Naming cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects
Why crypto names don't last long
Crypto projects often change their names during development. Matic Network became Polygon, Elrond turned into MultiversX, OpenSocial became Eden, Xion became Verona, and originally GRAM was the original name of the token in 2018 year (from the first white paper), but the Telegram project was frozen due to issues with the SEC; The Open Network launched later under the name Toncoin (TON) and only renamed back to GRAM in 2025 year. In traditional business, changing a name is a rare, expensive, and almost always crisis-related decision. In crypto, it's a working tool: here, a name is not a years-old asset, but a narrative element that can and should be updated to fit the new market cycle.
The reason lies in the very nature of the product. A token often lacks physical embodiment, recognizable packaging, or a service to which the user emotionally attaches. The name is, in essence, the only visible interface between the technology and the market, so it's changed as easily as a roadmap is updated.
Brand or narrative — what's the difference in logic
In classic branding, the key question is: "Does the buyer trust this name?" In crypto, the question is different: "Can the price grow on this name?" The HTX study shows that most market participants are not consumers of the product but narrators' traders. They do not need to love the brand; they need the name to fit into the current hype theme: AI tokens, RWA, memes about animals, DePIN.
From this, a practical conclusion follows: the power of a name in crypto is not measured by audience loyalty, but by the speed with which the market 'reads' the meaning and inserts it into the current narrative. Studies show that projects with easily readable English names raise more funds, get listed faster, and stay on the market longer than projects with artificially complicated names.
Name, ticker, contract address — three different things
The main vulnerability of crypto naming is that the name and ticker are simply text strings, not protected by anything other than the reputation of the exchange or platform that displays them. The actual identifier of an asset is the smart contract address in a specific network — a unique technical string that cannot be copied without creating another address.
On one network, contracts with the same ticker but different addresses can exist simultaneously — for example, original wrapped versions of a stablecoin and direct counterfeits. It is important to always check the smart contract address in a blockchain explorer. A similar situation regularly occurs with USDT and BTC: under these tickers in different networks and on different platforms, both legitimate wrapped versions and direct counterfeits may be hidden.
- Display name (name) — a marketing wrapper, easily forged
- Ticker/symbol — a short code, can be duplicated by different projects
- Contract address — the only reliable technical identifier
The rule is simple and strict: before any operation with a token, the contract address in a blockchain explorer or on the project's official website is checked, not the name or ticker.
What naming strategies work in practice
A significant portion of crypto terms is formed through abbreviation — BTC, ETH, DeFi — the rest are constructed using syntactic and morphological methods: root compounding, borrowing from other languages, metaphor.
| Strategy | Examples | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific terms | Cosmos (Greek for 'order'), Osmosis (movement through a membrane — a metaphor for liquidity), Atom (indivisible) | Trust of technically proficient audience, a sense of fundamentality |
| Mythology | projects with names of gods and elements | Archetypal recognizability, a legend 'out of the box' |
| Memes | tokens with animal images and internet jokes | Rapid viral spread, but short lifecycle |
| Abbreviations | BTC, ETH, DeFi, DAO | Compactness for tickers, but weak emotional load |
Scientific strategy is currently working stronger than others precisely because the market is tired of memes and is looking for signals of seriousness. But effectiveness is not measured by the 'beauty' of the name, but by how easily it fits into the current narrative and is pronounced by a trader in English without errors.
How to choose a name: a process that serious teams go through
Random successful names in crypto almost never happen — behind each one lies a check that is easy to miss in the rush of launching.
- Analysis of competitors and existing projects with similar or phonetically similar names — to avoid ending up as 'the second Cosmos' and not getting confused with someone else's ticker
- Legal check for trademarks in major jurisdictions where work is planned
- Checking domain availability, not only .com, but also crypto-specific zones
- Reserving the name across all key social networks and listing exchanges
- Checking ticker uniqueness in major networks — Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain and others where an asset might be deployed
- Test for readability and pronunciation by English speakers — according to ICO research data, this directly affects the volume of funds raised
Rebranding: updating or escaping the past
You can distinguish healthy rebranding from problem masking by one indicator — what happens to the project's history. Legit rebranding preserves holders, blockchain history, and tokenomics, changing only the visual shell and narrative — such is what Polygon did, remaining the same in essence as a technological stack.
A cause for concern — when rebranding is accompanied by a change of the token itself, nullification of historical price charts, and modification of distribution terms. This allows the team to literally 'erase' inconvenient statistics of decline and start the count from zero before new investors who have not witnessed the previous failure. If after the renaming the old token is not transparently 1:1 convertible or the public access to the previous trading history disappears — this is not a rebranding, but an attempt to hide the problem behind a new facade.
Why crypto names don't last long
Crypto projects often change their names during development. Matic Network became Polygon, Elrond turned into MultiversX, OpenSocial became Eden, Xion became Verona, and originally GRAM was the original name of the token in 2018 year (from the first white paper), but the Telegram project was frozen due to issues with the SEC; The Open Network launched later under the name Toncoin (TON) and only renamed back to GRAM in 2025 year. In traditional business, changing a name is a rare, expensive, and almost always crisis-related decision. In crypto, it's a working tool: here, a name is not a years-old asset, but a narrative element that can and should be updated to fit the new market cycle.
The reason lies in the very nature of the product. A token often lacks physical embodiment, recognizable packaging, or a service to which the user emotionally attaches. The name is, in essence, the only visible interface between the technology and the market, so it's changed as easily as a roadmap is updated.
Brand or narrative — what's the difference in logic
In classic branding, the key question is: "Does the buyer trust this name?" In crypto, the question is different: "Can the price grow on this name?" The HTX study shows that most market participants are not consumers of the product but narrators' traders. They do not need to love the brand; they need the name to fit into the current hype theme: AI tokens, RWA, memes about animals, DePIN.
From this, a practical conclusion follows: the power of a name in crypto is not measured by audience loyalty, but by the speed with which the market 'reads' the meaning and inserts it into the current narrative. Studies show that projects with easily readable English names raise more funds, get listed faster, and stay on the market longer than projects with artificially complicated names.
Name, ticker, contract address — three different things
The main vulnerability of crypto naming is that the name and ticker are simply text strings, not protected by anything other than the reputation of the exchange or platform that displays them. The actual identifier of an asset is the smart contract address in a specific network — a unique technical string that cannot be copied without creating another address.
On one network, contracts with the same ticker but different addresses can exist simultaneously — for example, original wrapped versions of a stablecoin and direct counterfeits. It is important to always check the smart contract address in a blockchain explorer. A similar situation regularly occurs with USDT and BTC: under these tickers in different networks and on different platforms, both legitimate wrapped versions and direct counterfeits may be hidden.
- Display name (name) — a marketing wrapper, easily forged
- Ticker/symbol — a short code, can be duplicated by different projects
- Contract address — the only reliable technical identifier
The rule is simple and strict: before any operation with a token, the contract address in a blockchain explorer or on the project's official website is checked, not the name or ticker.
What naming strategies work in practice
A significant portion of crypto terms is formed through abbreviation — BTC, ETH, DeFi — the rest are constructed using syntactic and morphological methods: root compounding, borrowing from other languages, metaphor.
| Strategy | Examples | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific terms | Cosmos (Greek for 'order'), Osmosis (movement through a membrane — a metaphor for liquidity), Atom (indivisible) | Trust of technically proficient audience, a sense of fundamentality |
| Mythology | projects with names of gods and elements | Archetypal recognizability, a legend 'out of the box' |
| Memes | tokens with animal images and internet jokes | Rapid viral spread, but short lifecycle |
| Abbreviations | BTC, ETH, DeFi, DAO | Compactness for tickers, but weak emotional load |
Scientific strategy is currently working stronger than others precisely because the market is tired of memes and is looking for signals of seriousness. But effectiveness is not measured by the 'beauty' of the name, but by how easily it fits into the current narrative and is pronounced by a trader in English without errors.
How to choose a name: a process that serious teams go through
Random successful names in crypto almost never happen — behind each one lies a check that is easy to miss in the rush of launching.
- Analysis of competitors and existing projects with similar or phonetically similar names — to avoid ending up as 'the second Cosmos' and not getting confused with someone else's ticker
- Legal check for trademarks in major jurisdictions where work is planned
- Checking domain availability, not only .com, but also crypto-specific zones
- Reserving the name across all key social networks and listing exchanges
- Checking ticker uniqueness in major networks — Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain and others where an asset might be deployed
- Test for readability and pronunciation by English speakers — according to ICO research data, this directly affects the volume of funds raised
Rebranding: updating or escaping the past
You can distinguish healthy rebranding from problem masking by one indicator — what happens to the project's history. Legit rebranding preserves holders, blockchain history, and tokenomics, changing only the visual shell and narrative — such is what Polygon did, remaining the same in essence as a technological stack.
A cause for concern — when rebranding is accompanied by a change of the token itself, nullification of historical price charts, and modification of distribution terms. This allows the team to literally 'erase' inconvenient statistics of decline and start the count from zero before new investors who have not witnessed the previous failure. If after the renaming the old token is not transparently 1:1 convertible or the public access to the previous trading history disappears — this is not a rebranding, but an attempt to hide the problem behind a new facade.
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