A few days ago, the ICO for the BANCOR token broke all records.
They might have had the biggest ICO to date with over $156 Million raised in just 3 hours!
The demand was so high that a lot of buyers' transactions didn't even go through, and the network experienced heavy malicious attacks (but all funds remained secure).
In total, the incredible amount of 396,720 ETH was raised in the 3 hour timespan.
What is BANCOR ?
Bancor Protocol is a standard for a new generation of cryptocurrencies called Smart Tokens.
The BANCOR protocol is a solution for different currencies to trade with each other, enabling a token to hold one or more tokens in reserve.
That way, there is a relationship between different tokens established, where conversions can be done directly with a smart contract.
This means that you don't have to rely on any exchange or 3rd party - you can instantly purchase or liquidate any currency directly through the smart contract.
And this works for any token, whether that's a fiat currency, cryptocurrency, or even physical assets like gold.
The Bancor protocol enables built-in price discovery and a liquidity mechanism for tokens on smart contract blockchains. These “smart tokens” hold one or more other tokens in reserve and enable any party to instantly purchase or liquidate the smart token in exchange for any of its reserve tokens, directly through the smart token’s contract, at a continuously calculated price, according to a formula which balances buy and sell volumes.
Use Cases
The different Use Cases for smart tokens include:
- Token Changers: smart tokens which are being used to exchange between different other tokens which are previously held in their reserve.
- ETFS Token Baskets: Similar to token changers, but in this case a smart token can hold multiple ERC20 tokens in their reserve, which in turn enables holding a portfolio of tokens just by holding a single smart token.
- Project and Protocol tokens: smart tokens can be used for crypto-crowdfunding projects. Tokens will be liquid and market-priced right away.
- Token creation for everyone: BANCOR allows anyone to launch their own smart token as well as multiple types of crowdsales without too much technical knowledge. This can be done by using chat bots within facebook messenger, telegram or wechat.
BANCOR Team and Investors
The team behind BANCOR consists of different cryptocurrency- and blockchain specialists.
Yehuda Levi (CTO), Eyal Hertzog (chief of product) and Ilana Pinchas (VP engineering) have formerly launched a Bitcoin marketplace platform called AppCoin. Two of the founders, Galia and Guy Benartzi have each founded and exited a startup.
Other advisors include Yoni Assia, the CEO of trading platform eToro, and Meni Rosenfeld, an award-winning mathematician well-versed in Blockchain technology.
Since the BANCOR protocol is a totally new mechanism on the Ethereum Blockchain which has never been executed before, the team is especially eager to ensure complete security of the funds.
That's why BANCOR has teamed up with some of the most well-known Ethereum security advisors, including Nick Johnson and Martin Holst Swende from the Ethereum Foundation.
Investors
The record-breaking ICO of BANCOR completed with 10,885 buyers, and 15.000 transactions for purchase in total.
What's interesting is that one (anonymous) buyer spent over $28 million for roughly 6.8m BNT, purchasing almost half of the tokens for sale!
Among other notable investors is Tim Draper of VC fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson who also joined the board of BANCOR, as well as Token-as-a-Service (TaaS), the first-ever tokenized closed-end fund dedicated to Blockchain assets (who are said to have invested over $1 million).
Blockchain Capital, an investment company that focuses on startups in the blockchain field, has also invested heavily in BANCOR:
“We are thrilled to invest in such an innovative and thoughtful project as Bancor. What attracted us was first and foremost the team. With two decades of experience in end-user applications, a strong network of supporters and advisers, the Bancor team has exactly the kind of DNA we want to see more of in the Blockchain space to help bring the value revolution to mass market.”-Blockchain Capital
What's Next?
The token distribution will be executed as follows:
- 50% of BNT tokens issued to contributors of the fundraiser
- 20% long-term operating budget of the foundation
- 20% allocated to partnerships, community grants and public bounties
- 10% to founders, team members, early contributors and advisors
Roadmap
According to BANCOR's Roadmap, there are several ambitious goals for the future.
Within the next 6 months, they want to make purchases with other currencies available, for example BTC, XRP and LTC, they also want to make the purchase of tokens possible via credit card, create a peer-to-peer online marketplace and more.
Their goals for the next 2 years include native iOS and Android Apps, communities without tokens, and open-sourcing the software.
Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
© Sirwinchester
Anybody else concerned that someone now has control of $156M of Ether and has bills to pay? Sell, sell, sell...
The problem is not only that this one ICO has 156M Ether. Yes amazing. But I have the feeling that literally ever ICO is based on Ether and not many of them give us the impression that they will earn serious money with it. I believe in bitcoin. Believing in ETH is quite hard IMAO.
And when these shitcoins don't actually create any value or realize a profit, they will sell ETH to pay the bills.
ICO's - the best easy and fast money making method in the 21st century.
Like internet companies in the 90's.
Exactly.
Venture capitalism at it's best and worst!
Dot com version 2
Yes...
Yes, those were exactly my thoughts when I read that ...
That person must really believe in Bancor if they invested almost $30 million!
It was Firepower who told me about Bancor.
He was so looking forward to invest.
And I signed up waiting to grab some of these tokens.
This was the first ICO I thought I would be participating in.
But damn...
It quickly became the first ICO that I missed.
Really looking forward to buy them again, when they are cheap, and listed on other exchanges.
Looks very promising!
Thank you for the summary!
Enjoyed reading it.
Have to admit -> my love for Bancor has now doubled.
Cheers,
@Sidwrites
Just like you it was @firepower who told me too!
But.
I bought some!!!
Now just praying that it moons :p
It definitely has some potential! Let's hope you will make some nice profit with it!
It does! Hope so!
Hmm what a shame, but still you can buy them again later on.
Great to hear that you enjoyed the post and that you now like bancor even more 😬
I wish to buy. Saw the price on HitBTC and I was like...
KILL ME! 😬
Definitely going to get into other ICOs... and buy few Bancor along the way!
I have to buy Bancor no matter what! :)
Appreciate your post! Never knew I wasn't following you...
Did that too!
Cheers!
missed it as well. sad panda :(
Let me tell you people how dumb i am. So, i hear about this Bancor crowdfuning event that's about to happen at the end of the countdown. I get everything set up on my computer screen to buy loads of it when the timer hits zero.
3....2....1...0 and I,M OFF!!. ONLY PROBLEM WAS THAT IT WAS THE TIMER FOR IT TO END!!!! WHAT A FRICKING IDIOT I AM!! No Bancor shares for me. Missed out cuz i was late about finding out abouy the whole thing. Commence making fun of me! PLEASE!
hahahaha that is the funiest sad story I've read on steemit :')
don't miss the official coin launch!
Thanks. I was literally beating my fists on the table calling myself "DUMB IDIOT". My wife came running in thinking I lost all my cryptos, hahaha. Oh well....
Haahahaha, sorry to hear that, but you tried!! You will be so ready for the next ICO!
Lol. I know, huh? It was pretty funny. Such a dumb move that I couldn't help just laughing at myself in the room.
That's amazing. I was going to invest in Bancor's ico however I decided not to.
Apparently I am the only one! haha
No ur not. Im in the same boat as u...except it was because of my own stupidity of not reading the timer right.
This project is really interesting. I love the fact how it will make it easy and less volatile to trade small cap tokens, and potentially establish an interest for small businesses to create their own token, making the overall awaness of crypto larger.
I for one will follow this project closely.
very smart comment! (wondering who is their competition?)
Tezos may surpass that in couple weeks 🙌🏼🙌🏼
Yes that will be very interesting to watch as well!
Great update Sirwinchester thank you! Others who bought into the ICO might be interested to know that Bancor is setting up a market maker smart token that will buy back BNT at the ICO price of .01 ETH. Bancor set this up in response to concerns that the ICO was oversubscribed and the excessive amount of BNT tokens sold would depress the price once it hits the exchanges. The Bancor blog has more details on this:
https://blog.bancor.network/the-community-of-the-currency-9770087fde17
This Ethereum thing has created an enormous hype train. Speculations are countless right now. What will be the next bubble for you? I'm strong on Antshares atm.
Very interesting, I hope it will succeed 😊
It's a totally new technology with lots of potential, I'm sure the prices will skyrocket once it hits the exchange platforms!
I love ICO's. Great post bro.
thanks for sharing
Very interesting post about the project Bancor! Thanks for sharing!
You're welcome and glad you enjoyed the post!
Damn, I need to get me some of this!
Hahaha yes, right now the ICO is closed but you can get them once the BNT hits exchange platforms
Sweet, be sure to do a post when that happens so I don't have to stalk it and I can upvote (pay you) for your services :-)
Thanks for this!
These ICOs are nuts.
Yes. Seems like there's a new record every other week.
Over $150 million in 3 hours.. that's crazy!
That's a lot of money, i am not sure where this is heading.
It will be interesting to see how many of these actually deliver a real world working solution.
All these ICOs could weight heavy on Etherium down the road.
Id rather see it go into these startups than the garbage-ass banks!
It would be interesting to see how all these ICO's perform in the long run...more & more ICO's are getting introduced to the crypto market with unique concepts but only time will tell if they succeed in generating revenue for its investors...thanks for sharing this post.
Good point. I'm also watching closely to see where all these ambitious projects will go in the future.
This seems promising . Thank you for sharing.
Very nice post! Followed! also quite new but can i still invest in Bancor?
Thank you, appreciate it!
No, the ICO has ended. You can only buy Bancor again once it hits the exchange platforms, which will be in a few months time.
I like that you added.
Interesting post.
I was able to buy some, I did one transaction but then it disappeared. If they hadn't extended the ICO time to 3 hours, I would've missed it.
Anyways, the tokens were quite pricey, at around $4 US/BNT. We'll see how it does.
I heard this would be very big in the years to come.
Good post and interesting to read ....
bancor raised that much cause i believe the same investors that were in DAO invested in bancor too
interesting
Huge summs of DAO which was locked Ether have been forgoton by useres. There are 270.000 ETH waiting for withdrawal from DAO users!!! https://etherscan.io/address/0xbf4ed7b27f1d666546e30d74d50d173d20bca754
Moreover, everybody who owned DAO at block 1,9 million is ellegible for a ETC refund! A lot of people dont know about it...
I know a way how to recover ETH, ETC and some DAO.extra balance.... Check all your old ETH addresses here...
https://refunds.thedao.fund/
If you have open balance to withdraw, pm me....
Seriously thanks for posting this.
good for ETH, but how hard is it for Vlad Putin, Microsoft and Google to come up w/ that kinda money? Come on now you can't be that surprised. I don't know how it took 30 secs w/that financing group!!
What next? They are rich now, go spend the money :)
A good ico for investing: https://steemit.com/bitjob/@danizaharie/decentralized-student-marketplace-for-online-jobs-bitjob
Very good post. Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks like this. I really believe in the ico model, why do wealthy people are only allowed to invest in early stage startups. The issue is that the ico scene currently doesn't have any due diligence, besides that they have 0 obligations to their token holders, this is the issue we have to fix. An interesting website I found: https://www.coincheckup.com I'm using this site that gives in depth reports on every tradable cryto in the market.
Thank you! Happy to hear that you enjoyed it!