Accelerates ambitious developmenttimeline through venture and crowd-backed sale
New York, NY, June 16, 2017 -Bancor, the standard for creation of intrinsically tradeable cryptocurrencies,or “Smart Tokens,” today announced the raise of $153 million USD in its TokenGeneration Event (TGE) earlier this week, the largest crowdsale in history. BNTtokens were issued immediately to contributors following the TGE conclusion viaan Ethereum smart contract.
Bancor Co-Founder Galia Benartzi said, “Bancor is deeply grateful to our vastcommunity for its support in making the project’s launch an astronomicalsuccess. Together, we made history as the world’s largest crowdsale to date,spurring the most significant spike in transactions the Ethereum ecosystem hasever seen.
“As Bancor launches into its development phase with substantial initialfunding, we can accelerate our plans to transform the industry with a platformthat enables anyone to easily create a viable currency for their community orproject, as well as strengthen BNT with a large reserve, buy back program, andpartnership grants. Our expansion begins today.”
Bancor enables the easy creation of smart tokens, which allow for newlyembedded functionality into cryptocurrencies. With the ability to hold othertokens in reserve and to be traded directly with their own smart contracts, asopposed to any counter-party, smart tokens can instantly be exchanged fortokens of all types on the network, enhancing liquidity and facilitatingusage-driven and algorithmic price discovery.
Galia Benartzi said, “Bancor Network Token (BNT) holders can easily exchangetheir smart tokens for others in the network. BNT will serve as the reservecurrency for new smart tokens created by anyone on the Bancor platform,capturing the network effect of the ecosystem’s growth. Bancor’s network allowstokens to be traded directly through their smart contracts, without the needfor an exchange, providing a new solution to the liquidity limitations thathave historically prevented the spectrum of user-generated currencies fromemerging.
“The cryptocurrency community has provided us with an historic mandate. Withtheir digital wallets, contributors from around the world demanded access tothe technology the Bancor team outlined in our white paper. With this communityof supporters in mind, as well as future end-users of smart tokens, Bancor isdetermined to create a platform with universal utility that can elevate theindustry to new heights and fundamentally change the economic landscapeforever,” added Galia Benartzi.
The Bancor TGE attracted 10,885 buyers with more than 15,000 transactions sentto the address for purchases during the event. In total, 79,323,978 Bancornetwork tokens (BNTs) were created as part of the Token Generation Event. Halfof the total tokens, 39,661,989 BNT, were sold to the public, while theremaining were allocated to future use as detailed on their website prior tothe event.
Bancor will use the proceeds of the raise as follows: 40% dedicated to softwaredevelopment, 20% as an Ethereum reserve for BNT, 12% toward marketing andbusiness development, 10% for seeding Token Changes (smart tokens that holdmultiple reserves and allow for direct exchange between them) andexchange-traded funds (Token Baskets), 8% for operational costs, 5% for legalexpenses, and the remaining 5% for miscellaneous purposes.
Capitalized in record-setting fashion, Bancor’s team announced plans to acceleratespecific elements of the Project Roadmap, available for public viewing andcommentary on Trello.
“Bancor is delighted to move into an accelerated development phase, thanks tothe enormous support of our contributors in making our Token Generation Event amomentous success. It is with great pride that we take our next steps andexpand our ambitious plans, including adding talent to our already world-classdevelopment team, and empowering communities internationally to adopt smarttokens for their networks,” said Galia Benartzi.
The Bancor team consists of Foundation Council members Guy Benartzi, EyalHertzog, and renowned economist and architect of the Euro Dr. Bernard Lietaerserving as Chief Monetary Architect, with Galia Benartzi leading business development,and Yehuda Levi as Chief Technology Officer.
Bancor’s sterling advisory board includes legendary venture capitalist TimDraper of Draper Associates; research scientist at the MIT Media Lab HumanDynamics Group John Henry Clippinger; eToro CEO Yoni Assia; CEO of FinancialAlgorithms Yariv Gilat; Facebook’s former Head of Commerce Lee Linden; andCo-Founder of Asana Justin Rosenstein, among others.
For more information, the Bancor whitepaper is available at www.bancor.network.
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About Bancor
Bancor protocol is an initiative of the Bprotocol Foundation, a nonprofitorganization based in Zug, Switzerland. Bancor protocol is a standard for thecreation of Smart Tokens, a new standard for cryptocurrencies which areintrinsically tradable. Starting on the Ethereum public blockchain, Bancorutilizes an innovative reserve method to enable built-in price discovery andautomatic liquidity for cryptocurrencies, without the need for matching two partiesin an exchange. The Bancor protocol creates a new type of interconnected assetexchange ecosystem which unlocks the long tail of user-generated tokens. Smarttokens are designed with additional functionality such as “delegatedaccount recovery” and “vaults” to address security and recoveryissues. The aim of these features is to make cryptocurrencies accessible to alland to encourage mass adoption of these advanced technologies in society.