If your answer is no, you are probably asking what is an ENS Domain name?
Remember back in the early days of the internet when everyone was focused on getting .com domains?
Well the same dynamic is now playing out for Web3 domains, with “.eth” being the domain of choice.
What is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS)?
The Ethereum Name Service is a “distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain”. Put simply, it allows users to create a simple and easy-to-remember name for all their wallet addresses and decentralized websites.
To illustrate, instead of a confusing address like
“0xAB25FF3F5A8S18799855778A2ADA096545FBA2D695E”, you can simply use “Linda.eth”.
Linda.eth will be your ENS domain where you can get all your tokens and NFTs. You can buy and manage your own ENS domains, making blockchain transactions much easier.
So why would you use an ENS Domain name?
In short, the ENS replaces the long-form wallet address used to send and receive funds.
Ethereum Name Service describes itself as ‘a web3-friendly, decentralized protocol that links complex strings of alphanumeric machine-generated characters to human-friendly names.
Additionally, these domain names are NFTs thus you must mint them on the Ethereum blockchain as such. Accordingly, you can also trade them on secondary NFT marketplaces.
Unstoppable Domains
ENS Domains is having huge success, but they are not the only player in town. Unstoppable Domains is another naming service making waves, having registered more than 2.5 million crypto domain names. Unstoppable Domains extensions include .crypto, .bitcoin, .nft, .blockchain and .dao, with registration starting from as little as $5 per domain. To get these alternative domain names, you must mint the NFTs on Polygon.
ENS Domain Names Cross Record 2 Million Registrations
The number of ENS Domain names now exceeds well over two million. And as the Ethereum merge has now been successful, this number should just keep growing. It took 5 years to get to 1 million names, then just 3.5 months to get to 2 million names, so this gives you a sense of how quickly adoption is taking place.
ENS domains have reached the top of OpenSea’s seven-day chart in trading volume. Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain names have surpassed Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) as the most traded asset on its NFT marketplace.
It is now becoming popular for influential individuals to add .eth to their social media handles. Those who use the .eth extension include Jimmy Fallon, Snoop Dogg, and of course Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
More people are using their ENS domain names to showcase their Web3 identities, and so driving the popularity for a .eth name.
According to OpenSea, some of the most expensive ENS domain names are 000.eth (which was bought for 300 ETH and is on sale for 5,000 ETH), along with opensea.eth, crypto.eth, google.eth and nike.eth.
So bottom-line, the sooner you get your .eth names probably the better.
I recently bought mine for both my business as well as personally. Still very affordable luckily!
