New chart, who dis? Token rebrands might work only once

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Crypto moves at breakneck speed. 

One day, you could recite the top coins by heart, maybe even in order. By the next, there’s a handful that you don’t even recognize.

Some might be entirely new, like HYPE, TRUMP or USDE. These days, there’s an increasing chance that they could be old coins rebranded.

Putting aside any technical reasons for projects to switch tickers — perhaps alongside with the launch of a new chain — token rebrands serve three key functions:

• Offers a way out from stale market positioning when the meta changes.
• Provides a clear focal point for promotional efforts to create buzz.
• Resets the price chart, wiping away everything that happened in previous years.

There have been at least five examples of high-profile token rebrands in recent memory: merit circle (MC) became BEAM; bitdao (BIT) became MANTLE (MNT); matic became POL; makerdao (MKR) became sky (SKY) and fantom (FTM) became sonic (S).

Many of these and other token migrations are still ongoing — meaning the old chart lives on under the previous ticker, separate from the new one.

And whether or not resetting the chart was a primary intention for the projects that have rebranded, it’s still possible to stitch together the old chart with the new one, just for fun.

Take the MC/BEAM chart above. Anyone who’d only checked the post-rebrand BEAM chart would see that BEAM is still up more than 70% on its initial price from October 2023. 

When in actuality, the coin’s down over 70% across its entire trade history.

MNT is another such case. It’s technically up 56% since the Bybit-launched investment DAO converted itself into an Ethereum layer-2 in 2023, but it lost 50% of its value since BIT was first launched two years earlier.

The opposite is true of MATIC/POL — POL has shed 56% of its value since it started its token migration in late 2023 but its combined total lifetime returns are nearly 5,000%.

That’s similar to what FTM/S has posted over its entire lifespan. The Fantom team is now dedicated to a newly launched chain called Sonic, with FTM tokens upgradeable to S as of January.

Meanwhile, MKR/SKY is still positive by around half over its entire combined history, while only ahead by 4% since the rebrand.

Whether prices have gone up, down or sideways after rebrands, we could probably all learn a little something from each of these cases: when in doubt, why not just reinvent yourself and keep it moving. 

The kicker is that it might only work once.

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