Banana, the Telegram Mini-App gaming sensation, has achieved another key milestone in a sign that suggests there’s no end in sight to its exponential growth. The game now boasts more than 8 million users, who have all been seduced by its incredibly addictive yet simplistic gameplay, within less than four weeks of its official launch.
It’s a remarkable milestone that means Banana has the distinction of being one of the most successful TON blockchain games thus far, shining a spotlight on that network’s incredible potential in the Web3 gaming sector.
The Banana game launched on July 27, and while its overall 8 million users is impressive, it also boasts an incredible 1 million daily active users – in other words, people who simply can’t put it down and keep coming back for more, every single day. Banana also revealed other key metrics that indicate its success, including 1.8 million linked social media accounts and a total of 73 million in-game tasks completed.
All this came after a stunning debut that saw Banana amass over a million users within the first three days of its launch.
Banana is the latest example of the popular new “tap-to-earn” blockchain game genre that first emerged on Telegram and TON, the blockchain network that’s tightly integrated with the messenger app. Users can play the game directly within the Telegram app, and its highly simplistic, pick-up-and-play style nature has ensured it has become incredibly popular.
In the game, players are tasked with collecting new bananas each day. When they get a new one, all they have to do is tap on that banana repeatedly to see what prizes and rewards are lurking within. Repeated tapping earns rewards called “PEELs”, which are a cryptocurrency token that can be sold on crypto exchanges. But instead of trading PEEL, players can exchange it for points that boost their eligibility for a future airdrop, and rewards paid out in USDT.
Adding to the addictive nature is that players never know what kind of banana they might come across next. While there are tons of common “yellow” bananas, there are also some much rarer and more valuable ones, such as the “holographic” and “gold” varieties that pay out much more in terms of rewards.
The latest milestone suggests that players continue to be captivated by Banana’s simple yet rewarding gameplay mechanics. The game builds on the success of earlier tap-to-earn games on Telegram like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat, which both accumulated millions of users, helping to boost TON’s status as one of the industry’s top blockchains for gaming.
TON’s key advantage is its close integration with Telegram, which boasts almost one billion users globally. Because of this integration, every game built on TON has a massive potential audience. What’s more, Telegram users themselves have shown incredible enthusiasm for simple, in-app games.
Banana has the distinction of being the first game developed by CARV Protocol, which is a more expansive project that’s building a “modular data layer” for the Web3 gaming industry. One of its major innovations is CARV Play, a groundbreaking ecosystem of blockchain games that can be accessed using a single identity, with players carrying their achievements and reputation from game to game.
This ecosystem helped boost Banana immediately following its launch, and it has since acquired many millions of players via organic methods, such as referral mechanisms.
CARV Chief Growth Officer Leo Li said the latest milestone is a testament to the incentive-aligned nature of TON games on Telegram. He added that Banana, along with others in the CARV Play ecosystem, is pioneering a new standard for data empowerment in the gaming industry.
“Our goal is to create a transparent and fair data ecosystem that benefits both business partners and the gaming community, and Banana is leading the charge,” he enthused. “The combination of Telegram’s reach and the engaging gameplay of TON-based mini games like Banana is opening new frontiers in user engagement.”
Banana has no intentions of resting on its laurels as it continues to enjoy exploding growth, and there are plenty of plans to boost the game’s appeal and make it even more rewarding for users. One of its upcoming initiatives is the launch of a new marketplace that will enable players to trade the bananas they collect, with TON as the transaction cryptocurrency. That should help to increase the value provided to players who come across rarer banana types, Li said.
That will be followed by the launch of the CARV Ads Network, a demand-side platform for advertisers that’s set to debut in the next month. According to Carv, what it’s trying to do is connect advertisers to publishers, namely the games on CARV Play. Advertisers will be able to show targeted ads to users who agree to opt in. This will benefit players too, as CARV Protocol offers cryptocurrency incentives to those who agree to share their data with advertisers. Users can always opt out if they prefer to keep their data a secret.
Li added that CARV Protocol itself is committed to helping boost the growth of the overall TON gaming ecosystem, and to do that it has additional projects and games in its pipeline, including new innovations around data management.
“The success of Banana is only the beginning,” Li promised. He didn’t elaborate on what those new games or features might be, but he said CARV remains “ excited to keep pushing boundaries and exploring the fusion of engaging gameplay with user-centric data solutions.”
