18 months of Bancor

Bancor held their Token Generation Event on June 12th 2017, meaning they have now been live for a little over 18 months. It’s been a good start for Bancor, who at the time of writing find themselves in the top 100 cryptocurrencies on CoinMarketCap, sitting at number 98.

Back in the summer of 2017, Bancor launched their own Bancor Protocol, and with it, they attracted a cool $153 million worth of Ether in less than three hours from a total of over 10,000 contributors during the course of the ICO.

If you haven’t heard of Bancor, they are a decentralised liquidity network that aim to provide their users with a low-cost method of purchasing and selling tokens. They also claim to have invented Smart Tokens, which are based upon open-source, decentralised smart contracts using the Bancor Protocol. They are connected through the Bancor Network with their own Bancor Network Token (BNT).

However, despite their promising start, Bancor did fall under scrutiny earlier this year following a hack that cost them millions.

Bancor’s vision is described as reimagining the way “value can be created and transferred,” and they hope to create a future where “any token can be connected through an open-source protocol without any middlemen or fees.”

The main attraction of Bancor is that their network enables any token to be autonomously converted to “any other token in the network with a single user action – including those built on different blockchains.” They accomplish this by allowing users to convert their tokens against smart contracts, meaning all parties must hold up their end of the bargain before the contract is executed.

In May 2018, Bancor added Fiat-to-Crypto integration to their service. This allows Bancor users to purchase any cryptocurrency with fiat and convert it to any token that exists on their network using any major credit or debit card.

Not long after that, in September, they announced their expansion to EOS. This expansion was the first of Bancor’s to reach a new blockchain. Since then, Bancor’s EOS Liquidity Network has reportedly seen an increase of activity with a bunch of EOS tokens.

Also in September, BancorX was unveiled. This granted users the ability to perform token conversions across blockchains without having to deposit funds onto an exchange. BancorX now reportedly supports over 130 tokens on Ethereum, EOS, and POA.

So it seems the first 18 months of Bancor have been reasonably bright – not perfect, but bright. What does the future hold for them? Only time will tell.

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