Let me tell you my personal story about Banano (and crypto); spoken from the heart.
Dear Banano,
BB — Before Banano:
Here’s a little background on my investment history. I have always managed investment portfolios. However, late last year (in 2020), I decided to use a little of my side money to invest in stocks. It was nothing special; I started with $50 in Wealthsimple Trade, and it grew from that. In January of this year (2021), I made my first cryptocurrency purchase — I bought $50 worth of BTC. Most of my investment money has come from side jobs and not from my salary. I don’t want to touch my salary as I didn’t want my investments to have any impact on my family and expenses. After BTC, I researched and invested in some of the more popular coins at the time: ETH, ADA, VET and ALGO, to name a few.
How I found Banano:
I actually discovered Banano (BAN — Official Site) twice. During my internet time-wasting on Reddit, I found out about Nano (XNO) and how great the tech was — it was free and boasted near-instant transactions. Also during the same research I found out about a fork crypto called Ba-nano. I didn’t do too much research beyond that, as I wasn’t into “memecoins” — even though this was at the start of the Dogecoin craziness. Why would I want a memecoin version of another crypto? I used one or two of the Banano faucets and moved on.
The second time I discovered Banano was when I was looking for a cryptocurrency to mine as I had an old gaming laptop sitting around doing nothing. It’s about 9+ years old with a GTX 660M and i7–3660QM. I tried the usual NiceHash, unMineable and a few others with little or no luck. Either it would not work at all or it would take years for me to get a small payout. I was a little bummed that this computer continued to not do anything for me, but I was still determined to find something it could “work” on. This is when I finally discovered Banano, because I came across the Folding @ Home project that they partake in. Basically, you let your computer do medical research (folding proteins) and the Banano community will give you a little “tip” for doing so. They are not associated with the program directly, but have a massive group helping the project out. If you want to read more about those projects: https://bananominer.com and https://foldingathome.org/
This is also when I joined the Banano discord
AB — After Banano:
This is where the fun begins. I joined the server at the end of March and, I won’t lie, the first few days were really hectic. If I recall correctly, I joined because I had some questions about Folding @ Home. I was quickly directed to the answers I requested. The first ̶o̶f̶f̶i̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ unofficial event I was on the server for was April Fools Day. Correction: I left very quickly that day as I couldn’t handle how chaotic it was. Essentially, it was a shock to the system. The main chat for Banano is called the jungle for a reason. Picture a big room full of monkeys, actually monkeys, going crazy. That is how this chat channel goes sometimes; I wish I was exaggerating but I am really not. As a new member, this was too much for me. It seems like a fun time, but at that time it was a lot to handle. Even when the moderators put the jungle into slow mode (you can only post every x seconds) it can still be crazy.
A few days later, I decided to give it another chance; and I am grateful everyday because of it. Of all the two decades plus of time I have spent on the internet I have never found a community so utterly amazing. It is hands down the best online community there is. The people are incredible, kind, caring, helpful, giving and insert any other positive adjective you want. I cannot even fully describe how I feel about it; you simply need to experience it. I would have never imagined that I would have met up, in real life, with “randoms” from on the internet — but I did just that in August this year. I was not disappointed. The few other members I met up with in my home city were just as lovely as I expected them to be. I had a great time and I cannot wait for another meet up soon.
Besides the lovely chats I have had since joining, the server knows how to party. ̶B̶A̶N̶O̶G̶ BANGO is an event that happens every few months and it basically bingo but with/for Banano. The amount of organization that goes into an event like this is crazy. A member has developed a program that will automatically create the BANGO cards that randomly use a set of given emoji images for the squares. Someone else programs the bot that you need to sign up with and get your cards. Another person does all the social media publicity, a blog post on the Daily Peel, media and awareness campaigns. Finally, a few people will actually host the event — they pull the cards, call out the “numbers” and give out the prizes.
I think I forgot to mention earlier that this Discord server has 30k+ members (I think) and over 300+ people show up for events like BANGO. They also have large communities on other social platforms like Reddit and Telegram. Banano is truly an international community with more than 12 active non-English language chats on discord. I have even had to use Google Translate on a number of occasions to talk to others in these chats.The Banano community has also introduced me to NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) in general. Through another ecosystem project called CryptoMonkeys I have become a true fan of NFTs. I love collecting these things, but CryptoMonkeys are not the point of this article so I will leave it for another article one day. Returning to the topic, Banano has a second server just for planning events and programs within the Banano ecosystem. In this server, which is called BananoLabs, any member can propose an event, idea or project and receive help from the community in bringing it to fruition. These could be as simple as putting together a trivia event, or a poker tournament event, for the community (I have done both in the past, and am already in planning mode for the future ones). Or they could be bigger projects such as the Banano Fit Fam (fitness), the Language League (for learning languages), or the upcoming Ban Book Club for the community.
I feel like I have a foot in a lot of projects that are active within the Banano ecosystem. I am a discord mod on Dungeons & Banano; which is basically Dungeons & Dragons but with Banano. I also help out with several other people’s events — I am a judge for some of other members’ contests, and that is on top of the everyday friendliness I try to bring to the general community chat when I am around. I actually enjoy helping out new members with some of their n00b questions, without making them feel bad for asking them. Because honestly, I asked the same ones and I am pretty sure 91.19% of the community has asked very similar questions along the way.
The final thing I want to mention about this community is the actual community service they do. They have donated time and money to help others. These range from donating to a real life monkey sanctuary, to helping people out with art supplies and current project to help people in need to get rice (link). It is amazing to see what this community does not just for its members, but also for those who are not. I am happy just to be along for the ride, and often donate some of my own Banano to these projects.
As may be clear from my discussions so far, this community has changed me. There is a good reason why I spend so much of my free time either chatting with fellow monkeys (members), or organizing other things for the community; and that reason is love. I LOVE BANANO. I am proud to say that as it is the truth. I know for a fact that so many other people feel the same way. This community is truly special and has something unique. It has a certain element to it that makes people never want to leave, are sad when they miss something cool, a big reveal or announcement and most just generally want to hang out all day chatting. Banano is a second really family to me. #banfambestfam #19
Love always,
SSJ4Link
