I have read many posts condemning the impatience of bounty hunters who sell off rewards as soon as it is received.
My question is, can bounties run and achieve success on their own without Hunters?
I think that is an odd question, so what the point if opening a bounty campaign but there are no bounty hunter.
That is just like you wish to build a house but there are no people who are able to build it.
So it won't working at all.
It seems to me that your comparison is not entirely correct, since the project is created by the developers and the team, but not by the participants in the bounty campaign. There are projects that do not require a bounty campaign, but there are only a few of them, one of them is TON.