10 Coins That Changed Their Logo

A cryptocurrency logo change is never just a design update. It is a public declaration that a project has outgrown its former self. The old mark represented who we were; the new mark represents who we intend to become. Across the history of digital assets, logo changes have tracked with pivots in strategy, leaps in ambition, and the slow, necessary process of growing up.

bitcoin-from-text-to-icon-2009-2010">1. Bitcoin: From Text to Icon (2009-2010)

Bitcoin's visual identity went through three distinct phases in its first two years. When Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin software in January 2009, the original icon was a gold coin emblazoned with the letters "BC" in a serif font. It looked like clip art — functional, unremarkable, and clearly not the product of a professional designer.

The first significant redesign came from Satoshi himself, who created a gold coin with a "B" crossed by two vertical strokes, resembling a dollar sign. This version established the double-stroke B as Bitcoin's typographic signature, but the gold coin aesthetic still felt amateurish.

The definitive Bitcoin logo arrived on November 1, 2010, when a Bitcointalk forum user named Bitboy posted a redesigned mark: a flat orange circle with a white, angled B inside. The design was unsolicited. No one commissioned it. But the community adopted it immediately, and it has remained Bitcoin's logo for over 15 years. The 14-degree clockwise tilt of the B, the specific orange (#F7931A), and the clean sans-serif letterform became the most recognized symbol in cryptocurrency. Bitboy's true identity has never been confirmed.

ethereum-community-to-crystal-2014">2. Ethereum: Community to Crystal (2014)

Ethereum's early visual experiments included a variety of geometric concepts. Vitalik Buterin and the founding team explored multiple directions before settling on the now-iconic diamond shape — two stacked triangular forms creating an octahedral crystal.

The logo emerged from a community design process and is commonly attributed to Richard Stott, a designer who contributed concepts during Ethereum's pre-launch phase in 2014. The diamond shape was selected because it conveyed both technological precision (the geometric facets) and value (the gemstone association). Early renderings used various colors, but the community gradually converged on a blue-gray gradient for the full logo and flat gray for simplified versions.

The Ethereum mark has remained essentially unchanged since its adoption, making it one of the most stable visual identities in the space. Its durability comes from abstraction — the diamond does not reference any specific feature of Ethereum that might become obsolete, so it ages gracefully.

xrp-from-triskelion-to-x-multiple-phases">3. XRP: From Triskelion to X (Multiple Phases)

Ripple and XRP have one of the most complex brand histories in cryptocurrency, partly because the token (XRP) and the company (Ripple Labs) needed to establish separate visual identities.

The early Ripple logo featured a triskelion — a three-armed spiral symbol — that represented the three components of the Ripple network: gateways, market makers, and users. As Ripple pivoted toward institutional banking partnerships, the triskelion gave way to a more corporate wordmark.

The XRP token itself underwent its own identity evolution. A community vote in 2018 led to the adoption of the X mark — a bold, geometric X that could stand independently from the Ripple corporate brand. This separation was strategically important as Ripple faced SEC litigation and needed to establish that XRP was a decentralized asset independent of the company. The X mark visually declared that independence.

polygon-matic-to-infinity-2021">4. Polygon: MATIC to Infinity (2021)

When the project was known as Matic Network, its logo was a purple shield-like shape containing geometric patterns. It was competent but unremarkable — the kind of logo that blended into a list of DeFi protocol marks without leaving a strong impression.

The rebrand to Polygon in February 2021 brought a dramatic visual overhaul. The new logo was a stylized angular mark that suggested both the letter P and an infinity symbol, rendered in Polygon's signature purple. The mark was cleaner, bolder, and more distinctive than its predecessor.

The rebrand reflected a fundamental strategic shift. Matic Network was a single scaling solution for Ethereum. Polygon was a multi-chain scaling platform — a suite of solutions rather than a single product. The new logo's infinity-like quality suggested the expanded scope: infinite scaling possibilities, infinite use cases, infinite connections. As Polygon continued to evolve — acquiring Hermez, launching Polygon zkEVM, introducing Polygon CDK — the flexible visual identity accommodated each new initiative.

aave-ethlend-to-ghost-2018-2020">5. Aave: ETHLend to Ghost (2018-2020)

Aave's logo transformation is one of the most dramatic in DeFi. The project launched in 2017 as ETHLend, a peer-to-peer lending platform, with a geometric logo that looked like dozens of other blockchain projects — angular, abstract, and forgettable.

The rebrand to Aave (Finnish for "ghost") in 2018, with a full visual refresh in 2020, replaced the geometric abstraction with a character: the Aave ghost. The friendly, cartoonish ghost — a simple rounded shape with two eyes — was radical in a market that equated seriousness with geometric abstraction.

The ghost was a branding masterstroke. It gave Aave a personality that no other DeFi protocol had. It was instantly recognizable at any size. It was friendly and approachable, which mattered for a protocol that wanted to attract users beyond the crypto-native audience. And it was memorable — ask anyone in DeFi to name protocols by their logo, and the Aave ghost is usually the first one mentioned.

stellar-rocket-to-ring-2019">6. Stellar: Rocket to Ring (2019)

Stellar's original logo was a simple rocket ship — a literal representation of "stellar" as something related to space. It was playful, hobbyist, and charming in the way that early startup logos often are.

The 2019 rebrand, executed by Stockholm-based agency Kurppa Hosk, replaced the rocket with a Saturn-like ring symbol: a circle with a diagonal orbital path. The new mark was professional, abstract, and institutional — designed to sit comfortably next to IBM's logo on a partnership announcement rather than on an indie developer's GitHub page.

The rebrand signaled Stellar's strategic pivot from crypto-native infrastructure to institutional financial rails. The rocket said "we are going somewhere." The ring said "we are already here, and this is how the system works." It was one of the first major examples of a crypto project hiring an established design agency, and it influenced a wave of similar professional rebrands across the industry.

avalanche-mountain-refined-2020-2021">7. Avalanche: Mountain Refined (2020-2021)

Avalanche's earliest visual identity featured a more literal mountain illustration — a stylized peak with layered ridges that clearly depicted a geological formation. The design was descriptive but complex, with multiple elements competing for attention.

The refined logo simplified the concept to its essence: a single red triangle with an inward-angled lower edge, suggesting both a mountain peak and the letter A. The reduction from illustration to geometry made the mark work at small sizes (crucial for exchange listings and portfolio apps) and increased its visual impact through simplicity.

The red color (#E84142) was retained and strengthened. In a market dominated by blue, Avalanche's red was and remains a powerful differentiator. The simplified triangle became one of the most recognizable shapes in the top 20.

8. Binance: Diamond Sharpened (2017-Present)

Binance launched in 2017 with a diamond-shaped logo consisting of the letters "BNB" arranged in a geometric pattern. The early version was functional but somewhat cluttered, with line weights and proportions that varied across different applications.

Over the years, Binance iteratively refined its diamond mark — strengthening the lines, improving proportional consistency, and standardizing the yellow-on-dark palette. The changes were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but the cumulative effect was significant. The current mark is crisper, more confident, and more scalable than the original.

Binance's approach to rebranding — gradual refinement rather than wholesale replacement — reflects the exchange's market position. As the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance could not afford the recognition disruption of a complete logo change. Instead, it polished the existing mark until it matched the platform's scale.

fantom-streamlined-for-speed-2018-2022">9. Fantom: Streamlined for Speed (2018-2022)

Fantom's original logo was a busy design with multiple elements competing for attention. As the project matured and its high-speed DAG-based architecture gained traction, the branding was streamlined to match.

The refined Fantom mark — a clean, geometric F-shape rendered in the project's signature blue — was simpler, more distinctive, and better suited to small-size rendering. The streamlining mirrored Fantom's technical promise of speed and efficiency: no wasted elements, no unnecessary complexity.

10. Harmony: Shapes to ONE (2019-2022)

Harmony's early branding experimented with abstract geometric shapes that referenced the project's sharding technology. Multiple visual concepts were explored before the project settled on a cleaner mark centered on the name "ONE" — a reference to both the token ticker and the project's vision of one interconnected ecosystem.

The evolution from abstract shapes to a more typographic, readable identity reflected Harmony's realization that accessibility mattered more than technical symbolism. Users needed to remember the name, and a logo that reinforced the name was more valuable than one that diagrammed the technology.

The Pattern: Rebrands Signal Maturity

Across these ten examples, a consistent pattern emerges. Early logos are created quickly, often by founders or volunteers, under the pressure of a launch deadline. They tend to be either too literal (rockets, mountains, chains) or too abstract (generic geometric shapes). They serve the needs of the moment — something to put on a website, something to submit to an exchange listing.

Rebrands come later, when the project has matured beyond its original scope. They are triggered by strategic pivots (Matic to Polygon), institutional ambitions (Stellar's agency hire), or the simple recognition that a project securing billions of dollars in value deserves a visual identity that matches its significance (Avalanche, Binance).

The direction of change is remarkably consistent: from complex to simple, from literal to abstract, from amateur to professional. Cryptocurrency rebrands almost always involve reduction — removing elements, simplifying shapes, cleaning proportions. This reduction mirrors a broader maturation process in which projects learn to focus on what matters most and communicate it with economy.

In an industry that moves faster than any other, a logo change is a rare moment of deliberate reflection. It requires a project to stop, look at itself honestly, and decide what it wants to be next. The ten logos above tell ten stories of that decision, and each one marks a transition from what was to what could be.