Intro
Less than a year after the launch of Banana Gun, one of the best trading and sniping bots on the market, available on Telegram, we can undoubtedly say that this project has gone from being a start-up to becoming a scale-up, laying the necessary foundation to continue this rise.
This type of technology has revolutionized and is revolutionizing the world of on-chain trading and the user experience in decentralized finance; in fact, it has also found strong adoption, indicating the need for better tools that can enable users to approach the experience that to date (still far from it) occurs through centralized exchanges.
After only 11 months since the launch, what has this project accomplished so far?
Time to look at numbers and speak less!
Blockchains supported
One of the Banana Gun team’s main efforts has been to work on the integration layer to deploy their technology on multiple blockchains. The bot was initially launched on Ethereum, but over the months the number of supported blockchains has increased; to date, Banana Gun is available on five blockchains:
- Ethereum
- Base
- Solana
- Blast
- Berachain
On Berachain (an EVM-equivalent L1 built on the Cosmos SDK, raised more than $100m) the bot is live on testnet, since the L1 is not live yet on mainnet. Banana Gun to date is the only trading bot that has received an endorsement from Berachain. As for other compatible EVM blockchains, the team did not find it necessary to deploy the technology due to a lack of interest and volumes that would justify the need to be on those blockchains.
Another interesting thing is the ability to operate on EVM chains from the same bot interface, simply by entering a command for the desired blockchain.
Bot Volume
Since launch, Banana Gun has traded a volume of $3,760,310,135; an impressive number considering that the bot has been live on Ethereum for eleven months, on Solana for four months, and on Base for just two months.
Banana Gun currently ranks third in terms of cumulative traded volume within the Telegram trading bot niche, behind only Maestro (live since 2022) and BonkBot (first mover on Solana).
During March, Banana Gun set a new all-time high by monthly bot volume: $1,156,536,431.
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Banana Gun Bot by @whale_hunter
It is important to note how Banana Gun’s multichain approach has allowed the project to capture volume from all blockchains even during periods of lower activity. Looking at the chart we can see that the volume distribution is well balanced across each blockchain.
Volume dominance
It’s safe to say that Banana Gun is the best trading and sniping bot on Ethereum. We don’t say it, data does:
– Bot volume dominance on Ethereum: 46%, weekly timeframe.
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Dex Trading Bot Wars by @whale_hunter
Furthermore, Banana Gun has without any doubt the best sniper bot on this chain.
Banana Gun wins 87.72% of the first bundles (the first users that buy right after the token was launched), so far it has won over 13,449 bundles.
- Banana Gun: 13449 bundles (87.72%)
- Maestro: 1684 bundles (10.98%)
- AlphaMan: 172 bundles (1.12%)
- Shuriken: 17 bundles (0.11%)
- Unibot: 9 bundles (0.06%)
– Bot volume dominance on Base: 24.2%, weekly timeframe.
– Bot volume dominance on Solana: 6.4%, weekly timeframe.
On Base, Banana Gun is currently the second dominant bot in terms of volume, which is extremely positive considering that it was not the first mover and has been active on this chain for only two months. Whereas on Solana the dominance is small because the product is not yet up to par with that available on the EVM blockchain. But we will discuss this in more detail later.
Project Revenue
In this section, we can better understand why Banana Gun has gone from being a start-up to a scale-up, a project that can be self-financed, does not need external funding, and can provide a yield to its investors worthy of the biggest giants in the industry.
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
Cumulative revenue: 11,545 $ETH and 44,448 $SOL
That’s more than $42 million ($3033/eth | $168/sol) in less than a year. No need to comment on this number, it’s just insane!
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Banana Gun Bot by @whale_hunter
Composition of the revenue
– Product (bot): 9,538 $ETH and 44,448 $SOL (82.6%)
– Trading tax fee (removed): 2,007 $ETH (17.4%)
This metric is very important and emphasizes how well the product is supporting the finances of the company. The reason is simple: there is market demand for the product. This allowed the removal of the trading tax on the token, which had positive effects on $BANANA trading volume and removed a potential barrier to entry for investors of a certain caliber.
Banana Gun was multiple times among the most profitable projects in the entire space during high volume periods, again underscoring the potential behind this technology.
Revenue share
Cumulative revenue shared with holders: 4,618 $ETH / 17,779 $SOL (+$17m!)
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Banana Gun Bot by @whale_hunter
The revenue numbers achieved in just 11 months would impress anyone in the industry. Notably, gaining access to a share of these revenues simply requires holding 50 $BANANA tokens – no additional staking or lockups are needed.
From an investor’s perspective, it’s important to consider returns. Currently, the 7-day moving average revenue share APY is around 29%. However, we’ve seen this metric exceed significantly higher levels during past periods of high on-chain volume activity.
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Banana Gun Bot by @whale_hunter
Averaged over the last two months specifically, the revenue share APY has been approximately 70%. This positions Banana Gun among the top protocols in terms of yield generation for token holders.
The revenue share is paid in $ETH or $BANANA for revenue derived from the EVM bot, in case you want to take the revenue in $BANANA, the accumulated $ETH is used to make market buyback of the token, thus generating buy pressure. While the revenue from the Solana bot is claimable in $SOL.
Recently Banana Gun released a new version of the dashboard in which you can find the “reward calculator”, by entering the quantitative of $BANANA it is possible to see the yield generated on different timeframes: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.
Adoption
“It took ~6 months for Twitter, Facebook, and Spotify to reach 100k users.
It took ~1 year for Snapchat, TikTok, Uber, and Airbnb to reach 100k users.
It took 9 months for Banana Gun to reach 100k users, without a mobile/web app.”
To put this in context:
- Banana Gun exists on a single social channel (Telegram) without other access points.
- Telegram has ~800m monthly active users.
- 0.5b crypto users/owners at the end of 2023.
The audience for Banana Gun Bot’s products is much smaller than the mainstream apps mentioned above, still, the users’ growth has been impressive.
Lifetime users
Banana Gun, at the time of writing, has reached a total of 158,820 users, which has totalized 6,440,197 trades.
Data Source: Dune Analytics, Banana Gun Bot by @whale_hunter
Interestingly, month after month, the number of new users using the bot grew from a low of 2808 new users for July (’23) to a high of 28773 new users in March (’24). On average, then, Banana Gun added 13,983 new users each month.
Maybe even more important; returning users during April were even higher than in March. This shows that Banana Gun still managed to retain new users in a rough market. Recurring users is a better metric than new users as the latter gets inflated when people make new wallets.
Upcoming Developments
Banana Gun has an important roadmap ahead, full of developments and additional products that can support the project’s growth over time, both in terms of revenue and adoption.
Solana Bot Reborn
Banana Gun’s team is currently working on the Solana bot reborn: a new backend and UI, multi-language support, more supported dexes, sniping, and limit orders. With an enhanced bot even on Solana, offering more or less the same feature as on EVM chains, Banana Gun could increase its volume share on this chain.
Let’s imagine three different scenarios: Banana Gun reaches a 10/15/20% volume share dominance on Solana. If we look at April’s data, Banana Gun did around $155 million (5.9% volume share) in volume on Solana alone.
Now let’s do some maths:
a) With a 10% share -> $262 million in volume
b) With a 15% share -> $394 million in volume
c) With a 20% share -> $525 million in volume
With 10/15/20% of volume share on Solana, bot fees in the same timeframe (1 month) could increase by $1.07m to $3.7m. Translated in percentage terms, from 69% to 238% increase for bot fees in the same period (yes, you read right!).
Web App
This is probably the main development that every trader has been waiting for. With the upcoming release of the Web App, Banana Gun will offer a complete stack (Telegram – Web App – Mobile App), making the technology accessible to all levels of crypto users.
The team’s goal is clear: to be the “go-to trading platform” and not just be a shitcoin platform.
– Web App: most advanced.
– Telegram: dirty degens.
– Mobile App: normie basics.
In our view, this is the main catalyst in terms of user and revenue growth, which could pave the way for the first million users.
DEXTools Integration
Another notable development is the partnership with DEXTools, which will show Banana Gun’s technology to millions of users each month. This integration allows users to place unlimited limit orders directly within DEXTools, enabling seamless trading without the risk of MEV exploitation.
What numbers are we talking about? If we look at February, March, and April, DEXTools counted about 63 million visits on its platform.
Data Source: Similarweb
Copytrade, TWAP, and more features
In addition to the major future developments that the Banana Gun team is working on, other interesting features will be introduced that will expand the bot’s functionality.
Among the most interesting are the copytrading and TWAP (time-weighted average price) features. These enhancements are designed to provide users with more sophisticated trading tools, further solidifying Banana Gun’s position as a leader in the trading bot industry.
I guess you now understand why we’re so confident about our $BANANA holdings.
Useful Links:
Banana Gun – Dune Analytics
Dex Trading Bot Wars – Dune Analytics
“BANANA: JUST A MATTER OF TIME”
Article written by Pier – On-chain Analyst & Project Development Blockchain Army
