BitDAO’s native token BIT is set to rebrand to Mantle after voting in favor of a proposal to adapt the token ahead of the launch of a new layer-2 mainnet.
The measure was approved by a majority as part of the BIP-21 resolution, which sought to unify the BitDAO ecosystem under the “one brand, one token” principle.
According to Final resultOver 235 million BIT tokens were cast in favor of the transmission while another 988 BIT tokens voted against it, solidifying the change in mantle.
As per the proposal, the BitDAO ecosystem, governance (BitDAO) and product (Mantle) will be integrated as Mantle. While governance procedures and treasury management will remain unchanged, BIT holders will go through a token conversion process for the new Mental token.
The move comes ahead of the mainnet launch of Mantle, the scaling layer-2 protocol built on Ethereum, which is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.
BitDAO is backed by crypto exchange Bybit, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
“Many people were hoping for a separate gas token and did not understand that $BIT was increasing its utility. With the changes, Mantel will act as the common binding thread in the ecosystem,” Mantel Said in a blog post.
“With the changes, Mantle will act as the common binding thread across the entire ecosystem. The timing has also been impeccable in that the token conversion will happen before the mainnet, so users will not need to migrate GAS tokens to an ongoing network.”
BitDAO aims to reduce the complexity of its ecosystem
In the proposal, BitDAO claimed that the purpose of “brand optimization” is to reduce the complexity of the BIT ecosystem.
“There are complexities as to whether $BIT should be valued for its governance component or product component or some combination,” the proposal reads.
BitDAO was founded in 2021 after a successful $230 million funding round led by prominent investor Peter Thiel, known for being involved in major ventures such as Facebook (now Meta), Airbnb, LinkedIn and Stripe .
Meanwhile, the Mantle ecosystem will receive BitDAO’s treasury, receiving approximately $300 million in USDC/USDT and approximately 270k ETH, bringing the total BitDAO treasury value to over $2.5 billion.
The proposal also states that the token conversion rules and ratios will apply uniformly to all token holders, who are not required to take any prior action.
The official name, ticker symbol, design, conversion mechanism and channel of the new token will be announced and shared with the public upon completion of the audit.
“A flexible conversion period will be employed to enable the smoothest user experience, minimize initial action on the part of token holders, and provide new purchasers with the convenience of receiving $BIT in anticipation of conversion.”
