I was chatting with a Chiropractor friend yesterday about domain names. He has been into cryptocurrency trading for several years, and we regularly chat about that despite the fact that my knowledge is generally limited to what I read on my Twitter feed.
Yesterday, my friend asked me about .ETH domain names, and admittedly, I did not know much. He mentioned that he tried to secure one but the gas fee was outrageous. I told him I know very little about the topic beyond the fact that .ETH is not governed by ICANN and you couldn’t easily access a .ETH website. I typed in nic.eth on my phone to show him what I meant, and it returned a Google search rather than a website or error page.
I reiterated that I don’t know much about blockchain domain names and felt badly that I couldn’t share more information with him.
Serendipitously perhaps, an email just landed in my inbox that caught my attention. GoDaddy Corporate Domains (GCD) will be hosting a webinar to give an overview of blockchain domain names. Here’s what the webinar covers:
Over the last year, questions and interest in blockchain domains (sometimes called decentralized domains, NFT domains, or web3 usernames) have grown considerably. But what are blockchain domains, how do they work, and how are they being used today? Join Tyler Mason, Senior Director of Strategy and Advisory at GCD on Wednesday, December 1 at 10am PT/ 1pm ET as he reviews this technology. Specifically he’ll be covering:
The different types of blockchain domain names
Basics of how they work and how they differ from the traditional namespace
Questions related to trademark abuse and possible future name collisions
Although my chiropractor friend might not be interested in watching this webinar, I am going to sign up for it so I can get more educated.
The 45 minute webinar is free to attend but registration is required. The webinar will be held on December 1 at 1 PM Eastern (10 AM Pacific). There will be a question and answer period at the end if attendees want to ask questions.
“I reiterated that I don’t know much about blockchain domain names and felt badly that I couldn’t share more information with him.”
In this case, it is better not to know!!
please tell elliot to stop posting his nonsense on the internets. i know he respects your opinion but i think he is getting way outta line lately.
Is there a link to register?
Sorry – that was dumb of me to not include it in the article. I just added it, and here you go: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/481479858788770315
They just airdropped over $1 billion in ens tokens to all .eth users. RealtyDAO received free, mid 5 digits in $ from this retro airdrop so def. made owning them worth it. Not sure about investing in them now as you can send crypto to rdao.com as you can to an .eth domain so same utility.. Blockchain Domains are great, but disruptive business models of DAO’s is coming hard.
I finally registered the .eth of one of my best single word dotcoms over the summer when gas was low and as a result was airdropped ENS tokens last week – nice surprise! The ENS discord is very active and a great place to learn about both .eth names and the new ENS token. Additionally, the underlying tech can now be used with standard DNS domains.
Another interesting blockchain domain project I’d recommend looking into would be HNS (Handshake), which is it’s own chain. I joined Namebase.io earlier this year to secure a dozen HNS names of single word dotcoms I own, but also ended up claiming hundreds of random single word and 3-4 letter names. Namebase.io has an active discord community as well.
Just my opinion, but I’d suggest avoiding Unstoppable Domains, which just seems like a cash grab, for-profit fork of ENS. Also not impressed with the centralization of Solana Name Service.
Dotcom is king of DNS, but I think being familiar with blockchain domains and web3 in general is important for developers and domainers alike.
Did you know ENS has integration for .US but not the following cctlds..
ccTLDs
By far the largest category is country-code TLDs. The following 133 ccTLDs lack the necessary DNSSEC support and will not be available for DNSSEC integration:
ae, ai, al, ao, aq, as, ba, bb, bd, bf, bh, bi, bj, bn, bo, br, bs, bv, cd, cf, cg, ch, ci, ck, cm, cu, cv, cw, cy, cz, dj, dm, do, dz, ec, eg, er, et, fj, fk, fm, ga, gb, ge, gf, gg, gh, gm, gp, gq, gt, gu, gw, gy, hm, ht, im, iq, ir, it, je, jm, jo, kh, km, kn, kp, kw, kz, li, ls, ly, mc, md, mh, mk, ml, mo, mp, mq, mr, ms, mt, mu, mv, mw, mz, ne, ng, ni, np, nr, nu, om, pa, pf, pg, ph, pk, pn, ps, py, qa, rs, rw, sd, sk, sl, sm, so, sr, ss, st, sv, sy, sz, tc, td, tg, tj, tk, to, tr, tz, ua, uz, va, ve, vg, vi, vu, ye, zw
ENS has a good relationship with icann and is working with the current dns and not looking to replace it like the other naming services.
.eth is native to the blockchain and offers more features then what Legacy tlds can do with their integration. BUT they are working on that.