Last week, MakerDAO officially changed its name to Sky Protocol, and will upgrade its tokens and stablecoins to SKY and Sky Dollar (USDS). This move has attracted many old users to "diss". In addition to complaining that the team is unprofessional and the original X (Twitter) account was not properly handled, more people think that the new name has no characteristics and even lost the characteristics of Web3. It is more like a Web2 technology company and is not as impressive as MakerDAO; some KOLs bluntly stated that the team has violated the vision of decentralization.

Looking at the changes in the encryption cycle, project name changes, mergers, or token name changes are common. According to incomplete statistics from BlockBeats, there have been more than 40 projects involving protocol, project or token name changes or mergers this year alone. In addition to MakerDAO, well-known protocols and platforms such as Galxe (now renamed Gravity), Helio Protocol (now Lista DAO), and Polygon (token name changed to POL) have also changed their names (or tokens).

Why are people obsessed with name changes?

Expanding the vision to the entire industry, from the table analysis compiled by LUTONG above, it can be seen that the main reasons for the name change of protocols or projects include: reintegration of resources and funds, brand positioning update, and major technological upgrades. In addition, the name change may also be affected by factors such as simplified structure, major personnel changes, easing regulatory pressure, and differentiated competition. When the market environment is not good or the project is coldly received, name change may also become a strategy to attract market attention.

Take MakerDAO as an example. Crypto researcher Haotian pointed out that for such old DeFi projects, there are unavoidable regulatory compliance issues. Unless they are content with a corner, they must cater to regulation if they want to expand the market size. This name change is also the first step in its change. MakerDAO's ambition is not limited to making a more decentralized stablecoin on the chain, but rather to expanding its business scope and market user share.

Projects such as Solend (now Save), Mirror L2 (now Mirror Staking Protocol), and Qredo (Open Custody Protocol) have changed their names to better reflect their core business directions and technical expertise, so that users can more intuitively understand the areas that these protocols are currently focusing on.

Amber Japan (now S.BLOX) and Fantom (now Sonic Labs) involve changes in team ownership or technology and brand upgrades.

Take Fantom as an example. On August 2 this year, Fantom was officially renamed Sonic Labs. Sonic is a brand new L1 that can cross-chain to Ethereum through native L2. At the same time, Sonic has added a new Sonic Foundation, Sonic Labs, and a new visual image. Andre Cronje, the founder of Fantom, is a leader in the DeFi field and was previously a member of the Fantom Foundation. But in 2022, he suddenly announced his temporary withdrawal from the DeFi industry, causing the market's confidence in Fantom to plummet, and the price of FTM tokens plummeted. The name change also involves personnel changes, and Andre Cronje became the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Sonic Labs. At present, Fantom is trying to take this opportunity to restart the market and get rid of the impact of the Multichain incident by changing its name and adjusting its organizational structure. However, whether it can lead DeFi to glory again remains to be tested by time.

Some projects change and expand their tracks by changing their names to improve the imagination of project development. Take Galxe (now Gravity) as an example. It has transformed from the largest task platform of Web3 to a Layer1 blockchain with a full-chain abstract design. Previously, Galxe had more than 25 million user addresses, cooperated with more than 6,000 project parties/communities, and had been launched on mainstream trading platforms such as Binance and OKX. After changing to a public chain, the original users will be retained and followed to a large extent. At present, the number of monthly active addresses of Gravity has also returned to its previous peak level. In terms of the ecological construction of the new public chain, Gavity can rely on years of project experience and personal connections, which will save a lot of effort in convening and seeking cooperation for basic DeFi projects.

Another high-profile renaming practice this year is the token merger case of Fetch.ai (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX) and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN). The three projects specializing in AI announced in June this year that they would establish a decentralized artificial intelligence alliance and merge their tokens FET, AGIX, and OCEAN into ASI in order to form an artificial intelligence super alliance to promote the development and application of artificial intelligence technology. With the continued support of the AI narrative craze, the three projects chose to integrate their own resources and funds to focus on promoting new projects, which is also a way to stand out.

The above projects mainly initiated name changes under the premise of pursuing positive feedback such as self-construction and improving brand image. However, there are also some fraudulent projects in the crypto market that have repeatedly defrauded users' funds by constantly changing their names. For example, the project @realtronarmy. Due to the recent popularity of the meme platform sun.fun, the project tried to defraud users' funds by "riding on the hot spots" to release new coins. However, sharp-eyed netizens immediately discovered that the project had changed its name several times before and "cut leeks" by issuing new coins. After being exposed, the Twitter account of the project is currently shown to have been cancelled.

What is the "effect" after the name change?

Changing the brand name or creating a new token symbol allows the token to "start over" with a new price curve.

In March of this year, the media reviewed the price trends of 15 tokens after rebranding in the past year, and found that the token prices showed a strong trend after the rebranding, with an average maximum increase of nearly 243.5%. For example, in December 2023, the decentralized auction platform Bounce Finance announced that its brand would be upgraded to Bounce Brand while the Bitcoin ecosystem was in full swing. The product line was tilted towards the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the effect was very significant. Two weeks after the name change, AUCTION's highest increase reached 223%. However, the negative effects of the "hotspot effect" name change also emerged as the heat of the Bitcoin market faded. The pull effect brought about by the name change lasted only more than two weeks, and the coin price fell back to the level before the name change.

AUCTION chart Source: CoinGecko

It can be seen that changing the name does not mean "changing luck". After the short-term market heat, how the team strikes while the iron is hot, seizes the opportunity to develop or gives full play to its own advantages is the key to sustainability. OKX is one of the more successful cases. In January 2022, OKEx officially changed its name to OKX and designed a new Logo. After the brand upgrade, OKX followed suit with a combination of punches: continuous social media publicity, domestic and overseas advertising, sponsorship of well-known events, etc.; in terms of product business line, the launch of the OKX Web3 wallet quickly grasped the market pain points, becoming one of the important turning points of this brand upgrade, and also enabled it to successfully enter the new brand into the hearts of users in a very short time.

Written at the end

In the current market environment, apart from objective factors such as organizational structure changes and supervision, the behavior of small and medium-sized projects to actively change their names has evolved more into a "propaganda strategy". Due to the lack of new narratives, it is difficult for project parties to form an effective brand promotion strategy.

Since the DeFi Summer in 2020 and the NFT Summer in 2021, the market has not seen a main theme narrative that can reach a broad consensus for a long time. The Bitcoin ecosystem boom lasted less than half a year, and the rise of memes on Solana does not conform to the "practical" spirit of crypto fundamentalists and true builders. There is even a view in the market that the narratives of new ecosystems such as Bitcoin and Solana are also "repeating" the old path of Ethereum to a certain extent.

In this cycle, multi-party games are more open. Compared with the "brainless all-in" situation of retail investors in previous cycles, retail investors are now more cautious and firmly grasp the chips. Faced with such a market environment, project owners have come up with various tricks to grab attention, among which "brand reshaping" with name change as a gimmick has become one of their killer weapons. However, name change does not mean changing fate. To become an "evergreen tree in the cryptocurrency circle" in the alternation of bull and bear markets, you also need to have a large user base, easy-to-use products that meet rigid needs, real innovative discoveries, firm beliefs and unremitting persistence.

Finally, if you want to give your project a good name, you can also take a look at this article as a reference: Reading the Art of Naming Crypto Projects: Is the First Step to Success a Good Name? 》. I’ll also attach a website with a “metaphysical” name, I hope it will be helpful to you :) References: https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articledetails/87ijlftv.html https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/54801 https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/seven-emerging-trends-in-crypto

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