Wrapped Banano wallet

What is Wrapped Banano (WBAN)?

Banano runs on its own network, a fork of the Nano block-lattice design where every account has its own chain, transfers settle in under a second and there is no fee at all. Its addresses start with ban_ and look nothing like an EVM address. WBAN is what you get when BAN crosses a bridge into the smart contract world: a 1:1 token representing coins locked on the Banano side, issued on EVM chains so the asset can be used in contracts the native network has no concept of.

The swap in mechanics is the thing to internalise. On the native chain sending costs nothing; as WBAN you pay gas in the host chain's coin for every single move, so the address needs a balance of that coin as well. Each chain also carries its own WBAN contract and its own balance, and crossing between them means going through the bridge rather than sending directly. Coming home to native BAN is the same bridge in reverse, after which the ban_ address holds the coins again.

Supported networks in Tangem (5): Arbitrum One, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon POS, Fantom.

In Tangem each of those chains appears with its own WBAN balance and its own gas coin alongside it, and the network a transfer leaves on is named on screen before you tap the card to sign - worth a glance, since the recipient's EVM address looks identical on all of them. An asset that exists in several parallel copies is easier to keep straight when the wallet never merges them into one number.