Why do cryptocurrency projects always like to change their names?

Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

In the traditional business world, brand equity is the lifeline of a company. Frequent name changes are almost equivalent to actively destroying the moat.

NVIDIA does not change its name every few years, Apple does not abandon Apple due to a business transformation, and Nike does not restart its brand because of a downturn in the market.

But in the cryptocurrency world, the rules are often the opposite. According to statistics from RootData, over 16% of cryptocurrency projects have changed their names, and many well-known first-tier projects also have a significant number of name changes.

Just yesterday, the on-chain IP ecosystem [Story Protocol](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/The DATA Foundation?k=Nzg4OA== "On-chain IP Ecosystem") announced it would be renamed DATA, with the IP token migrating to the new DATA token at a 1:1 ratio. In the past few months, Xion was renamed to Verona, Matrixport was renamed to BIT, and the TON token symbol was changed to GRAM. Earlier, a number of well-known projects such as Klaytn, EOS, Fantom, MakerDAO, Elrond, and Matic Network have also changed their names.

Some more extreme projects have changed their names more than once. For example, MAITRIX has previously been known as CENTRAL, X Network, and XLD Finance; BitSafe was formerly known as dlcBTC and DLC.Link; TaleX was previously called Read2N and Metale Protocol; KGeN was previously known as indiGG and Kratos Gaming Network. The more names change, the less many projects have gained new life from their new names, and instead, they gradually fall into silence.

This raises a question that is rarely discussed seriously in the cryptocurrency industry: why do cryptocurrency projects like to change their names?

The answer may not be complicated: because in the cryptocurrency industry, brand is not the most important asset; attention, narrative, token price, and liquidity are.

1. Cryptocurrency Brand Loyalty is Too Low

Traditional brands fear name changes because user loyalty comes from long-term consumption experiences. A user who has bought iPhones for many years, drank Starbucks for many years, and worn Nike for many years has developed their perception of the brand over time, which will not easily change due to a marketing campaign.

But the user structure of cryptocurrency projects is completely different.

Most early users are not traditional consumers but rather investors, airdrop hunters, liquidity providers, node participants, and narrative traders. They use the product not necessarily because it is good, but because there may be airdrops, potential profits, or room for price increases.

This means that user loyalty to cryptocurrency brands is inherently weaker.

In traditional industries, users ask, "Is this brand trustworthy?"; in the cryptocurrency industry, users more often ask, "Can this coin still rise?" As long as the price remains low for an extended period, the narrative fails, and the ecosystem falls silent, an old name may become a liability.

A name that has experienced a crash, being stuck, hacking attacks, team controversies, or failed roadmaps is hard to rekindle market imagination. It carries not brand equity but scars from price charts and community grievances.

This is also the fundamental reason why cryptocurrency projects dare to frequently change names: in many cases, the old name has no moat, only historical burdens.

2. Renaming is a Marketing Strategy

Not all name changes should be simply viewed as "changing disguises." Some projects change their names because the original name cannot accommodate the new strategic scope. With the changes in market hot concepts, if the name includes outdated concepts like "Social" or "DAO," or if the meaning of the name does not fit, renaming becomes a necessary choice.

For example, the decentralized social protocol OpenSocial changed its name to Eden after transforming to AI, and the decentralized electronic signature platform EthSign chose to remove "Eth" from its name after expanding its business. The Ethereum sidechain Matic Network was renamed Polygon after developing multiple scaling solutions.

When the boundaries of a project’s business fundamentally change, the original brand may limit external perception. Renaming at this time is a necessary strategic adjustment.

Of course, there are also many projects that actively "hitch a ride on trends," gaining more attention by incorporating popular concepts into their names. During the last wave of the metaverse craze, Elrond renamed itself MultiversX, directly adding "Multiverse" elements to its name, clearly hoping to ride the narrative of the metaverse and multidimensional digital worlds.

Similarly, as AI, RWA, and Perp became industry hotspots, many projects quickly aligned themselves with new concepts through renaming. For example, Vanilla Finance was renamed Superp, and Function X was renamed Pundi AI, reshaping their narratives.

After all, in the cryptocurrency industry, narrative itself is part of asset pricing. The closer the name is to the new narrative, the easier it is to attract attention from exchanges, KOLs, retail investors, and market-making funds.

Many projects change names primarily because the old brand has already fallen to the bottom of trust.

In the history of the cryptocurrency industry, hacking attacks, contract vulnerabilities, cross-chain bridge thefts, and team disputes can quickly destroy a project's brand credibility. Once users associate a name with "theft," "explosion," "running away," or "poor compensation," continuing to use the old name means carrying negative public opinion.

Therefore, renaming becomes the most direct public relations tool for project teams, often dressed up as "brand rejuvenation."

Anyswap was renamed Multichain after being hacked, and Alpha Finance was renamed Stella after losing $37 million, both carrying similar connotations. On the surface, they are adjusting product lines and strategic positioning; but from the market's perception, renaming also serves to "cut off old memories" to some extent.

3. The Gray Area of Renaming and Token Swapping

If it were just a name change, the impact would actually be limited. What is truly concerning is that many cryptocurrency projects often accompany name changes with token swaps.

Token swapping means that the old token needs to be migrated to a new token, exchanges will issue announcements, deposits and withdrawals will be suspended, old trading pairs will be delisted, and new trading pairs will be launched. For project teams, this is a rare opportunity for a secondary listing.

Many projects also take the opportunity to split tokens. For example, 1:100 or 1:1000, splitting a originally high-priced token into more units, making each token appear cheaper. Projects like SKY and BEAM have adopted similar approaches. Splitting shares does not change the company's value; lower unit prices often attract retail attention more easily.

More critically, after renaming and token swapping, the historical price charts of exchanges are often reset.

For many old tokens, the historical burden is heavy. Countless stuck positions, downward trends, negative news, and resistance levels from the past few years are all condensed in the old price charts. After the new token is launched, it superficially has a brand new chart, with no historical highs to suppress it, no long-term downward shadows, and no intuitive memories of being stuck.

This is extremely beneficial for project teams and market makers. When the old token is migrated to the new token, many exchanges will suspend deposits and withdrawals. At this time, the actual circulating supply in the secondary market may become very light. On a few platforms where trading is open, market-making funds only need relatively little capital to potentially drive up the price of the new token, creating the illusion of a "surge after the upgrade" in the market.

Subsequently, the project team, early participants, or market-making funds may complete their exit by leveraging liquidity recovery and user chasing.

This is the most dangerous aspect of renaming and token swapping: it superficially appears to be a brand upgrade, but in essence, it may be a liquidity reset.

Furthermore, many projects also redesign token economics during the token swapping process. Ordinary users see a 1:1 migration and believe their rights are not harmed. However, the project team may simultaneously introduce new validator rewards, ecological funds, team incentives, node subsidies, and strategic reserves, thereby creating a large number of new tokens out of thin air.

FRONT was renamed to [Self Chain](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Self Chain?k=MTE1MjY= "Intent-Centered Blockchain"), and TVK was renamed to Vanar Chain, which are typical cases. They both significantly increased token issuance under the pretext of node rewards and ecological construction, diluting the value of users' holdings.

4. The Real Problem is Not Renaming, But Avoiding History

Cryptocurrency projects can certainly change their names; this is not a serious issue.

Changes in technical routes, expansions in product boundaries, shifts in market hotspots, and legal risk segmentation can all lead to reasonable brand rejuvenation. Cases like Matic changing to Polygon illustrate that a good name can indeed help a project embrace a larger strategic space.

However, in more cases, the renaming of cryptocurrency projects is not aimed at solidifying the brand but at escaping from it.

Escaping from old price charts, escaping from stuck positions, escaping from hacking attacks, escaping from failed narratives, escaping from user doubts, escaping from stories that can no longer be told.

This is precisely the biggest difference between the cryptocurrency industry and the traditional business world: traditional companies fear losing brand memory, while many cryptocurrency projects fear that users remember too much.

Therefore, when a project announces a name change, the market should not only ask what its new name is but should also question three things:

What new real capabilities or strategies has it added? Has its token economics changed? What old history does it most want users to forget?

If there are real products, real income, real users, and clearer strategies behind the renaming, then it may be the beginning of a new phase. But if the renaming is merely accompanied by token swapping, trend-hopping, increased issuance, and clearing of price charts, then it is likely just a beautifully packaged old game.