As many of you already know, we are currently working on a new Borrowing module to issue Angle stablecoins. This set of smart contracts will work hand-in-hand with the already deployed contracts, and will help reinforce and expand agTokens further.
With this new addition to Angle, the protocol will have two different set of smart contracts backing agTokens and with the right to issue and burn them. The Core Team is planning to build a front-end application for the Borrowing module as well. This implies differentiating both products and applications through separate, well-defined names.
Goal
The goal here is to find names that can be tied to each module through some aspect, that ideally revolve around a similar universe close to the global Angle ecosystem. We’ve had a few ideas, but know that people from the community can come up with very good ones as well!
Currently we are naming these modules the Core module, the original Angle protocol with agTokens users, Hedging Agents, and Standard Liquidity Providers, and the Borrowing module, the new vault-based system to issue agTokens, similar to what Maker does with DAI.
Potential Leads
Below is a list of the potential ideas we have been thinking about. Feel free to let us know what you think about them, and most importantly share other ideas you might have! The first leads include:
prefix names, mostly from shapes
stars or planets names
regular, descriptive names
We also thought about names around angular stones or animals.
I believe the prefix solution is not good for angle branding. The stars or planets solution removes some evidence from the word angle. I think the regular names solution offers the best possible combinations with the word angle (our brand).
Descriptive names are fine. But still, here’s an original proposal:
We can ask ourselves what do these modules relate to in physical world.
“Borrowing” as used in crypto is actually not very specific, there’s many kind of way to borrow money: mortgage, credit, loans, etc, which have very different properties.
Crypto borrowing the way Angle, Maker & others do is a kind of “Lombard Credit” (Lombard credit - Wikipedia), which is not a very popular name but has a very popular application: Pawn shops
A pawn shop is a place where you bring an object of value (a collateral) and get money in exchange of it (stablecoin). You can get back your collateral by paying it back (stablecoin + interests).
The only difference I see between Pawn Shops and Lombard Credit is that the Pawn shop is allowed to sell your collateral to someone else, which doesn’t perfectly match the behavior of what Angle is doing with its borrow module (Angle is doing a Lombard credit). But it’s a nice name
borrow app → pawn-shop.angle.money
Then, for the original module, it’s so innovative that it’s harder to find a real world thing doing the same thing. Or maybe I’m not knowledgeable enough in trad-fi
The closest thing I know would be Forex, where one can exchange currencies (what Angle does with minting/burning) or get leverage on them (what Angle proposes with Perpetuals).
core app → forex.angle.money
One of the nice things I see with these names is that it makes it easier to build culture/identity of top of them. It seems to me that it’s easier to build some lore around a pawn shop and a marketplace than around a “core” and a “borrow” zone.
Really like these proposals. One thing to keep in mind is we want to insist on the trust and robustness of the Angle protocol. Something cool like pawn-shop may be a bit degen
