Bancor, the standard for creation of intrinsically tradeable cryptocurrencies, or “Smart Tokens,” will accelerate its ambitious development timeline through the recent raise of $153 million in its Token Generation Event (TGE) last week.

One of the largest crowdsales in history, the Bancor TGE attracted 10,885 buyers with over 15,000 transactions sent to the address for purchases during the event. In total, 79,323,978 Bancor network tokens (BNTs) were created as part of the Token Generation Event. Half of the total tokens, 39,661,989 BNT, were sold to the public, while the remaining were allocated to future use as detailed on its website prior to the event. BNT tokens were issued immediately to contributors following the TGE conclusion via an Ethereum smart contract.

“Bancor is deeply grateful to our vast community for its support in making the project's launch an astronomical success. Together, we made history as the world’s largest crowdsale to date, spurring the most significant spike in transactions the Ethereum ecosystem has ever seen”, Bancor Co-Founder Galia Benartzi said. “As Bancor launches into its development phase with substantial initial funding, we can accelerate our plans to transform the industry with a platform that enables anyone to easily create a viable currency for their community or project, as well as strengthen BNT with a large reserve, buy back program, and partnership grants. Our expansion begins today.”

Bancor enables the easy creation of smart tokens, which allow for newly embedded functionality into cryptocurrencies. With the ability to hold other tokens in reserve and to be traded directly with their own smart contracts, as opposed to any counter-party, smart tokens can instantly be exchanged for tokens of all types on the network, enhancing liquidity and facilitating usage-driven and algorithmic price discovery.

“Bancor Network Token (BNT) holders can easily exchange their smart tokens for others in the network. BNT will serve as the reserve currency for new smart tokens created by anyone on the Bancor platform, capturing the network effect of the ecosystem's growth. Bancor’s network allows tokens to be traded directly through their smart contracts, without the need for an exchange, providing a new solution to the liquidity limitations that have historically prevented the spectrum of user-generated currencies from emerging”, Benartzi said.

According to the official release, Bancor will use the proceeds of the raise as follows

• 40% dedicated to software development
• 20% as an Ethereum reserve for BNT
• 12% toward marketing and business development
• 10% for seeding Token Changes (smart tokens that hold multiple reserves and allow for direct exchange between them) and exchange-traded funds (Token Baskets)
• 8% for operational costs
• 5% for legal expenses
• And, the remaining 5% for miscellaneous purposes.

Capitalized in record-setting fashion, Bancor’s team announced plans to accelerate specific elements of the Project Roadmap, available for public viewing and commentary on Trello.

“Bancor is delighted to move into an accelerated development phase, thanks to the enormous support of our contributors in making our Token Generation Event a momentous success. It is with great pride that we take our next steps and expand our ambitious plans, including adding talent to our already world-class development team, and empowering communities internationally to adopt smart tokens for their networks,” Benartzi added.