On June 12, 2017, The Bancor Network's ICO allocated 39.6 million Bancors in exchange for 396,720 Ethers. These new tokens are being described as the first "smart tokens" in the blockchain world.
What makes them smart?
And in what ways do smart tokens differ from regular tokens?
Smart Tokens are a new type of ERC20 compliant tokens that can be bought or sold at anytime through the smart contracts which govern them, without needing to use a digital exchange, or a counter-party.
They differ from regular tokens in the following ways:
They hold one or more easily exchangeable tokens in reserve. In the case of the Bancor, the reserve token is the Ether.
They are governed by Ethereum based smart-contracts which act as an automated issuer and redeemer of the smart tokens, at a continuously calculated price, based on formula which balances buy and sell volumes.
And as a result of these two features:
In his Medium article, Scott Morris summarizes the advantages of Smart Tokens as follow:
Costs -- The only mandatory fees applied by Smart Tokens are the blockchain fees (gas).
Continuous Liquidity with Lower Risk — A Smart Token may be purchased or liquidated through its smart contract at any time; regardless of its trading volume, and without the need for a counterparty (e.g. an online exchange) with its risks (e.g. hacking/theft). Algorithmic
Pricing — The smart contract automatically maintains the exchange price between a Smart Token and its reserve token(s), meaning there is a single, real time price for both buying and selling a Smart Token rather than the traditional bid/ask spread.
Predictable Price Slippage — As a function of the pricing formula, Smart Tokens allow pre-calculation of price slippage for a transaction of a given volume prior to its execution.
Native Market Depth — While typical crypto-exchanges maintain a market depth of well below 1%, a Smart Token with a reserve of 10% can be compared to an exchange with 10% of the entire supply of a token in its order-book at all times, forming substantial market depth.
Sources (with more detailed explanations):
