Bancor Network

Yael Hartzal had spent two decades as a venture-backed technology entrepreneur, having built some of the internet's most influential platforms—from Contact Networks, one of the first social networks in 1999, to MetaCafe, Israel's fastest-growing video sharing site that reached 50 million uniques at its peak. But in 2011, when he first encountered Bitcoin, something clicked. He saw it as a cultural revolution comparable to Facebook or WhatsApp—a technology that would fundamentally change how people interact with currency and value. This vision drew him fully into the cryptocurrency space, focusing on currencies and value transfer.

Bancor Network emerged as Hartzal's answer to a critical problem in the emerging crypto ecosystem: liquidity. At the time, converting between different cryptocurrencies or moving crypto into fiat required using centralized exchanges like Coinbase or Poloniex. Hartzal envisioned a better solution—an automated, decentralized protocol built on smart contracts that could facilitate liquidity without requiring a central authority. The token, BNT (Bancor Network Token), would sit at the center of this system, running on top of the Ethereum blockchain.

The growth strategy was grassroots but strategic. Hartzal and his team attended every conference in the crypto world, sharing their vision and gathering feedback. But the real discovery came from online sources—Reddit, Bitcointalk forums, and Telegram groups where crypto enthusiasts debated new projects and opportunities. Investors read the white paper, evaluated the team on LinkedIn, and made their decisions. The demand was split roughly 50/50 between personal relationships built through conference attendance and organic discovery through online communities.

On June 12, 2017, Bancor launched its ICO. In just three hours, they raised $153 million—at the time, the largest ICO ever completed. The mechanism was elegant: they allowed all investors equal pricing for the first few hours, then placed unspent funds into a smart contract buyback pool (eventually holding over 100,000 ether) to protect early investors from catastrophic price drops. The strategy worked spectacularly, attracting 12,000 token holders. Token distribution followed a power law—the top five holders controlled 55% of the supply—but Hartzal noted this mirrored traditional venture funding and seemed to pose no practical risk, as major holders were true believers committed to the ecosystem's success.

Bancor became the number-one completed ICO, though it would soon be surpassed by later mega-raises like Tezos and EOS. The foundation—a Swiss nonprofit structure similar to Ethereum's model—held 50% of the total tokens. Of that half, 20% was reserved for long-term reserves, and 20% was allocated to community programs, bug bounties, and translation bounties across 30 languages. At current market value (with ether at $200+ and BNT priced around $2), the foundation controlled roughly $32 million in assets allocated for community incentives. The project employed roughly 20 people across the foundation and associated structures, with salaries paid in a mix of crypto and fiat (less than 10% liquidated to preserve long-term value). Hartzal, now 43 with a wife and three children (including a 10-month-old), was running on 2-6 hours of sleep per night—a tradeoff he seemed to accept as part of building something with cultural significance.