Name: Deprecate use of the name “RenVM” Category: Other Status: Draft Scope: Refer to the core product as “Ren” in all marketing, branding, social media, logos, and other non-technical contexts.
Overview
This proposal suggests deprecating use of the name “RenVM” in favor of “Ren” when referring to the core product in all branding, marketing, social media campaigns, logos, and other non-technical contexts. “RenVM” refers to the decentralized virtual machine, more commonly known as the network of Darknodes. “Ren” as a protocol refers to the combination of RenVM and its set of smart contracts, which includes the Darknode contracts on Ethereum and gateway contracts on supported smart contract chains. It is generally the protocol (which includes the decentralized VM) (as opposed to just the decentralized VM) that the wider community is actually referring to. “Ren” is also cleaner. <insert Justin Timberlake gif of "Drop the ‘the’, it’s cleaner>
Background
RenVM would not be of as much use without smart contracts. For example, when minting renBTC on Ethereum, the user first retrieves a minting signature from RenVM and then must submit that signature to the renBTC gateway contract, which verifies the signature and mints renBTC. Other features like host-to-host, the layer 0 and layer 1 (yes, both), boundless liquidity, and cross-chain accounts would not be so without gateway contracts that lock and release token assets on smart contract chains.
Implementation
Strict use of “Ren” in all branding, marketing, social media campaigns, and logos. In more technical contexts, like developer documentation, it may be beneficial to differentiate RenVM and Ren.
I agree RenVM should be deprecated when referring to the protocol name. One thing that comes to mind, the protocol will bear the same name as the underlying coin. Wouldn’t it be confusing somehow?
I can see benefits to this reasoning, but also feel “Powered by RenVM” sounds more catchy than “Powered by Ren” to me (noting “powered” and “machine” are relatable terms).
RenVM: the decentralized virtual machine, or network of Darknodes
Ren: the protocol, which includes RenVM and the Darknode and gateway smart contracts
Ren Labs: the team building Ren
REN: the ERC-20 token
I agree. The simpler the better. Less is more. Also, in this way, constant explanations of what RenVM is and what the difference is compared to REN are avoided.
I’m split on my views for this, I feel attached to ‘RenVM’ as a term and using it but I feel like it is because I am close to the project.
I do agree if we simplified this to Ren for marketing purposes it is far more relatable and causes less confusion, so given the vote I would vote to change to using solely ‘Ren’.
We’ve discussed internally in the Ren Core team and agree with this idea! It’s cleaner branding.
I’m not sure whether this proposal actually needs to go through proper voting procedures, since anyone is free to call Ren whatever they like in some sense given that we have free speech. But on the other hand it also makes sense having this formally ratified, where a proposal also would serve as a sentiment check. So anyone interested in setting up the RIP and Snapshot vote could do so!
