Israel-based prediction market blockchain company Bancor has raised $153 million in digital currency in a record ICO (initial coin offering). 10,885 buyers participated including venture capitalist Tim Draper, who joins Bancor's board.
The Bancor website said, "The Bancor team is humbled by the astounding support from our community. In what is now a historic Token Generation Event, 10,885 participants contributed 396,720 ETH, equivalent to $153,003,311.63, in less than three hours. To provide everyone the opportunity to invest in Bancor at an early stage, our team developed novel protocols to guarantee access to smaller contributors."
"Reuters" explains, "Bancor enables the creation of so-called 'smart tokens,' which can hold one or more tokens or digital currencies in reserve. It also allows any party to instantly purchase or liquidate them directly via smart contract, without any counterparty and without relying on exchanges. Smart contracts are self-executing transactions."
Tel Aviv-based Bancor says that its protocol is a standard for the creation of intrinsically tradable tokens. "These smart tokens benefit from network effect and algorithmic pricing, enabling the long tail of user-generated tokens to emerge and democratizing value creation." Bancor's protocol is promoted and developed by the Bprotocol Foundation, which was established in 2017.
Bancor's ICO was plagued by cyber attacks. The website said, "We deeply regret that not everyone could participate in the Bancor TGE today. In our efforts to ensure full community participation, even after overwhelming demand and traffic, exacerbated by massive malicious attacks to our network, the Bancor team opted to extend the restriction-free hour in an effort to ensure that pending transactions were completed. When the "hidden cap" was revealed, the flood of transactions that arrived was even more overwhelming. Consequently, after an unprecedented amount of capital had been raised, the Core team conscientiously closed the fundraiser."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 14, 2017
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