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

It is the technology that does not dare to speak its name.

Are you looking for NFTs on Reddit or Instagram? You’ll have much better luck searching 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, has even suggested that the crypto space rebrand itself entirely around “decentralized systems.”

“For a while we definitely have Do not do it want to call them NFTs,” said NBA All-Star Baron Davis. His photo and video rights management platform, SLiC Images, avoids any mention of the controversial technology.

Crypto – and all the associated jargon – are now poisonous words. Where once simply adding the word “blockchain” to your name increased your company’s valuation, now crypto, Web3, NFT and the rest of the buzzwords that conjured images of a brave new world are, to paraphrase Charlie Munger, rat poison.

Even the word “metaverse” – which would define the ultimate evolution of the decentralized web – was hijacked by Mark Zuckerberg in an attempt to spin Facebook (with somewhat radioactive results).

While crypto remains front and center for “a younger generation clearly wary of non-traditional investments,” the industry needs a “sensible refocus,” argued Katie Baron, head of retail at trend intelligence firm Stylus.

“I think these terms have become somewhat toxic – especially crypto and NFTs – in part because the initial feeding frenzy was suggested as synonymous with a brave new ultra-democratized world where anyone could win big by investing in or 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 the bad actors in the space, but because of “terrible product-market fit.”

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

Lover said the crypto “gold rush” of recent years failed to catch on with the masses because it failed to solve problems that “your neighbors, family and friends, gym buddies, people you meet on a dog walk can understand and relate to.”

Complicating the issue was the fact that brands and businesses “didn’t do their normal due diligence when investing,” Laws said, meaning they didn’t make long-term plans to back their investments in blockchain technology. “So while it generated a lot of headlines for the ‘world first’, they don’t have answers to their stakeholders about what their money was spent on and their impact, which means that growth and ongoing investment – good money after bad – is very difficult . sell.”

NFTs in particular, when they weren’t derided as environmental hazards (which was later resolved with Ethereum’s move to proof of stake) became associated with the more sinister get-rich-quick scams that have plagued crypto.

National Geographic abandoned its NFT plans following widespread criticism on social media, while the gaming industry has struggled with continued, consistent fan feedback, with publishers of titles including Worms and STALKER 2 forced to backtrack on plans to incorporate NFTs into their games.

To rebrand or not?

So far, the conversion of NFTs into “digital collectibles” appears to have been a success; millions of Reddit users have snapped up their “collectible avatars.”

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

“Every six months, people find a new word,” Tsydenkov added. “NFTs were a has been, now it’s the metaverse. But now Facebook is changing to 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 NFTs are.”

So should all crypto companies consider rebranding themselves and avoid using potentially offensive words in their names?

Katie Baron believes it is certainly worth considering: “I would advocate either contextualizing it in [your company’s] other communications, or removes it. Many of the most compelling metaverse building companies don’t include it – look at Journee or AnamXR. Blockchain in particular – naming a company based on a shared, immutable ledger is a bit unsexy!”

Yet some big names in the games industry are ignoring the backlash and moving on; NFT game Blankos Block Party recently launched on the Epic Games Store, while Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix is ​​unapologetic about its adoption of blockchain technology, launching Symbiogenesis, an NFT game built on Polygon blockchain, in February 2023.

Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft is doubling down on blockchain – and shows no signs of stopping. Just this week, Ubisoft launched NFTs from its popular Rabbids series in the metaverse the game The Sandbox. “We understand where the sentiment towards the technology is coming from, and we must continue to take that into account every step of the way,” said Didier Genevois, Ubisoft’s technical director of blockchain. Decrypt in an interview in 2021.

He described the company’s blockchain push as an experiment that is “intended to understand how the value proposition of decentralization can be received and embraced by our players.”

Pushing forward

In the long run, what we call that technology will have no meaning, claimed Martin Raymond, co-founder of the future consulting company The Future Laboratory.

“I suspect a lot of the reaction we’re seeing is just a prejudice to the new,” Raymond said. “I think this happens with every innovation cycle or technology cycle; if you think about biotechnology, the first time it was a Frankenstein’s monster, the next time it saved the planet.”

Raymond argued that Web3 terms used do not necessarily need rebranding. “I just think they need detoxification,” he says. It is a task for the advocates who use the technology, the journalists who write about it, and the financial and banking industry which aims to exploit the technology.

Lover agreed. “Web3 is about as relevant to the average person as the term ‘HTML,'” he says. “It’s a crucial technological development, but do we need to know what Web3 means like most people need to know what HTML means?”

Users don’t care if a tool is an app, dapp, NFT, smart contract or IoT system. “What they care about is the benefit it brings,” he said.