Lately there has been discussion around the naming and terminology of the term “Bitcoin.”

Now I know what you’re thinking… “What? He wants to change the name?” Your first reaction may be, like most, and defend our beloved technology. Unfortunately, I feel there are real problems with the brand and those problems stem from the name.

I have created a list of reasons why I think a renaming should be considered;

Plastic coins. The term evokes imagery of plastic coins from your childhood. This is a great example of what not to do when naming a product or technology. A little marketing research at the naming stage would have raised awareness that the finance industry takes their money very seriously and having a fun, playful name does not appeal to this audience.

Alternatives to renaming. This problem with the Bitcoin brand will not go away with a logo redesign. As much as we would hope a simple logo change would solve this problem, it will result in only assist convincing a nominal amount of mainstreamers to look into the technology more. The name makes the average person cringe, making it difficult for adoption.

Blockchain acceptance. The term, blockchain, has been accepted by the mainstream as the next tech buzzword. We can see this in the debates around “Bitcoin vs blockchain,” in the titles of conferences and presentations, and headlines in the media. A recent Bloomberg magazine cover boldly proclaimed “It’s All About the Blockchain.” Even Erik Voorhees, a serial entrepreneur who has started numerous Bitcoin companies, recently stated, “Bitcoin is out, blockchain is in.”

Name separation. Banks, financial institutions, and other businesses can get behind a new name such as the “Genesis blockchain”. They can grab it, put it in a shiny box, and sell it for millions.

Name suggestions. I have heard suggestions of names that are separate from Bitcoin for easier adoption such as; Linq, Tetra, Dolar, etc. But the one that seems to work best is “Genesis.” The term is known to the Bitcoin community as the “genesis block,” the initial block submitted to the blockchain, but it’s generally known only to engineers. Also the term is a highly marketable name to the mainstream. Most have not heard the term Genesis so they have no way to correlate the term with Bitcoin.

The term Genesis blockchain has already started to gain traction amongst the community after a meet-up between the folks from @Onename and Streamium.io where I proposed the problem and solution to everyone. Like most, their initial reaction was a bit defensive. But after further explanation in stating the points above, they began to see that there is a long-term issue that could be the downfall of this powerful tech.

The morning after our meet-up @maraoz tweeted the following and began a tweet storm seen below:

The main intention of this post is not to say that the name should be Genesis, but that a name change should be considered to assist with mainstream adoption of this technology. I fear without this change, it could be another 10 years before this network really takes off — if at all.