An initial coin offering (ICO) for an Israel-based prediction market blockchain startup called Bancor, has set a new blockchain industry record, raising a bit more than $153 million as part of a crowdsale.
10,885 buyers participated including billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, a long-time Bitcoin fan. Draper is contributing to Bancor and joining the Advisory Board alongside monetary and open-source technology visionaries such Bernard Lietaer and John Clippinger. Founder and CEO of eToro, Yoni Assia, joined Bancor Protocol Advisory Board last month.
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According to Bancor blog, Draper has been outspoken about the challenges of liquidity in traditional venture capital. He is excited about the potential of the Bancor protocol to democratize to bring continuous liquidity to a new generation of user-generated tokens emerging in the blockchain ecosystem.
The company added, “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.”
Tim Draper said: “We are beginning to explore the possibility of issuing a VC Token for our diverse network of investors, entrepreneurs, local and global businesses. We’d like for this to be a Smart Token, so it can benefit from continuous liquidity from day 1. We look forward to a long collaboration with the Bancor team on this project, and are excited for what BNT has in store.” Said Mr. Draper, Managing Partner of Draper Associates.
Galia Benartzi, Co-founder, said: “It is a dream come true for me to work with long-time Silicon Valley pioneer Tim Draper. Growing up in Palo Alto, the Draper family name has been synonymous with both the roots of venture capital in the Bay Area and also the fruits of innovation. Tim, his family, and firm, continuously forge bravely ahead, which is what we are doing at Bancor. We are humbled by this partnership to bring liquidity to all.” Said
“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.”
According to the company 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.
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.”
