Naming Conventions (Rough Rough Draft)

General Chat
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This is an incomplete draft attempting to formalize our product names so we can have better consistency in docs and ideally this should help create a naming pattern for future products and create more clear mental models for how objects in the yearn ecosystem function and relate.

Some of these updated names are based on conversations and others are my best guess. Nothing here is approved or final in anyway, this is very speculative so please help us improve.

Product Names

Vaults

  • Formal Full Name: Yearn Vaults
  • Formal Short Name: Vaults
  • Informal Nickname: yVaults

Cover

  • Formal Full Name: Yearn Cover
  • Formal Short Name: Cover
  • Informal Nickname: yInsure

Vault Names

ETH & WETH

  • Formal Full Name: ETH Vault
  • Nickname: yETH
  • Note: Recommend combining UI into one vault with the option to deposit/withdraw as either.

yearn.finance

  • Formal Full Name: YFI Vault
  • Nickname: yYFI

LINK & aLINK

  • Formal Full Name: LINK Vault
  • Nickname: yLINK
  • Note: Recommend combining UI into one vault with the option to deposit/withdraw as either.

curve.fi/y LP

  • Formal Full Name: yCRV Vault
  • Nickname: yUSD

Other vaults to clarify

Some naming challenges here I don’t have a good answer for, like the older non-vault yTokens conflict in name with the vaults.

Token Names

Token names are tricky, once they are deployed that’s it and we are stuck with names like yyDAI/yUSDT/yUSDC/yTUSD and yCRV coming up in various interfaces like Etherscan as they read from the deployed contracts. There are some ways to mitigate that, one is via branding and good docs as we are trying to do with yUSD.

yUSD

Currently this is the branded name for the LP token received from the Curve Y Vault, what has been known as yyCRV and is named yyDAI/yUSDC/yUSDT/yTUSD in the contract.

Labs Names

Early stuff just has an informal nickname and is named whatever Andre or the creator likes and can evolve over time like yInsure became Cover. When in doubt, stick a y on it.

  • yBorrow
  • yLiquidate
  • yTrade
  • ySwap
  • DAO Vaults
  • StableCredit
  • SyntheticRebaseDollar
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From a pure branding perspective I would push more for the use of “y”, such as in Short Formal Name: yVault. Maker renamed their CDPs to Vaults. They do own more mindshare of this naming, and as brand that wants to differentiate I would prefer to add the y as prefix in order to stablish in user’s mind that YFI Vaults, are different, shouldn’t be confused with Maker’s Vaults.

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The transfer asset in stablecredit should be called YAI :pray: :pray:
Unlimited branding and marketing power.

Someone suggested in discord (SteveO?) to use yv prefix for vault assets. this would allow us to differentiate between classic ytokens and vault tokens:
yDai / yvDai
yUSDC / yvUSDC
yTUSD / yvTUSD, etc.

yes, these are already named in their contracts, unfortunately

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@green I actually suggested this a while back (the yv- prefixes) but realistically I think it overcomplicates things a bit– it’s only an issue for the stablecoins in yCRV, and context will usually help us out enough here. If we really wanted to, perhaps we should just rename the original yTokens to something like yp- (for yPool).

@tracheopteryx I would argue like @miguel567 above that yVault is actually better as the formal name. This way, it would either be the yUSD Vault, or yVault. Either way, the “y” for Yearn is in there so we know what the vault is. “Vault” can stay as the informal usage, because it’s not a special Yearn-word.

I also still really think we would benefit from renaming yCRV to something else. CRV exists as a token, and in this context yCRV is incredibly confusing to someone who is not used to Yearn. Also, I think there very well could be a CRV vault in the future, which would then need to be yCRV– and would be very confusing for everyone. I will again suggest yPOOL as the rebrand for yCRV, but I also understand that yCRV is now firmly entrenched in the DeFi community.

For the other Curve pool tokens– I think being consistent is good. y+crv+pool name, so ycrvBUSD and ycrvSBTC. Here we capitalize the official name of the pool pulled from Curve’s URL.

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Ah, it was you! right.
I only brought up yv- because context doesn’t seem to be enough, it’s a daily topic in discord. New users…

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@tracheopteryx– I just had another idea for renaming yCRV that I think is actually a pretty good one.

In the spirit of the other Curve LP tokens being denoted as crvBUSD and crvSBTC, why don’t we just refer to it as crvY? It’s the Y pool on curve, it’s literally just swapping up the letters on the original name (which I think would help people re-associate it more easily), and we already have the name for yUSD so we don’t have to worry about the awful name of ycrvY.

This way, we can extend this to any future Curve pool products as well like the 3pool– this would be crv3pool, etc.

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I’m starting to lean in favor of the yv- prefix for vaults.

I’ve put together a spreadsheet with some options here: Yearn Naming Standard

Let’s get this finalized this week, been discussing for so long.

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I’m in favor for the clearest names, so Option 1!

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I’ve updated the linked spreadsheet with my ideas (option 5)

Here’s what I’ve been thinking over the past few days:

Vaults
Formal: yVaults
Also acceptable: yDAI Vault, yUSD Vault—this way we don’t have “yUSD yVault” which I think looks silly. We only need the “y” one time
Informal: vaults

yLINK Vault
For this vault, I think it makes sense to combine into one single vault, and drop the a-prefix. Even though we use aLINK, it’s possible the strategy will change and we might use crLINK, or cLINK if Compound ever adds LINK. However, I do think it makes sense for this vault to accept both LINK and aLINK if the strategy is using aLINK.

Similarly, we will surely have SNX or AAVE or REN yVaults in the future, and I think it makes sense from a naming convention standpoint to keep the name using the base token.

ETH/WETH yVault
Simplify to a single UI and name that you can deposit either ETH or WETH into.

Curve LP tokens
Token name on Yearn UI: crv+pool name.
So, pool tokens: crvbUSD, crv3pool, crvsBTC, crvY.
Vault tokens: ycrvbUSD, ycrv3pool, ycrvsBTC, yUSD.

Of note, this updates yCRV to be denoted crvY, and we have discussed needing to move away from the name “yCRV” at some point for that pool token. We will have a CRV vault in the future, and it makes sense for us to start moving away from calling the Y pool on Curve yCRV, when that will be the CRV vault token’s name. I also realize Curve has named the 3pool token 3crv on Etherscan. I think if we’re bothering to rename the tokens for the other pools, it makes sense to do it for all of them to keep it consistent on our end.

Yield Tokens
I’m less certain about this one, and think it may be easier to just leave them alone and differentiate when we need to. But if we have to, I think using an extra letter (like my suggested yyDAI) is perhaps the easiest if we’re going to be referring to these as yield tokens.

yPools
I also think once we get any IL vaults up and running, that these should be called yPools. This will help distinguish them enough from the original vaults concept but still help us grow AUM with strategies that will be likely still very profitable, even with IL.

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I support using y for almost everything product related as a form of consistency and brand recognition.

yVaults, yPool (curve pool), yTrade, ySwap, etc.

Using the term Cover is also very inconsistent and confusing in my opinion, and believe we shouldn’t call it that in any capacity. yInsure is more appropriate (related to its purpose), and in alignment with the other product offerings.

Rather have yUSD and yYFI then complicating it and adding a v (yvUSD). yvaLINK is to cumbersome.

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I think the y is essential to brand recognition. What’s sTOKEN? I think most can guess. The yTOKEN is easily recognized.

The more protocols that pool funds that pop up the more the word Vault is going to be used to label them. There are already quite a few out there. Vault is becoming the Thermos or Kleenex of DeFi

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I wish there was a good way to change yCRV but I’m afraid there isn’t. We could rename things locally, as you suggest – but then we won’t match the rest of the world. It would be super confusing when you see crvY at yearn and yCRV at Curve. And what will integrators do? No naming wars!

For existing non-yearn tokens I think we are constrained to their current names. But for yearn tokens, we can establish new nicknames (such as yUSD) and then update future contracts to match our established naming pattern.

In the case of yUSD, it’s a crazy naming history that’s worth unpacking here.

It starts with yCRV which is actually a nickname for curve’s Y pool token, but on the contract it’s:

  • name Curve.fi yDAI/yUSDC/yUSDT/yTUSD
  • symbol yDAI+yUSDC+yUSDT+yTUSD

Then when the yCRV Vault was made (referred to as the curve.fi/y LP Vault on yearn.finance) this vault token was nicknamed yyCRV but on the contract it’s:

  • name yearn Curve.fi yDAI/yUSDC/yUSDT/yTUSD
  • symbol yyDAI+yUSDC+yUSDT+yTUSD

I just did some digging and actually it seems yCRV may be a yearn nickname, and something we can change. I don’t see it mentioned at curve in their docs
here https://resources.curve.fi/guides/depositing/depositing-into-the-y-pool
or here https://github.com/curvefi/curve-vue/blob/master/src/docs/README.md#how-to-integrate-curve-smart-contracts

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I’ve created a telegram group to finalize this. We may propose some options for feedback or just settle on the one we like best. If you would like to actively contribute to the naming process dm me.

I don’t think a vote is needed as I don’t see a reason to give our final list any kind of authority. It will simply be a naming scheme a bunch of yearn people put a lot of work into and we will offer it for developers and the community to use and iterate on in the future.

Update:

  • yCRV is a yearn nickname, a legacy from yearn v1 and not on-chain nor used by Curve. It can be changed.
  • good request from @x48 for
    • the “majority of vault names to be able to be derived programmatically (based on token symbol/symbol alias)”
    • “The reason for this is because it does not make sense for vaults API or front-ends to maintain a list of alias’, unless absolutely necessary. Relying on front ends to maintain a list of alias’ could lead to coordination issues and front-ends that display different data”
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Hey Team,

I want to change Nickname to Token Ticker:

These need to be less than 5 letters, and I think should begin with y.

Reasons being these future yearn tokens will and are already utilised lon exchanges (yaxis, snowswap, curve) and any name longer than 5 symbols will not work.

y in front is a must, as people associate this with Yearn.

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True the naming is constrained in that regard. Good point.

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I like Option 5 better than Option 1. Having the “v” in there seems to take away from the simplicity of the naming.
I think you should use Cover or Insure not one name one time and the other another time. yInsure seems more straightforward to someone not aware of what the Cover would mean.

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The community should keep all Yearn.Finance names simple and easy to remember for people.All names should begin with Y almost like a trademark so that people relate the Y to all Yearn.Finance products and services.All names that are hard to spell and to remember should be avoid because it,s going to create confusion among Yearn.Finance users,Keep it simple and catchy as much of possible it,s the best marketing strategy

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I agree with some of the comments here, all names should start with “y”, as that is the current strongest association with Yearn.

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I don’t think it is a Yearn nickname actually. Several other projects use it, and don’t think we should be changing something like this that is already used pervasively in the industry. It may not be in their docs, but it is colloquially used by nearly everyone. There’s no confusion on what yCRV is at this point, its the industry norm.

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It is a yearn nickname, I asked Andre. And there’s nothing on-chain with yCRV.

It is well known. But so was yyCRV (though admittedly not as much)

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