Rename PFI

[decentralgabe]

"Financial Institution" does not accurately capture all those who act as nodes in tbDEX. A more generic term may be more suitable, like "tbDEX node" or similar.

[mistermoe]

thoughts on Liquidity Provider (LP) ?

[decentralgabe]

Does LP make sense in the case of non-financial transactions?

[andresuribe87]

I like LP, and I think it applies to anything (commodities and other sort of assets.

Alternatively, a couple more ideas:

• "market participant" (as described in https://www.cmegroup.com/education/request-for-quote.html )
• "dealer" or "currency dealer" can be good (as explained in https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dealer.asp)

[KendallWeihe]

Subjective interpretation:

• "Dealer" too close to "broker dealer" (AKA too narrow)
• "Node" too generic
• "Institution" too centralized, but I'm not 100% on this one... could see it working

I'm torn between LP (or just to throw it into the loop, "Exchange Provider") or Market Participant. I like market participant but it may be too close to the concept of a "consumer." I think I fall towards LP as the most appropriate. Yeah... Liquidity Provider.

[mistermoe]

in favor of Liquidity Provider as well

[decentralgabe]

If there is consensus I'd like to make this change very soon

[frankhinek]

The term "Liquidity Provider" seems to be the most fitting choice out of the options we've considered.

It ties directly back to the original concept of tbDEX as a "Liquidity Protocol." In fact, the definition of PFI in the whitepaper reads: "entities that offer liquidity services on the tbDEX network."

Additional thoughts in no particular order:

• Liquidity Provider is a broad term that can encompass various types of assets, not just financial ones. This leaves the door open to future innovation on the tbDEX network.
• The term Liquidity Provider is already widely understood and used within financial ecosystems, thereby reducing the learning curve.
• Terms like "dealer" or "broker-dealer" carry specific regulatory and operational connotations that might not be desirable for network participants.
• "Market participant" may be too broad to convey meaning.

[wjkwilkinson]

I don't think "liquidity provider" works because the protocol is meant to support non-currency exchange as well.

[mistermoe]

Sharp Cheddar Liquidity Provider!

[frankhinek]

I don't think "liquidity provider" works because the protocol is meant to support non-currency exchange as well.

A thought came to mind but what if there are different types of nodes on the tbDEX network?

Perhaps there's a generic term that can encompass every type of tbDEX institutional/business participant and terminology for participants with a specific semantic meaning?

[frankhinek]

A few more thoughts after further reflection:

The essence of providing liquidity isn't limited to traditional currencies or financial instruments; it extends to any assets, including non-currency items, that can be exchanged. Liquidity providers contribute to the efficiency and fluidity of the market, regardless of the asset type being exchanged. Their role is to ensure there's enough depth in the market for users to execute transactions smoothly.

[ALRubinger]

This is a great topic. Half agree with Frank above - this extends to any asset. But:

"Liquidity Provider" semantically isn't right - as "Liquidity" refers to liquid assets, something that has a simple conversion path into cash.

How about simply: "Asset Provider"?

[nburgess48]

Hmmm what about a "Bridge"?

• They're founded on trust
• They get you from one place (or thing) to another

[mistermoe]

A few more thoughts after further reflection:

The essence of providing liquidity isn't limited to traditional currencies or financial instruments; it extends to any assets, including non-currency items, that can be exchanged. Liquidity providers contribute to the efficiency and fluidity of the market, regardless of the asset type being exchanged. Their role is to ensure there's enough depth in the market for users to execute transactions smoothly.

fully agree with @frankhinek 's comment.

[michaelneale]

Liquidity provider/node is a nice term, and certainly seems true to original paper. Whilst it technically does apply to cash-like assets, if it was a "good" then it would be "inventory provider" - hard to find a word that covers both, stretching "liquidity" to have a slightly broader meaning is maybe not a bad idea?

[decentralgabe]

There are (at least) two problems here to address:

1. PFI doesn't work for aforementioned reasons
2. There are more types of "tbDEX nodes" than just PFIs

Some examples of (2) include servers that understand tbDEX messages or participate in some part of a tbDEX transaction, like a credential issuer, a trust registry, a discovery service, and so on. Perhaps worth taking a more holistic view and defining something like a "tbDEX node" and go on to specify types of these nodes, one of which may be a liquidity providing node, or we could be more specific and say a PFI is a type of liquidity providing node. This could be out of scope for this issue and something to address separately.

Another approach to take (suggested by chad) is to name them something like Transaction Participants (TPs), Decentralized Exchange Participants (DEXPs), Value Transfer Entities (VTEs), Asset Handlers (AHs), or Digital Exchange Nodes (DENs). I like a number of these names but don't have a good sense for which would be most accurate.

[ALRubinger]

Make sense @decentralgabe - I like "Asset Handler" - ultimately all this is about coordinating a transfer of assets.

"Exchange" I'd stay away from because it carries with it a specific context in regulatory settings, yes @wjkwilkinson?

[KendallWeihe]

"Bridge" definitely catches my attention @nburgess48 I appreciate the idea. It's new to the thread (so don't want to jump to conclusions), but initial reaction is skepticism b/c that word has already been swept up by a specific type of crypto/blockchain/web3 tech which transmits data across ledgers.

"Asset" doesn't quite work for me because of the asset-liability distinction, and if selected, the spec would impose one over the other, but who is to say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. I'm open to it though, seriously, it could work.

Liquidity, as a technical term, refers to a measure of difference between bid-ask spreads in an order book; the more "liquid" a given order book, the tighter it's spread is between bids and asks. I'm sympathetic to that term being commonly interpreted to strictly referring to financial ("paper") assets (there's that word heh), and I'm biased towards financial use cases, but it technically is applicable to all order book implementations even if what is being represented by the digital tech is something real, like a physical commodity. So Liquidity Provider being "one who provides access to the given bid-ask spread."

Idk words are hard, I write 1's and 0's lol

[mistermoe]

Lest we forget!