Proposal: Adopt the naming convention as the branding identity of the protocol

Summary:

The purpose of this proposal is to adopt as the name of the protocol (this might need more discussion) something relative to the naming convention around it.

edit Suggestions:

  • edit YFI
  • Y Protocol
  • Finance Protocol

Abstract:

Change the branding identity from “Yearn” to a stronger branding identity

Motivation:

Although, yearn.finance already does this for us, the naming convention that is across social media is non-conventional to standardize for sharing content (apart from the $YFI) and doesn’t allow us to leverage the potential of having it as an identity.

PROS:

  • Better indexing
  • Stronger branding identity (closely related to all the products that Yearn currently offers or is going to offer)

CONS:

  • Losing some temporary traction until people adopt the new branding identity
  • Might not be easy to adopt

Specification:

  1. Talk with data aggregators, news sites, etc. and made them change the branding identity across their content
  2. Adopt an aggregator site for the protocol as a first entry barrier,
    example (as the domain is not available):
    a) get yprotocol.com
    b) create a landing page with a well structured UX to go through the products of yearn
    c) generate translations only for that site

Comment: This is also overlapping with another proposal regarding the site UX and this could be added on the same proposal as just to change the branding identity of the protocol.
Context of this comment: Proposal: New Site UX

For:
Change the branding identity of Yearn

Against:
Keep the branding identity as it is

Poll:

  • Yes, change the branding identity
  • No, it’s already fine like this
0 voters

Y = Yearn = YFI
Yearn - Yield
Yearn = DeFi made simple (that’s Andre who said it)
To yearn, “to wish very strongly, especially for something that you cannot have or something that is very difficult to have”

Yearn is not just a protocol, it’s becoming an ecosystem (it says it’s an ecosystem right here), a set of tools and new primitives/money-legos, insurance and leveraged stable coin trading.

Calling it a protocol is reducing it to something smaller than it will be.

yearn.finance is more memorable than yprotocol

I’m against this proposal.
I’m for rebranding in the futur and making the whole Y ecosystem coherent visually and specially work on the copywriting/documentation, for having a better and more understandable product for newcomers under the existing name.

7 Likes

The brand “yearn” has had millions of dollars worth of media exposure over the last month. It’s distinctive, resonant, and known by ~100% of core DeFi users. No reason to change it.

Tons of work to do in simplifying the product offerings, mental model, copywriting, naming conventions (eg yearn, yEarn, yyCRV, etc.), and identity design. But I’m strongly against changing the “yearn” name.

Also “Y Protocol” and especially “Finance Protocol” are extremely forgettable, inaccurate, and indistinct. Kind of triggers my spider sense here that something’s not right in this proposal.

3 Likes

Hey! Just to clarify, I haven’t been active on the forum (apart from reading through important proposals) as I don’t want to create noise around such great discussions. I’m more active on several groups of Telegram (can find me at @vPEPO on Telegram) which actively discuss about Yearn.

The proposals of names (edited) I made were just suggestions (now that I re-read it, I realize I choose bad wording), so if anyone has ideas around this (of course if they like the idea of having a stronger branding identity) please voice your suggestion.

My basis for this proposal is around the fact that when searching on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for “yearn”, we have only 10% of the results related to “Yearn Finance”.

I love the $YFI branding and I think most (70-80%) of the news coverage that we got was under this ticker.

1 Like

Y protocol sounds like “why” protocol…as in “why, what’s so special about it.”
Weaker brand identity imo

3 Likes

I propose we tweak the internal branding slightly and refer to the governance token as YFi (lower case i):

  • goes well with DeFi branding;
  • avoids the lowercase L, uppercase i problem;
  • pronounced (/ˈwaɪfaɪ/) (rhymes with DeFi)
  • this quick pivot keeps us one step ahead of the clones YFFI and YFII no longer look like YFi;
  • acronym for Y earn Fi nance as in https:// Y earn. Fi nance.

Solidifies Yearn.Finance as the protocol vs the governance token YFi while keeping them in the same family.

2 Likes

I’m against the names that you proposed. I would however re-brand for just YFI. this is already a strong brand.

We should rebrand to YFI only.

yVaults, yInsurance, ySwap all work under YFI.

I will explain this argument further in my Headless DeFi letter which should be finished today, tomorrow or the next day.

4 Likes

I do like this idea to be YFI.

1 Like

@learnyearn @yLearn.finance I also support YFI as an option, I didn’t propose it as it seemed redundant, but if there is enough support from the community, I think it would be perfect:

YFI and all the yXXXX Finance products as yLearn specified on his comment.

My first response is that rebranding from yearn to YFI is confusing, but I will wait to see this opus @learnyearn!

3 Likes

by the way, just to clarify; if YFI is adopted as the brand identity the CONS posted on the proposal would be nullified.

1 Like

Closed since inactive. Feel free to reopen if this topic is still relevant.