On ENS, part 1
Hi frens,
Do you have an web3 ENS domain, or a traditional domain name?
In its essence, we use a domain name to represent (or, redirect to) an address. In my case:
“denkeni.eth” means 0x255f7D91B2ddDAbBe044C64840460A1B7285ad5F, an Ethereum wallet address.
"denkeni.org” means “185.199.111.153”, an IP address held by GitHub.
In other words, these domain names are simply a short name that can theoretically represent anything. But it only makes sense with the infrastructure support. For example, many crypto wallets supports ENS domain, and all web browsers support traditional domain names
What’s the major benefits of using domain names? Branding recognition, similar to trademarks. Oftentimes, it instills a sense of “trust” in people, from my observation.
Even though there’s little reason for regular users to have a domain name, it can be a huge market. In November 2023, there were 20,877 ENS registrations and 2,763,213 .com domain registrations, indicating a market size ratio of roughly 1:132.
By the way, I’m puzzled by the demand for ENS as a web3 “username”. The sales transactions are totally transparent and it’s crazy.
Firstly, ENS is only on Ethereum Mainnet, and the transaction fee is often much higher than the price. I bought my ENS only because the gas fee was extremely low (6 Gwei), but the transaction fee still costed 0.0025 ETH. Currently, it’s nearly 5-10 times that amount. We rarely see product pricing that fluctuates based on fees in real life, as stability in prices is usually prioritized.
Secondly, I manage Web3Matters DAO and bought an ENS simply because Snapshot.org requires it to create a space. Quite niche. Imagine a world where creating a WordPress blog requires registering a traditional domain name beforehand.
What else? What’s the benefits of “holding” our own domain names? Digital ownership. Distributed system often helps with that, and what’s interesting is both ENS domain and traditional domain name operate as distributed systems! Ownership of ENS domains is secured by Ethereum nodes and smart contracts, while ICANN’s policies facilitate data portability among different providers for traditional domain names.
Managing an ENS domain may offer technical simplicity compared to traditional domain names, yet the ecosystem is still nascent. However, the question remains: will it expand with the growth of Ethereum ecosystem?
Your friend,
Denken