Don’t Call It Crypto: How Some Blockchain and NFT Projects Are Rebranding

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It is the technology that dares not speak its name.

Looking for NFTs on Reddit or Instagram? You’ll have much better luck looking for digital collectibles instead. Remember when blockchain was briefly sexy? The Bitcoin mining company formerly known as Riot Blockchain recently rebranded itself as Riot Platforms. The World Economic Forum’s Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets, Brynly Llyr, even suggested that the crypto space rebrand itself entirely around decentralized systems.

For a while, we definitely don’t want to call them NFT, said NBA All-Star Baron Davis. Its photo and video rights management platform, SLiC Images, avoids any mention of the controversial technology.

Crypto and all its associated jargon are now toxic words. Where once just adding the word blockchain to your name increased the valuation of your business, now crypto, Web3, NFT and the rest of the buzzwords that conjured up images of a brave new world are, to paraphrase Charlie Munger, rat poison.

Even the word metaverse that was supposed to define the ultimate evolution of the decentralized web has been hijacked by Mark Zuckerberg in an attempt to pivot Facebook (with somewhat radioactive results).

Although crypto is still on the minds of a younger generation who are distinctly wary of non-traditional investments, the industry needs a wise refocus, said Katie Baron, head of retail at the cryptocurrency firm. information on Stylus trends.

I think those terms have become somewhat toxic, particularly crypto and NFT, in part because the initial feeding frenzy was touted as synonymous with a brave new ultra-democratized world in which anyone could earn big by investing or by creating digital assets, she added.

For Dickon Laws, global head of innovation services at advertising agency Ogilvy, terms like crypto and Web3 have become toxic not just because of bad actors in the space, but because of terrible product fit. -market.

No one has made Web3 relevant or accessible to the masses, or really spent the time trying to figure out how it solves mass market problems or improves consumers’ lives, he said.

Laws said the crypto gold rush of the past few years hasn’t taken off with the masses because it has failed to address the issues that your neighbors, family and friends, gym buddies , people you meet on a dog walk can understand and relate to.

The problem was compounded by the fact that brands and companies hadn’t done their usual due diligence when investing, Laws said, meaning they hadn’t made long-term plans to support their investment in blockchain technology. So while many titles have been generated for the world premiere, they don’t have answers for their stakeholders on what their money has been spent on and its impact, which means growth and continued investment are a very tricky sell.

NFTs, especially, when not derided as environmental risks (subsequently fixed with Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake) became associated with the most disreputable get-rich-quick scams. that have plagued crypto.

National Geographic has scrapped its NFT plans following widespread criticism on social media, while the gaming industry has grappled with continued and consistent fan pushback, with publishers of titles such as Worms and STALKER 2 being forced to revisit their plans to incorporate NFT into their games.

Rename or not?

So far, the rebranding of NFTs to digital collectibles appears to have been successful; millions of Reddit users have collected their collectible avatars.

Everyone says digital collectibles, said Alexandre Tsydenkov, founder of the NFT Paris conference. Is it better branding than NFT? I don’t know.

Every six months people come up with a new word, Tsydenkov added. NFTs used to be a has-been, now it’s the metaverse. But now Facebook is rebranding itself as Meta, so we have to change. Before trying to rebrand NFTs as something else, he argues, the crypto space needs to wait until things have calmed down, and maybe NFTs can be in the mainstream without people understanding what they are. the NFTs.

So should all crypto companies consider renaming themselves and avoid using potentially off-putting words in their names?

Katie Baron thinks it’s definitely worth considering: I advocate either contextualizing it in [your companys] other coms, or delete it. A lot of the more compelling metaverse builders don’t include it, look at Journee or AnamXR. Blockchain, in particular, naming a business based on a shared, immutable ledger is a bit unsexy!

Yet some big names in the games industry ignore hindsight and push forward; The Blankos Block Party NFT game was recently launched on the Epic Games Store, while Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix makes no apologies for its adoption of blockchain technology, releasing Symbiogenesis, an NFT game built on the Polygon blockchain. , in February 2023.

Assassins Creed publisher Ubisoft is doubling down on the blockchain and shows no signs of stopping. Just this week, Ubisoft launched the NFTs of its popular Rabbids franchise in metaverse game The Sandbox. We understand where the sentiment towards technology is coming from, and we need to continue to take it into consideration every step of the way, Didier Genevois, blockchain technical director at Ubisofts, told Decrypt in a 2021 interview.

He described the company’s blockchain push as an experiment in understanding how the value proposition of decentralization can be received and embraced by our players.

Go forward

In the long run, what we call this technology won’t matter, said Martin Raymond, co-founder of futures consultancy The Future Laboratory.

I suspect much of the backlash we’re seeing is just prejudice towards the news, Raymond said. I think that happens with every innovation cycle or technology cycle; if you think about biotechnology, the first time it was a Frankenstein monster, the next time it was about saving the planet.

The Gartner Hype Cycle, a commonly used measure of new technology adoption. Image: Wikipedia

Raymond argued that the Web3 terms used do not necessarily require a rebrand. I just think they need to be detoxified, he says. It’s a task for advocates who use technology, journalists who write about it, and the finance and banking industry that aims to leverage technology.

Agreed laws. Web3 is about as relevant to the average person as the term HTML,” he says. It’s a crucial technological evolution, but do we need to know what Web3 means, like most people need to know what HTML means?

Users do not care whether a tool is an app, dapp, NFT, smart contract or IoT system. What interests them is the benefit it brings, he said.

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