RSK branding observations

#1

Recently I explored the RSK ecosystem and came away with several thoughts to share about branding for the ecosystem. I’m sure others have been thinking about this for much longer than I have, perhaps these comments are nothing new. Nonetheless I hadn’t seem anything about it when I did a quick search. Please take these observations in the positive and constructive spirit in which they are intended :slight_smile:

Canonical branding for RSK

I noticed while I was exploring that RSK is referred to two different ways: RSK (all caps) and rsk (all lower case).

In the RSK Dev Portal it is referred to as RSK (all caps).

Screenshot_2021-02-23 RSK Developers Portal
Screenshot_2021-02-23 RSK Developers Portal810×136 10 KB

However in the RSK mining and bounty program websites it is referred to as rsk (all lower case).

Screenshot_2021-02-23 RSK - Merged Mining(1)

It would be great to bring consistency for this across the major ecosystem web pages.

Canonical branding for the RSK BTC token

Similarly to RSK branding, I noticed that the RSK BTC token issued by the pegnatory federation is referred to a couple of different ways.

In the RSK Dev Portal the token is referred to as R-BTC (with a dash) however in the URL it is rbtc (no dash).

Screenshot_2021-02-23 R-BTC Token - RSK Developers Portal
Screenshot_2021-02-23 R-BTC Token - RSK Developers Portal819×471 34 KB

In the RSK Explorer and RSK mining website the token is referred to as RBTC (no dash).

Screenshot_2021-02-23 RSK explorer mainnet - Transaction - 0xbf50350794c3adf380d765a5ec4abb9878e4cd0339bb1affe39115a06a4cca0a

Screenshot_2021-02-23 RSK - Merged Mining(2)

FWIW Bitfinex, KuCoin, and Liquality all list the token as RBTC as well.

Aside: I noticed that Liquality still calls the platform “Rootstock” although I think that name was deprecated a while ago?

Screenshot_2021-02-23 Liquality - Swap

General comment on the RSK brand

This is admittedly a very English-centric observation, but I can’t help but notice that RSK is only one letter away from the word “risk” in English – not the most confidence-inspiring brand for a financial platform. I understand that the abbreviation has its roots (no pun intended) in the Rootstock brand, which seems to have been completely phased out in favor of RSK. Now that the brand is RSK however the similarity to the word “risk” is hard not to notice. Has there been any discussion about this before? What does the community think about this? I don’t want to FUD about it but personally I would be happy to rebrand to a more confidence-inspiring name.

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#2

Hi John, thanks for the analysis. We switched from Rootstock to RSK very early in the project (maybe in 2016) because there was a company with a trademark on a financial product named the same way. I don’t know if we did the right thing (I personally loved Rootstock) but that’s the story behind RSK. At that point in time our community was small and we didn’t receive negative feedback from native English speakers. However a year ago or so I did receive the same feedback that RSK reads like risk. I’m not sure how widespread is that interpretation.

I think renaming the blockchain is difficult because there are so many parties involved. Is there a precedent of a public blockchain that has renamed itself at this stage of public adoption? It there a precedent of trademark litigation against organizations for the use of a name of a public blockchain?

If the name is changed, and going back to Rootstock is not possible, then something starting with R and having some resemblance with Rootstock may be attractive to the community. We then could retain the ticker RBTC, reducing the need to change so many wallets and exchanges.

However, I really see a name change quite difficult.

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#3

:wave: Thanks for the in-depth feedback!

This has re-opened some old debates about standardising various terms,
hopefully we can be consistent across the board in our various websites and products… stay tuned!

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#4

Thank you, glad to hear. Looking forward to the results of this effort!

I don’t know the answer to the second question, but for the first question there are a few examples (in no particular order)

  • Darkcoin → Dash
  • RaiBlocks → Nano
  • Zcoin → Firo
  • Matic → Polygon
  • Ripple → XRP Ledger

I think RSK is still young enough that a rebrand would not damage adoption at all and may actually help with the right new brand.

Good idea, though if the network name is changing maybe it wouldn’t be much more effort to change the token symbol too? I went through this process (token rebrand) recently at Aragon with the update from ANTv1 to ANTv2 and most wallets and exchanges managed to get it done in a remarkably short amount of time (like a month at most). So while keeping RBTC might be preferable, I wouldn’t necessarily look at a non-R name as a deal killer. Something to think about…

I’ll start brainstorming! :thinking: :thought_balloon: :smiley:

#5

Good examples. Coda Project renamed to Mina, but they hadn’t launched.

#6

Hi thanks very much for your input. In regards to going back to Roostock as Sergio mentioned is not possible due to legal issues (we were challenged by company that had the rights to it). I do agree that can be read as RISK, changing a brand involves a lot of levels and has a great impact of all the places that has been deployed and the positioning that was built over time. Nevertheless we will consider your input. In terms of the inconsistencies regarding font size and nomenclature will definitely review to fix. Thanks again for providing your input,

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#7

For this part at least… done!
See RBTC Token - RSK Developers Portal

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#8

Thank you @bguiz and @gloriav for following up about this! I am glad to see the update on the RBTC page of the Dev Portal as well :slight_smile:

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