BananoFaucet.cc - The Reddit Banano Faucet
MiranDaniel
Introduction
Hey there, in case you don’t know me, I’m MiranDaniel, the creator of BananoFaucet.cc.
BananoFaucet.cc is a Banano faucet distributing Banano to the active users of r/Banano on Reddit. It has been running since early January 2021.
How it all started
Almost a year ago, a few weeks after finding Banano, I asked a simple question in the Frankenstein's lab channel. “How can I set up a faucet? ''.
I didn't really have an idea what it would be like or how it would work at the time. I just knew that running a faucet would be cool and wanted to try it out. Kirby, one of the developer Juntas quickly replied with a great explanation, a starting point to base my ideas upon.
Clueless me asking for help
At the time, I only knew the Reddit API. I didn’t know anything backend so sending the data using Reddit was my only choice.
I’ve quickly created a basic website with a textbox, captcha and a send button.
Oldest screenshot of the faucet
It wasn’t much but it was something and it was fun. After finishing this design I got a 50k Banano fund to give out, this is where I really knew this has to work and it has to be perfect.
Early versions
The faucet early versions are nothing like the current one. The first version required 50 Reddit karma and that was it. If you had 50 karma you got 100 Banano. There weren’t a lot of checks to prevent alts if any.
After some time we made the karma requirement 100 karma, an account older than 2 weeks and a comment/post on the Banano subreddit. For that, you would get 10 Banano. After some time we raised the karma requirement to 420, the issue with this was that people started shitposting to r/Banano to get quick karma. The subreddit was getting a ton of posts, most of them just being basic banana pictures.
To battle this we have added the “Your karma needs to have been gained by meaningfully contributing to the community. Vote manipulation and karma begging is not allowed.” rule. It didn’t stop people from karma begging in other subreddits but it stopped the huge spam wave in r/Banano. It was good enough, for some time.
Algorithm change
The “no vote begging” rule wasn’t good enough. It was way too easy to create multiple accounts, farm karma and abuse the faucet.
After discussing the situation with Renesq, we have created the MagicV1 algorithm. We never told anyone how it worked, and that was the reason it worked. Not knowing what to farm to boost your payouts meant that users have stopped trying to earn as much as possible.
This worked but still wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. That’s why MagicV2 was made. It analyzes even more variables and makes it even hard to reverse engineer. This algorithm has been in use for a few months now and nobody has gotten close to cracking it, most have given up after a few hours due to the lack of clues and the number of variables the bot has access to.
MagicV2, along with other upgrades, is the best algorithm so far. It makes it very hard to cheat while rewarding active and helpful users.
Visible algorithm changes based on the balance
Development
I’ve used to update the faucet website almost daily from the start. Trying to fix all (usually scaling) issues taught me a lot of new skills.
Thanks to this project, I have learned many important Python functions, the basics of Linux system administration and how Nano/Banano works. I’ve learned so many new and important things so quickly, without really thinking about it. It was so much fun and learning at the same time.
Small event
The faucet has sent out more than 50,000 transactions. To celebrate the 50,000th one, I’ve sent 1919 Banano to the 50,000th user. This event was announced before this so people were trying to send their request just in time, not too soon and not too late.
This event was a lot of fun and there may be more in the future, who knows.
Community feedback
The community feedback has been great. Users are constantly giving me feedback on the faucet. It’s great since it helps me improve it even more.
Most users love the faucet, there are only a few people that dislike it. Usually, because it uses Reddit.
The community is very helpful, I’ve always been able to find kind souls to help me test new features, designs or algorithms.
Several users have created pull requests on the OpenSource frontend repository to fix issues. It’s amazing how people can come together and work to improve something.
Happy user giving positive feedback in the jungle
The monetary side of things
Running a faucet is not worth it if you are looking for profits. While the faucet is funded by the developer fund, the Banano is only used to be given out. I don’t get to keep any and since I have to pay for the electricity to run my node I have added a donation address on the bottom of the page. Sadly, almost nobody even notices it. This was an issue when my faucet wasn’t connected to the BPOW network as it would constantly run on 100%, using a lot of electricity. Since I got access to BPOW, power usage is not really an issue and the donation address is still there just in case someone wants to make my day.
I’m running the faucet to give out Banano, learn, have fun and meet new people. In that sense, running a faucet is more than worth it.
The faucet right now
Right now, the faucet is one of the most popular ones to my knowledge.
So far, it has given out more than 650,000 Banano and has made more than 51,000 users happy.
The faucet looks right now
I love the project. I’ve learned so many new things by working on it. Met so many new awesome people and have overall made my life a lot better and more interesting. It really showed me how Banano is a special cryptocurrency. I’ve never seen a community this awesome, not even outside of crypto.
I think that Banano is a great crypto project to learn the basic concepts on. Especially since wrapped Banano came out, it has gotten much easier to learn crypto with Banano.
As a developer, the only “bad” thing about Banano is the lack of developer bounties.
I plan on improving the faucet till the end of Banano. There is no reason not to work on a project for such an awesome community like Banano.
Special thanks
Special thanks to
- Kirby, for helping me create the faucet and for funding the first versions,
- Renesq, for helping with the algorithms and funding,
- Coranos, for his awesome help with the Banano protocol and node setup,
- Oops, for helping with the 50k event,
- r/Banano moderators, for managing the subreddit even under huge waves of users,
- the beta testers, for helping with the new features,
- the donators, for keeping me “not so broke to have to find a job”,
- Sivulla and /dev/aux for their memes,
- and you, for being awesome.
