The domain name business is booming against the market. Can BNS succeed ENS?
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Under the bear market, Web 3 domain name trading has become a hot business, especially ENS.
All kinds of ENS domain names with three-digit, four-digit and Emoji expressions are highly sought after, and the transaction price continues to rise; several giant whales create and sweep ENS domain names in batches, and attach website links to the domain names for personal use. Started the domain name sales business. According to the data, 378,442 ENS domain names were newly registered in July, surpassing the previous record (365,652) set in May and setting a record high; as of now, the total number of ENS domain names created has exceeded 2 million.
This wave has also spread to other public chain ecosystems other than Ethereum, and each of them has gradually launched its own domain name service. Recently, Odaily noticed a domain name agreement called Binance Name Service (BNS), which filled the gap in the BNB Chain ecological market.
Like ENS, BNS also supports wallet address mapping, enhanced domain name ownership and reverse resolution services. Users do not need to remember lengthy and unordered addresses, and can transfer money directly from one domain name to another domain name quickly and easily. More importantly, considering the loopholes in the ENS design, BNS prohibits zero-width hyphens at the contract level, ensuring the uniqueness and authenticity of domain names.
In the future, BNS will build a Web3 social platform (similar to quora) based on the BNS domain name. Users can set and display personal profile information and add Avatar avatars in the domain name they hold. In addition, BNS will also launch a Web3 user information distribution center based on domain name identity. Any builder can define user behavior characteristics; Online information is extracted and transformed into targeted and timely intelligent messages, and transformed into a social network where users can exchange and interact.
As a rising star in the domain name field, can BNS integrate the ecological advantages of BNB Chain to overtake ENS and grow into the next leader in the domain name field?
1. Domain name is the social pass in the Web3 era
Users who have been around Web3 for many years must have such an experience. When you want to transfer money to a friend on the chain, you first need to obtain the address on the chain, which is usually a long string of irregular and memoryless strings. Once negligence, omission or mistaken entry of a letter may lead to transfer errors, the above steps have to be repeated.
In order to facilitate user transactions on the chain, the Web3 domain name came into being, which converts unordered on-chain addresses into words or symbols with memory points. Take the ENS (Ethereum Name Service) of the decentralized domain name protocol as an example. The common Ethereum address is a combination of numbers and letters starting with 0x. After using the ENS domain name service, it can be changed to xx.eth (xx can be your name or other symbols ).
In the case of ENS, registrations have been on the rise over the past few months. The data shows that the total number of ENS domain name registrations has reached 2.073 million so far, 70% of which are newly added after this year (1.453 million); the number of independently held addresses has reached 532,000, and the newly added account for nearly 60% after this year; among them, this year In July, the number of single-month registrations of ENS domain names exceeded 370,000, setting a record high.
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(ENS registration data)
Why does the market have a soft spot for domain name services? What is the real role of domain name services in the Web3 era?
The ease of use mentioned above is one of the core values of domain names, but more importantly, domain names such as ENS and BNS make Web3 more humane and personalized, lowering the threshold for understanding.
"For ordinary wallet addresses, domain names are not only convenient for transfers, but more importantly, they can be used to label users' identities on the chain. Personalized settings will lower the threshold for new users to understand. We have always made products from the perspective of users. Let’s go.” Alger, head of business at BNS, explained that if Alipay users can only perform transfer operations through a long string of Alipay IDs, the probability of transaction errors will be doubled, and the corresponding convenience will be greatly reduced.
Furthermore, Web3 domain names have certain economic value. Like traditional Web2 domain names, Web3 domain names such as ENS and BNS are available for trading. Users can collect rare domain names and profit from the transaction. A good domain name is even more valuable than some blue-chip NFTs.
For example, on July 4th, the "000.eth" ENS domain name was sold at a price of 300 ETH, setting a record for the second highest ENS domain name transaction price in history; the ENS domain name with the highest transaction value in history was "paradigm.eth", The transaction price was 420 ETH, and Paradigm corresponding to this domain name is a well-known encryption investment fund.
In addition, various ENS domain names with three-digit, four-digit and Emoji expressions have been highly sought after recently, and the transaction prices have continued to rise; several giant whales have created and scanned ENS domain names in batches, and attached domain names to domain names for personal use. Get a link on the website and start a domain name selling business.
Second, a Web3 domain name is a symbol of identity and status, and has brand value. ENS and BNS domain names can be regarded as a business card in the Web3 world, which can represent the identity of individuals, companies and even countries, and can also be displayed in combination with numbers, letters, emoji and symbols, conveying personality and brand value. More importantly, users with the same dotted domain name have a mentality of identity attribution, and various domain name clubs have also appeared recently.
From the perspective of practical application, Web3 domain name is becoming the standard configuration for traditional institutions and large enterprises to enter Web3. Budweiser purchased beer.eth with 30 ETH last year; luxury brand Gucci began to accept cryptocurrency payments in some stores in the United States after acquiring gucci.eth with 12 ETH in March this year; jewelry brand Tiffany purchased 29 ETH (approx. $50,000) for the tiffany.eth domain name.
Finally, for project organizers and investment institutions, domain names are a high-quality track for business models to be verified. From the data point of view, in the past year, ENS's total revenue reached nearly 54 million US dollars, of which 10% to 20% came from renewal fees, and the rest was registration fees, which means that users have high stickiness and strong willingness to pay and renew.
From the perspective of the development prospects of the track, the annual sales of traditional We2 domain names reach tens of billions of dollars, and the sales of domain names in the US market alone will reach 6.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2022; while the current volume of Web3 domain names is relatively small - the hottest ENS sales The amount is less than hundreds of millions. The entire Web3 domain name industry is in the ascendant, and there is still a lot of room for development, with a high ceiling.
In general, in the Web2 era, traditional domain names such as DNS are used as a channel to connect individuals and companies/enterprises; in the Web3 era, encrypted native domain names such as ENS and BNS have become a social pass for Web3, and have become the gateway for individuals, enterprises and even the country. status symbol. With the advancement of Web3, some domain name projects may develop into business cards for the entire industry, just like ".com".
2. Build Web3 social networking based on BNS domain name
With the booming domain name business, this wave has also spread to other public chain ecosystems other than Ethereum, including Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, Tezos, Flow, Evmos, etc., which have also gradually launched their own domain name services this year. . But whether it is the transaction volume or the number of registered users, there is a lot of gap compared with ENS. A very important reason is that the ecological development behind these domain names is slow, and the user activity is far lower than that of Ethereum. The rigid demand for domain names It is not strong.
In view of this, the BNS development team project chose to build a domain name service based on the BNB Chain.
"For entrepreneurs, Ethereum is indeed a good innovation paradise. After all, it has a richer ecology and a more complete infrastructure. But as a Builder, the BNB Chain ecology allows me to see opportunities, and we are willing to develop a Grassland. The advantages of BNB Chain are also obvious. In the past, there was a steady stream of diversion from Binance officials, and later it was affected by the law of the time machine. The infrastructure on the Ethereum chain will exist in the future.” Alger told Odaily.
Judging from various data, BNB Chain has indeed gradually surpassed Ethereum: BNB Chain processed 2.8 million transactions per day, and reached a peak of 3.7265 million on March 16 this year, while ETH processed 1.3 million transactions per day; The number of active addresses for transactions on the Internet continues to hit new highs. Last week, the number of unique addresses on BNB Chain increased by 1.5719 million, reaching a total of 143 million, with a growth rate of 2.7%, while the growth rate of ETH last week was only 0.87%. In terms of assets, the total lock-up value of BNB Chain is 5.5 billion US dollars, making it the second largest encryption ecosystem after Ethereum.
On the other hand, BNB Chain is currently in the absence of domain name services. The sample survey data shows that among the 200,000 sample addresses, 99.5% of the users do not have a domain name, and the entry of BNS makes up for the last shortcoming in the market. As the ecosystem with the largest volume and the most active users outside of Ethereum, BNB Chain is becoming a new battlefield for domain name competition, ushering in a new wave.
"BNS can link every Web3 user, link various mainstream platform scenarios, help each user link his identity and assets, and help BNB Chain link more customers." In the official website, BNS introduces this way. What are the differentiating advantages of BNS, the first to enter the game?
Like ENS, BNS also supports wallet address mapping, enhanced domain name ownership and reverse resolution services. Users do not need to remember lengthy and disorderly BNB Chain addresses, and can directly transfer money from one domain name to another domain name conveniently and quickly.
More importantly, considering the loopholes in the ENS design, BNS prohibits the "zero-width hyphen" at the contract level, ensuring the uniqueness and authenticity of the domain name.
A zero-width joiner (ZWJ for short) can be interpreted as a space. Assuming that when a user registers the "vitalik" ENS domain name, he only needs to add a few zero-width hyphens before and after the name to obtain a domain name that looks the same as V God from the naked eye. The existence of this vulnerability will directly lead to damage to the value of domain names, and some ordinary users may even buy "false" domain names, which greatly affects secondary market transactions. BNS directly eliminates this problem.
On this basis, BNS will connect with BNB Chain ecological projects, including wallets, browsers, cross-chain bridges, exchanges, etc., and support the direct use of domain name services through these platforms. According to the official disclosure, three wallets (MetaMask, Bitkeep, Tokenpocket Trust Wallet) projects of the BNB Chain ecology, eight DEXs and two NFT platforms have been connected, and the specific list will be announced at an optional date.
In addition, BNS will also build a Web3 social platform based on the BNS domain name. Users can set and display personal information in their domain names, such as ERC20 addresses, email addresses, URL links, Twitter, Github, Reddit, Telegram, etc.; You can also set the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standard NFT held by your own address as an Avatar avatar and display it in each DAPP application on the chain. As follows:
"In the future, your BNS domain name will be your decentralized mailbox, and your BNS domain name can also be your decentralized website or personal homepage." Alger said.
In addition, BNS will also launch a Web3 user information distribution center based on domain name identity. Any builder can define user behavior characteristics; Online information is extracted and transformed into targeted and timely intelligent messages, and transformed into a social network where users can exchange and interact.
For example, suppose a user is a MOD (administrator) of a project's Discord community, the project party can evaluate its performance, and the relevant tags will be synchronized to the BNS domain name. When they go to other project communities to participate in MOD recruitment, these tags Its past contributions can be verified, helping it gain a competitive advantage. This function can also help some emerging project parties determine the NFT whitelist and airdrop list to obtain high-quality user resources.
"From the perspective of To B, BNS has a lower access cost. For the access scene, it only takes one person about an hour to complete the access to BNS. This is also an ecological pry for the future of BNS. From the perspective of To C, BNS will continue to surprise the community, please wait and see.” Alger told Odaily.
3. Keep your feet on the ground and look up at the starry sky
According to the official plan, the domain name service will be officially launched in the fourth quarter of this year, and the domain name trading market will be opened. A few days ago, the official announcement on Twitter stated that users who hold a set of (T1 T2 T3) Genesis NFT will get a whitelist of BNS domain names.
At the beginning of the agreement, the minimum unit price of BNS registration fee is 5 US dollars a year, which is also the most important source of the project; BNS also builds a revenue distribution agreement based on Share to earn, and users can also earn revenue by recommending friends to register domain names. After a certain amount of users, social products will be launched and domain name registration will be free. In the future, BNS will be free and open, and will truly become the Web3 traffic portal. The first wallet address for every new user to come to the encrypted world is a personalized domain name, lowering the threshold for understanding and attracting more people to the encrypted field.
In addition, the team will issue the token BNS after the project matures, and domain name registration will also support BNS payment at that time. "From Web3 users and used for Web3 users, we will use the agreement income to repurchase BNS tokens on a quarterly basis. At present, there is only an expectation. Whether to issue tokens depends entirely on the progress of the project. When the project is not yet mature, we will not Tokens will be considered,” Alger explained.
Today, more and more people believe that in the Web3 world, such a decentralized domain name and account system must be needed to carry applications, websites and user identities. However, these current projects are still in the very early stage of exploration. Integration, user experience, access to the Web2 world, there is much, much room for improvement.
Whether ENS, BNS and other domain name systems can really undertake the only decentralized domain name and account system of Web3 depends on the continuous development of ecology in the future. After all, both are currently only domain name services for their own single ecology. To break the barriers of the public chain and become a domain name service provider covering the entire Web3 public chain, there is a long way to go.
