 2026, and that time frame is long enough for short-term speculators to think, "it's still early." However, on-chain data is quietly signaling warnings — comparing it to EOS's situation before its mainnet shutdown in 2023, ICX's discount path could be even steeper.

First, let’s look at on-chain vitality and risk premium. The migration cost of ICON's dApps is a key variable. Currently, there are about 20 active dApps on the public chain, including DeFi and identity verification protocols, that would require time and gas fees to migrate to other chains (like Polygon or BNB Chain). Once the migration wave starts, on-chain activity will plummet, and validator nodes will exit rapidly. With ICX currently priced at around 0.15 USDT, down over 98% from its historical peak of 12.6 USDT, it’s worth noting that before EOS announced its shutdown in September 2023, EOS’s price fell from 0.7 USDT to 0.4 USDT, with on-chain transaction volume shrinking by over 60%. ICX’s average daily trading volume is just 5 million USD, and if on-chain activity declines year-on-year, liquidity discount could push the price below 0.05 USDT directly.

Next, let’s analyze funding rates and open interest changes. The funding rate for ICX perpetual contracts has remained between -0.01% and 0.005% over the past week, indicating a neutral to low level without extreme short positioning. However, the open interest shrank from 12 million USD to 8.5 million USD within 24 hours of the announcement, a decline of 29%, suggesting that smart money is reducing positions rather than shorting. This is similar to the situation before EOS's shutdown—shorts are not piling in because the zeroing logic is too evident, and shorting actually faces risks of a short squeeze in the short term. But once on-chain activity confirms a decline, open interest will continue to shrink, and prices will enter a phase of "liquidity strangulation."

On a macro narrative level, ICON's Korean background was once a plus, but the operational halt announcement has directly destroyed the long-term holding narrative. Korean regulators have always had a strict stance on orphaned chains. After the Terra collapse in 2024, Korean users have a very low tolerance for "zombie chains." Over 70% of ICX holdings are retail, and these bags won’t sell off proactively under zeroing expectations; instead, they’ll choose to “play dead.” The result is that selling pressure is diluted, but buying pressure has almost vanished — prices will experience a slow, downward "creeping decline," rather than a sharp drop. This kind of movement is the most dangerous for short-term traders because the rebound potential keeps getting squeezed.

The final risk point lies in the "time gap trap." Operations cease at the end of 2026, but node rewards and cross-chain bridges might start to fail gradually in 2025. ICON's IISS governance system relies on validator node voting; once node rewards hit zero, validators will exit early, and on-chain confirmation times will stretch from 30 seconds to several minutes, further accelerating the death spiral. Compared to EOS before its shutdown, its node rewards decreased by 40% within six months after the announcement, while ICX currently has 55 nodes. If this number drops by 20% within the next quarter, on-chain transaction costs will skyrocket.

In summary: The zeroing risk premium of ICX has not been fully priced in, but on-chain vitality and holding data have already provided clear signals — this coin is transitioning from a "store of value" to a "time-sink." Short-term rebounds are an exit window, not a bottom-buying opportunity.

#ICX #ICON #Crypto

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