Free BANANO NFTs: cryptomonKeys Update #3: Month 2 Recap & FAQ

Nov 20, 2020 • 14 min read

BANANO is a DAG-based cryptocurrency with easy-to-use apps, distributed entirely for free through airdrops, faucets, and games. All happening in a fun, community-driven, meme-rich, and educational atmosphere.

The BANANO community project cryptomonKeys just started 2 months ago. It’s all about distributing NFTs/digital trading cards for free, and the positive feedback and excitement by the community were merely awesome so far. Now it’s time for another community update with a short Month 2 recap and a detailed FAQ.

cryptomonKeys Month 2 Recap

It’s crazy it’s just 2 months since the launch of cryptomonKeys, it feels much longer somehow. Anyways, the second month was filled with lots of mostly Halloween-themed cryptomonKeys cards and their distribution, and the cryptomonKeys Halloween Design Contest was a huge success (results just published few days ago in cryptomonKeys Update #2). It’s just awesome to see the community grow so fast, and to have so much fun with you all ❤

Lots of cryptomonKeys News! And new Cards!

The first 19 cards — the ‘Legacy Cards’ — are now all out and complete! If you haven’t, make sure to check out our card gallery and follow our socials for all news and announcements. Some selected news highlights from Month 2 are summarized further below!
cryptomonKeys Update #1 | cryptomonKeys Update #2

monKeyfarm has launched!

We started to airdrop a fraction of new cards to holders of existing cards in line with the recently announced monKeyfarm concept and will continue to do so! So yeah, we give away free cards, and then we drop more free cards to holders of those cards. Sounds crazy, but it’s true! Learn more in the detailed FAQ further below.

cryptomonKeys listed on Tokenhead!

Tokenhead is a newly released mobile NFT portfolio app, and cryptomonKeys was one of the first project listed! Check out your cryptomonKeys collection and its estimated value on the go! Head over to tokenhead.io to download.

Discord NFT Tipbot released!

Yes, you heard it right! We now have an NFT tipbot on our Discord and have already distributed hundreds of cryptomonKeys to our community. Some just randomly, some for creating great memes, or winning giveaways/trivias. If you didn’t join our Discord server yet you definitely should!

First animated cryptomonKey card!

Already announced few days ago together with the Halloween monKey Design contest results in cryptomonKeys Update #2: The FUDbusters are here!

Some numbers after two months of cryptomonKeys:

Card motives released: 19 (12) (Website | AtomicHub | Waxplorer | CryptoSlam)
Total Cards minted: 8085 (4696)
Cards distributed: 6274 (3652) (78% distributed)
Number of accounts holding at least one cryptomonKey NFT: 1753 (1610)
(all numbers total; last month values in brackets)

Distribution Details by card:

Month 2 market stats:
Number of trades between users: 765 (month 1: 383)
Monthly trading volume: 116,160 WAX ($3,600) [month 1: 53,305 WAX ($2,026)]

Since project launch:
Total trading volume: 169,465 WAX ($5,609)
Total trades: 1,148

Highest sales on secondary markets:
Card 11 (Legendary) sold for 5019 WAX (~$167)
Card 4 (Legendary) sold for 4999 WAX (~$166)

Join cryptomonKeys!

We have giveaways and events running regularly on all platforms! Join/follow us to not miss any — and thanks for sharing with your friends!
Discord: 1621 (last month: 1182)
Twitter: 1731 (last month: 1140)
Instagram: 440 (last month: 318)
Telegram group: 1585 (last month: 531)

More at Telegram: news channel | card feed channel | Spanish group

Website
Trade cryptomonKeys at AtomicHub: live trading offers | sale history
Collection stats at: AtomicHub | Waxplorer | CryptoSlam

FAQ — Frequently Asked Questions

Especially since the free distribution concept of cryptomonKeys is quite unique, here’s a first FAQ that hopefully answers most questions. It is quite detailed, but we think information, education and transparency is key. It’s basically the first draft of our monKeypaper (version 0.19). If you have more questions please do NOT comment below but come to our Discord or Telegram group and ask there. Thanks!

EDIT: Updated version of this FAQ can from now on always be found on our website here.

What are cryptomonKeys?

CryptomonKeys are freely distributed, community-driven, meme-rich digital trading cards based on NFT technology, here to disrupt the meme economy. The project launched on September 19, 2020 by the co-founders SoggyApplePie and bantano, both core team members of the cryptocurrency project BANANO. The intention behind the project is to create a digital trading card series we ourselves would like to collect, and to connect the BANANO ecosphere and its meme-rich community culture to the world of NFTs/digital collectibles with an educational and gamified attitude.

Where do MonKeys come from?

CryptomonKeys are built on top of the BANANO MonKey concept, where each BANANO address is visually represented by a unique MonKey representing this public Key/address. Learn more at monKey.banano.cc

What is an NFT?

NFT stands for non-fungible token. An NFT can be a digital asset such as a trading card, except you can cryptographically verify that the token is authentic as well as who it belongs to, how many exist, and the maximum possible number of an NFT (mints) that can exist. Like physical collectibles, they can have real monetary value. However, they are even easier to store, trade and verify. Plus the corners of your cards never crease!

What is BANANO?

If you don’t know BANANO yet, it’s obviously perfect to just read BANANO’s animated, meme-rich and interactive Yellowpaper! BANANO is a cryptocurrency (forked from NANO in April 2018) powered by DAG technology — here to distrupt the meme economy. BANANO has memes, and also 100% feeless and near-instant transactions, a highly active community, and active technical development! The BANANO community doesn’t take themselves too seriously, but we’re here for the long run and we enjoy what we do. On top of this, BANANO is super easy to use and puts an emphasis on free and fair distribution, gamification and crypto education. BANANO is used in thousands of daily on-chain transactions mainly for tipping on several major social media platforms.
Further reading: Website | Coingecko | Coinmarketcap | Exchanges
Help getting started at banano.how

What is WAX?

Wax is a cryptocurrency project that makes it easy to create, buy and sell NFTs. Unlike the Ethereum blockchain, which is still used for most of NFT creation and trading and which involves considerable transaction costs, the WAX blockchain allows very fast transactions with very low transaction fees. For the purpose of the cryptomonKeys project which involves sending thousands of NFTs per month to different users/wallets for free, the WAX blockchain is currently the only viable option.

Also, getting started with WAX is pretty easiy; you can simply and easily create a WAX address in a few seconds by logging in with your Discord or Google account: https://all-access.wax.io/
After logging in, your WAX address in the format abc12.wam or similar will be shown in the top right corner:

After getting started easily this way, you can (and should!) learn more about WAX here: https://guide.wax.gg/
Your aim should be to eventually also create a non-custodial WAX address where you control the keys. Click here to see a simple workflow created by one of our community members.
Links: Scatter wallet | create.wax.gg | Anchor Wallet

If you’re further interested in how the WAX network works, here’s a good explanation of different kinds of fees involved.

How are cryptomonKeys different than most other NFT card series?

Apart from highly detailed, monKeyfied artwork, the main difference to other NFT card series surely is that cryptomonKeys are freely distributed. We don’t sell the cards, but instead we create the art, mint the cards and give them out to as many people as possible through different types of airdrops, giveaways and contests, and to contributors.

But that’s not all! Unlike most other projects we don’t have card packs, we don’t have variants, and we don’t have any unclear rarities. This is all in an effort to keep things simple and clear for collectors. Each card is revealed and minted one by one, without variants. Cards are numbered and have defined, provable rarities that can be identified by a rarity indicator on the card front.

What are the card rarities and what do they mean?

Well, the cool thing about NFTs is that you can make several copies (called ‘mints’ ) of the same artwork, and you can encode a maximum number of mints (or the total supply) in the NFT template. While most collections do not commit to defined mints for their rarity values, we do. A legendary card is always minted exactly 19 times, an epic card exactly 91 times, a rare card exactly 423 times, and so on:

Even if we wanted, we couldn’t make more cards based on the same template. And of course, since these cards are non-fungible tokens, every card is unique and has its exact mint number recorded and attached to it. So if you get a card, you won’t only know that it is provably rare, it also is unique, is identfiable through its asset ID, and has a traceable history of previous owners etc, all on the blockchain. Here’s an example of how the #1 mint of card number 7, ‘unimonKey’ looks on AtomicHub.

Why are those NFTs given away for free?

We feel that it is important to make the entry into NFTs for everyone as easy as possible. It’s a lot of fun and we not only enjoy NFTs but see great potential in it. Free distribution for us seems a good way to grow the community and help getting new folks started with NFTs. Unfortunately for many people joining the space, the idea to buy digital art or NFTs is hampered by the process not being very easy, and the sheer number of projects and assets can initially be quite overwhelming. This is why we just offer to give them some cards for free to play around with, and educate them how to receive, send or trade NFT at the example of cryptomonKeys.

How can I get cryptomonKeys?

CryptomonKeys are freely distributed, meaning we design and mint the cards, reveal them, and then distribute them freely in many different ways. We do giveaways, airdrops, events and contests, and give cards out to our team/supporters. Basically just follow our social media channels for updates and you’ll learn how to get them.

After reveal, most cards are quickly distributed. Thus, there is a fairly short window of opportunity to win each successive card from the initial giveaways. Also, some very rare cards can’t be given to everyone simply because there don’t exist enough mints to give one to everyone. There are two solutions for that:

You can buy the cards from others who are up for selling them on secondary markets. Trading ‘trading cards’ is pretty intuitive. For example, some collectors just might have double cards from different events and be up to trade them for WAX or other cards to complete their collection. You can trade cryptomonKeys very easily on AtomicHub:
cryptomonKeys currently on sale on AtomicHub
Sales overview at Waxplorer
Whenever we mint a new card, we reserve a defined number of cards for future events and lock them up for 6 months in our account ‘monKeysvault’. That means you might still have a chance to catch one of those when we give them away in the future.

In addition, we recently launched the ‘monKeyfarm’ program which is explained further below.

What is monKeysvault?

Whenever a new card is minted, by default a defined number (Legendary: 1 card; Epic: 2 cards; Rare: 4 cards; Uncommon: 16 cards; Common: 64 cards) of cryptomonKeys is sent into the vault (account link). Those cards are not distributed directly like most other cards, but are locked up for 191 days (counted from card reveal day). After that time, they can be distributed by the team in airdrops/giveaways or be used to reward future contributors with ‘early days’ cards. In a simplified way monKeysvault can be considered the NFT part of the ‘dev fund’ of the project.

What is monKeyfarm and how does it work?

The monKeyfarm concept was originally announced on October 21, 2020. The basic concept: Holders of cryptomonKeys cards (and especially holders of one of the first 19 legacy cards) will have the chance to receive new card drops (monKeydrops) automatically for each new card revealed, forever! The chances to receive monKeydrops will be higher when you hold more different cards, and the chances will also be higher for holders of more rare cards. In average, 19% of all new cards will be distributed this way to reward the early adopters and passionate collectors. More details may be released over time after we received more feedback on this. Be aware this concept is early stage and might be subject to changes. Of note, number 1 mints will be regularly included in random monKeyfarm drops as well.

Why is there a market fee and how are collected fees used?

While the cryptomonKeys project is not aiming to make profits, we have to make sure all costs are covered, that we have some funds for marketing and development, and rewards as incentive to the team (even though likely low and rather symbolic since cards are distributed for free and not sold) are available. The market fee assigned to the cryptomonKeys collection is currently 7% and applies to all sales happening on trading platforms honoring it (currently AtomicHub). This market fee is lower than the 8%+ fee most commercial projects have set, in addition to them actually selling most or all their cards in the first place (while we give those away for free and only collect the market fee from secondary market sales).

The market fee and other potentially incoming WAX funds (unless specified otherwise) are allocated to cover direct project costs such as on-chain card minting, or website/server hosting costs. Potentially remaining funds are assigned as follows: 19% to the co-founders each, 19% shared with all active contributors based on their estimated contribution, 24% to a project/dev fund for (future) marketing/development costs, and the remaining 19% will be donated to charity. Calculations and distribution will be done regularly, i.e. every few months.

Can you provide more details on cryptomonKeys distribution?

The overarching aim is to make sure cryptomonKeys are distributed widely and in a fair way. At the moment we experiment with different distribution modes and will likely continue to vary those. So far, distribution for example has happened in the form of numerous simple giveaways at social media by us or third party content creators, as AtomicHub claim drops, as contest rewards, as airdrop to holders of specific cryptomonKeys assets (see also monKeyfarm), as airdrop to holders of assets from other collections such as GoPepe or Nifty Wizards, and some were simply gifted to people who do good stuff in the space, by developing apps or tools, or by being engaged in crypto/NFT education. We also recently launched our Discord NFT tipbot and started to tip cryptomonKeys to meme-makers. All noteworthy distribution events are logged at the cryptomonKeys discord chat server in the channel #distribution-log.

To ensure that distribution is fair and giveaways are objective, the core team is disqualified from participating in regular distribution, i.e. they will not partiicpate in giveaways and not receive random monKeydrops or monKeyfarm drops. As incentive they still will receive a defined amount of cards when they are released for their private use as follows: Legendary: 1 card; Epic: 3 cards; Rare: 5 cards; Uncommon: 7 cards.

In addition, other contributors (moderators, artists, content creators etc) receive free cards based on their respective contribution but can still participate in events & giveaways. Contributor card rewards are decided by the core team regularly (~every 2 months currently).

What is the purpose of cryptomonKeys? What can I do with them?

Currently, cryptomonKeys are collectibles, or trading cards. You can collect and hold them, or you can trade them with others. We have several ideas for apps/dapps and games and plan to realize some of those in the future, but we are right now focusing on card creation and distribution, and setting the grounds for future card utility within a community/ecosphere. Thus we are currently not promising specific dapps or games, or give any ETA.

Other ‘usecases’ already established within the project now, as mentioned above, are education and charity.

We feel that free distribution paired with education is ideal to help new users join the space and starting to enjoy NFTs as much as we do. Since we started, we already witnessed many new users joining the space and learning a lot about the world of digital collectibles/NFTs, which is great! Some even sent a cryptomonKey to their friends! We’d like to see and establish the cryptomonKeys community as a welcoming, intuitive and easy entry for many more to join.

In terms of charity, we have committed to donate 19% of all proceeds from secondary market fees as explained above. In addition, we decided to auction off a maximum of 1 cryptomonKey cards every 19 days (starting today, Nov 20,2020) and donate 81% of the proceeds from those auctions to charitable organizations while the remaining 19% will further help to support the project itself and be allocated in the same way as described further above for market fees.
Of note, auctioning off 1 card every 19 days currently means we actually sell 0.04% of our cards and distribute 99.96% still entirely for free.
You can already find the first auction here, it’s mint #1 of the first ever created cryptomonKey: monKeyprinter Go BRRR Mint #1

If cryptomonKeys are freely distributed, how can they have value?

CryptomonKeys NFTs are given out for free initially. Nonetheless, due to a finite number of mints paired with awesome artwork and a growing community not everyone simply can get every card. Cards are traded on secondary markets, and the respective demand from buyers and newly joining collectors give cryptomonKeys value, all decided by the markets.

How can I contribute to the project?

Everyone can contribute to cryptomonKeys. If you have bantastic drawing skills or any other skills that can help the project become better in any way (or if you even want to develop an app/dapp/game using cryptomonKeys) please get in contact with any core team member, ideally at the cryptomonKeys Discord Chat Server which is the headquarters of our ecosphere. Otherwise anyone can help us grow and reach more people by sharing this project with others, telling friends, retweeting, etc.

Where can I ask more questions or discuss about cryptomonKeys?

The best way to contact us is to join the cryptomonKeys Discord Chat Server and DM any core team member (role: monKeyprinter).

Disclaimer

Any mention of a third party platform, product, service or website in this article does not imply an endorsement by the BANANO core team. All information is provided to the author’s best knowledge at the time of writing, will likely not be updated and thus might be outdated when this article is read in the future. CryptomonKeys is a community project created by two BANANO core team members, SoggyApplePie and bantano. CryptomonKeys is building on the BANANO MonKey concept (visual account representatives) created and developed by Yekta and bbedward from the BANANO core team. This article was written by bantano with lots of help from SoggyApplePie and Vyryn.

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