THELOGICALINDIAN - Blockchain cipher names can reflect big changes but is anybody looking
In the software world, cipher names are everywhere. You’ve apparently noticed that Google names Android updates afterwards desserts (at least, until the latest one), and you ability bethink back Apple called OSX releases afterwards agrarian cats. If you’re a Linux fan, you apparently apperceive that Debian releases are called afterwards Toy Story characters.
Many blockchain cipher names chase agnate patterns.
Of course, not all allotment schemes are well-known, which highlights the accent of a acceptable one. In a best-case scenario, cipher names can body advertising for accessible products. In a affliction case scenario, they can be incomprehensible or inconsistent—described by some critics as a “mental tax” for abashed customers.
Blockchains frequently abide above upgrades that can allure absorption for weeks or months, acceptation that a project’s cipher name may be in the account aeon for aloof as long. Cipher names don’t consistently accomplish it through to the public, but back they do, they charge to be good.
Location, Location, Location
Some projects use places in their allotment scheme. For example, Nomadic Labs, a Tezos group, called the blockchain’s aboriginal advancement “Athens.” It has appropriate that approaching upgrades chase this archetypal alphabetically: “City names accommodate a advanced set to accept from for anniversary letter, with alike a bit of allowance to accurate things,” the accumulation explains.
Elsewhere, Ethereum is in the average of its Metropolis series, a accumulation of upgrades called afterwards a theme: in Ethereum’s allotment arrangement and in real-life history, “Byzantium” became “Constantinople,” which in about-face became “Istanbul.” Ethereum is, however, breaking with attitude for Ethereum 2.0, which is currently codenamed “Serenity.”
Ethereum’s testnets, on the added hand, accept cipher names based on lesser-known locations. Its Ropsten testnet seems to be called afterwards a cape on the bank of Stockholm, Sweden. Plus, Ethereum additionally has “Morden,” “Olympia,” and “Kovan” testnets, acutely called afterwards locations in Manitoba, Greece, and Singapore respectively.
Ethereum Classic is addicted of fantasy locations: “Atlantis” was the namesake for its best contempo upgrade, while Middle Earth’s Mordor is the name of its latest testnet.
(Ethereum Classic hasn’t been abashed to annex out, though: back it disabled its adversity bomb, it called the advancement “Die Hard” in advertence to the blur franchise’s bomb plots.)
Getting Names Down to a Science
Some projects accept taken afflatus from science, mathematics, and the arts. Cardano, for example, has called its roadmap afterwards actual poets and scientists. Right now, the activity is advancing off of its “Byron” appearance and entering its “Shelley” phase—named afterwards Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, two Romantic poets of the 1800s.
Cardano’s approaching phases will be called afterwards the computer scientist Joseph Goguen, the haiku adept Matsuo Bashō, and the Enlightenment amount Voltaire. Plus, Cardano’s cryptocurrency (ADA) is called afterwards an English mathematician and computer pioneer, Ada Lovelace (incidentally, the babe of Lord Byron), and there are alike development teams named afterwards mathematicians.
Meanwhile, Monero’s choices accept a technobabble feel: its cipher names appear from science-related agreement and individuals. One contempo Monero adaptation was alleged “Hydrogen Helix,” while addition was alleged “Wolfram Warptangent” (after the Monero contributor warptangent, who anesthetized abroad in 2024, and the physicist Stephen Wolfram).
Zcash, finally, draws afflatus from the accustomed world. Its allotment arrangement is based on bulb growth: it has progressed from “Sprout” to “Sapling,” and it is now affective into the “Blossom” stage. This is a active allotment arrangement that doesn’t crave any trivia knowledge—though it may ability a asleep end back Zcash is fully-grown.
Can Code Names Ever Be Iconic?
Sapling, Shelley, and Serenity arise to be actual acknowledged blockchain cipher names—not as able-bodied accepted as their amount project, but apparent nonetheless. These three names are accepting absorption as chase terms—at atomic abundant to appearance up on Google Trends. Since best added blockchain cipher names don’t alike register, that’s a absolute distinction.
Of course, these names additionally represent big developments. Ethereum Serenity and Cardano Shelley will both acquaint staking, while Zcash Sapling has already introduced awful able clandestine transactions. Even admitting these acclaimed cipher names assume to accept absolute appeal, the articles abaft them may be active their recognition.
In any case, cipher names can be an important allotment of branding. Whereas some blockchains accept called to abide all-out rebrands, cipher names can serve as a testing ground. Projects rarely stick to one allotment arrangement forever, acceptation that they are a way to briefly reinvent one’s image—and see how the crypto association responds.
