The Bancor Network launched with the aim of providing an automated solution to the problem of illiquidity for the tail-end of the token ecosystem. It introduced the use of what it calls Smart Tokens, which are ERC20 compliant on the Ethereum blockchain, to maintain an autonomous link between tokens within the network and continuously makes them available to buy and sell without the need for a counterparty. The price is calculated automatically by the Bancor formula.

The Bancor Network Token NT) was the first Smart Token launched on the network and serves as the hub token connecting all other tokens within the network, making it possible for tokens to be easily converted for one another. Contributors to Bancor’s ICO, which successfully raised $153 million in June 2017, received half of the initial token allocation.

Bancor is named after the supranational currency conceptualized by John Maynard Keynes and Ernst Friedrich Schumacherat, which was proposed by the former for the United Kingdom during the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.