Unfortunate brand names in the Bitcoin world
Blockchain is a wallet service named after the Bitcoin ledger of all transactions called “the blockchain”. Their website blockchain.info nicely visualizes the blockchain, but since it also provides other services like web wallet, its name causes some confusion among newcomers: “is it the Bitcoin company”?
Bitcoin-Central is a EU-based Bitcoin exchange. Its name sounds like it’s the Bitcoin company. Some newcomers are getting confused.
Bitcoin Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes Bitcoin among humans and politicians. Its name sounds like it’s the Bitcoin organization. California even sent a Cease and Desist letter to Bitcoin Foundation in July 2013 thinking they were the people behind Bitcoin.
Coinbase is a US-based web wallet and exchange service named after “coinbase transaction”, a technical name for a special kind of transaction that creates new bitcoins. Such transactions can only be created by miners, but Coinbase does not run a mining service.
Kraken is a EU-based Bitcoin exchange. Its name just does not sound serious at all while it is being one of the few exchanges positioned for professional traders.
MtGox (pronounced empty gox) was a Japan-based Bitcoin exchange, before mid-2013 the largest in the world. The name originally meant Magic The Gathering Online Exchange. However, even that name was unfortunate as MtGox never actually traded MtG cards and launched as a Bitcoin exchange from the start. Ironically, the name was appropriate for the level of their communication skills (poor), customer support (poor) and multiple technical issues that haunted the exchange over the years. Nevertheless, MtGox allowed the Bitcoin market to develop dramatically throughout 2010-2013 by being the single more or less stable marketplace. That made MtGox being associated closely with Bitcoin itself and its unfortunate name (among other things) was making a lot of people not to take Bitcoin seriously.
Zerocoin is a Bitcoin-like decentralized currency project that enables completely anonymous transactions: unlike Bitcoin, there is no observable link between one transaction and another. The name stems from a cryptographical term “zero-knowledge proof”, but sounds like a “worthless coin”.