I realize this has been rehashed and rehashed and that people are probably tired of the topic and that Maidsafe has settled on “SNT” or Safe Network Token as the name for the network currency. But …
The name SNT came before the DBC (Digital Bearer Certificate) had become developed and the definitive avenue for the tech behind the network currency.
While SNT is a decent name, I think the DBC tech offers us an opportunity to take the name a step further … so that’s why I am going to cause trouble with everyone by requesting the consideration of the alternative term “Safe Bearer Certificate” or SBC as possibly a better name.
SBC, application wise, is a much broader term and invites more curiosity about what it is - which is both good and bad for marketing, but I think may represent a greater role for the network currency in the middle to long term.
SBC is more informative of the technology behind the currency and the network.
As a “Bearer Certificate” it will remind those in the financial sector of the “Bearer Bond”, something that has great flexibility as a store of value as a form of money.
As a “Certificate” and not a “coin” or a “token” we are setting ourselves apart as a distinct and new kind of currency in the crypto space.
Certainly there are pros and cons. I invite discussion.
SNT is temporary as far I understood. They already have other ideas for it, but could not share it yet for obvious reasons. It was mentioned somewhere in a topic
I don’t think we should confuse DBCs for the token themselves, personally. The DBC is a wrapper/vessel/mechanism that contains the tokens and allows them to be used in super useful ways. DBCs could in future contain more than just the tokens as well, other data for example, or even other types of tokens/crypto.
End users won’t need to know about DBCs really, they’ll just transfer tokens to a friend, or print out a cheque/voucher containing some amount of tokens.
I think calling the monetary unit a DBC in this regard could end up with more confusion… because you’d have a single DBC, but with a number of tokens contained within it.
So are you sending me one DBC, or a thousand? Or five separate DBCs containing 10 DBCs total etc etc.
Safe Network Token is the proposed token name (it’d appear on exchanges titled ‘Safe Network’) but the ticker label will be a last minute thing, as they cannot be reserved. It won’t be SNT as that is in use. People are just using that as an acronym on the forum.
Yes … I was thinking though that using the token name as part of the marketing for the technology is a win. If we are simply SNT, then there is nothing novel in that, so a loss from a marketing perspective IMO.
Great point against. But to clarify, the proposal wasn’t for DBC, but for SBC. So that rules out other tokens being wrapped … but your point about quantity confusion is very solid IMO … and maybe that’s the nail in the coffin of the idea.
Perhaps Safe Bearer Token, SBT then … I don’t like that as much but still adds a part of the marketing allure and sets it apart from other tokens/coins.
edit: re: SBT, I also like that it makes sense that SBT’s are in SBC’s … as could still use SBC to refer to DBC’s holding SBT’s … I can see this is going to get confusing - but that’s really the point (of this edit) is that if we can relate item names, then we can reduce confusion in the longer run. So SNT’s stored in DBC’s is more confusing and more nomenclature than SBT’s in SBC’s.
Maybe … certainly in the beginning … not so sure down the track. If DBC’s can be used to wrap other tokens down the track as well, this could become a really big aspect of SN … and has great marketing potential.
I do agree 99% on that … but people get used to terms regarding tech they use frequently, and beating a dead horse, if we can get any extra marketing value with our common terminology I think that’s a big win … so SBT is still better to me than SNT.
At the end of the day, it’s obviously for you and the team to decide, just tossing out some thoughts that occurred to me today, thanks for taking the time to respond @JimCollinson
I was thinking a wee bit more just now… I think that the Network could indeed bu used in future for all manner of financial transactions, with DBCs wrapping various assets, and enabling other types of instruments.
But given that SNTs will be required in parallel (for storing data) to get these instruments to work, perhaps that’s also a good reason for it to be distinct from the DBCs, and also synonymous with the Network.
I know I’m talking up my existing position here so what’s the counter in that regard?
oh … yeah, I think you got me there. It is a distinct thing and my suggestion of SBT does make it more confusing short, medium or long term.
I don’t think I have an adequate counter on me right now … I’d just like the marketing nomenclature to shine as bright (and be as unique!) as the tech under the hood does … but it’s not an easy ask.
I think it’s an interesting idea. I agree with Jim, but what wasn’t mentioned was that while being “under the hood” is good for end users, DBCs combined with BFT decentralised mints, is groundbreaking, and something we want to highlight for developers and technical folk from entrepreneurs to academics.
So the question for me is how can we do that.
I see a key point being those who know about DBCs or who go off and read up about them elsewhere, may conclude that Safe DBCs are centralised, which is an important problem with existing implementations. This is especially so in the eyes of people who care about decentralisation which is an important early adopter/developer demographic for us.
With existing DBC implementations you have to trust the mint, which is something we should debunk right away as it is a game changer.
So a key point to make in every technical conversation will I think be that Safe Digital Bearer Certificates (DBCs) use decentralised mints which are Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT).
Then we can explain what Safe DBCs are capable of, and what will become possible later, given their ability to hold and manage ownership of assets such as fungible and none fungible tokens (NFTs) with unparalleled scalability, negligible cost, energy efficiency, security, anonymity etc.
A certificate is not the token, it can be any amount of token.
So what are people to say “I have 5 SBCs” But what value is that? It holds no value specifier. That is because it is a type of container for the items of value (any quantity of SNT at the moment)
As far as semantics go it is tying to call an object (token) by a containers name (certificate).
Jelly beans in a jar. You can say Jar instead of Jelly beans but 3 Jars do not give a quantity of Jelly beans. One jar could have 5 jelly beans and another 30 and so on.
This too
tl;dr A certificate is a way to bundle any amount of the token to send. The certificate does not specify the value it holds. But another name for SNT is certainly a discussion to be had so we find the best name we can.
Southside’s tongue in cheek suggestion has merit. With all the acronyms floating around today in every aspect of commerce, the military, finance, etc. differentiating a currency from cometitors would be very useful. And with central and large banks like JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, the Feds, and the IMF with their SDRs, sorry more acronyms, all digitizing with acronyms a brief string of letters which has a secondary meaning might be useful, like GOD. After all we are dealing with an etherial concept.
… sorry to all then I must have missed that part.
so what’s the counter in that regard?