Will .eth Still be Valuable when Some Day .com and Other TLDs can Do ENS as Well?
As we all know that ENS is the pioneer of blockchain domain, in the future we can run the .eth domain completely via the smart contract on the blockchain, there is no server, there is no UDRP or any “big boss” behind, that could possibly make a change on our domain. The only way to transfer the ownership of a blockchain domain is having the previous owner to “give the key.” It is way more advance comparing to the traditional TLDs.
At the meantime, ENS official is also announcing that in the future all TLDs are welcome to connect to ENS via DNS SEC, which means technically traditional domains (such as .com) will be able to do both DNS(IP Association) and ENS(Hash Association) in the future. To be honest, this is really great vision for ENS team, hugging the TLDs (giving more options) no doubt could much further enhance the ENS ecosystem, but at the same time, some .eth domain owners might come up with this question: if .com is able to do so as well, what is the value for .eth then? Still worth it for all the ETHs spent for buying/auctioning the domains?
To answer this question, we need to take a look regarding how to associate a hash for .eth address and how to do that for TLD via DNS SEC.
Dot eth is the native of ENS. If you go to http://app.ens.domains, you can directly search your .eth domain, add the hash, pay the gas, then it’s updated on the blockchain after couple seconds’ broadcasting. END USERS MAKE CHANGE DIRECTLY ON BLOCHCHAIN.
If you want a TLD to associate a hash (such as a crypto address like ETH, BTC, BNB. etc), then you will need to do it on your specific domain’s registrar, by adding a text record. Technically you are relying on each levels’ DNS service provider to bring that very text record over to the blockchain world. This is pretty cool because after that one TLD domain can do both DNS and ENS. However, apparent, there has still been someone between end user and blockchain, after all we are using DNS way to patch TLDs onto the blockchain.
From my point of view, there are 3 major advantages of .eth comparing to TLDs on ENS:
1. Native
The spirit of blockchain is technically “no centralization”. When TLDs are associating ENS by DNS SEC, registrars and DNS service providers are still highly involved. If I own Google LLC (this will never happen) and I choose to use google.com as our wallet address, I think I will always be worried about whether my address could be changed by hacker(I need to verify this by frequently checking if the domain associates the correct hash I guess), or whether the DNS service will be that reliable to pass the exact text record to blockchain world. Blockchain world is about smart contract, and DNS world is still all of people and servers, always with vulnerable issues. The horrible part of story is that anything wrong in DNS can just cause irretrievable result in blockchain. In the blockchain world, what is done is just done.
Given that said, if I may still own Google LLC (allow me to enjoy that nice dream again), I don’t think acquiring google.eth at 50 or 100ETH (or more) is really laughable, because that will allow me to access smart contract directly, that will help me to bypass all the potential risks of the centralized world, that will just allow me to sleep tight.
2. Certainty of Ownership
A friend of mine acquired a very good dot com domain last year (something 10-grand), he was so proud of this transaction and showed it on “WeChat Moment” couple times. He was very positive that this domain can sell way higher amount couple years later. What he didn’t expect is that in the following month he received an UDRP case notification from CAC, indicating some company has raised a complaint on this domain because it is in conflict with a trademark they registered before he acquired it. Unfortunately, finally he lost this case, and the registrar directly transferred the domain over to the complainant according to the UDRP decision.
There are thousands of TLDs now in traditional domain market, each TLD’s registry is owned and run by a domain company (some companies own a number of TLDs), all and local registrars distribute all different TLDs to the end users. At the meantime all TLDs are ruled by ICANN and subject to the UDRP rule. Oh BTW, recently .ORG domain’s registry was sold.
To make above mess information simpler to understand: too many people can determine your TLD domain’s fate.
On the smart contract, there is only one man in the world who can access your .eth domain: yourself.
3. Distribution of Sub-Domains
We know that in the future both .eth and TLDs can create sub-domains. However, what TLDs can’t do, is that .eth allows you to setup smart contract to distribute and put a price tag on your sub-domains. If you have a really cool .eth domain, you can setup your sub-domain to be $1/year(or more) and that way you can easily retrieve the renewal expense of the root domain. Let’s say, you own music.eth, you can sell love.music.eth to some music fan, and that fan can even sell sub-sub-domains to others such as i.love.music.eth, helen.love.music.eth .etc. The smart contract can just help each level of sub-domain owner to manage their renting and income. This is just something we don’t expect to see in the DNS world.
How about now, are you still worried about .eth’s future? In my point of view, If you are super confident of your DNS service provider and registrar, if you don’t need to worry much about trademark abuse of your TLD domain, if you won’t consider to distribute sub-domains for profit reasons, yes, ENS through TLDs is a perfect option for you, because it can cover both IP and Hash world. For big companies, .eth seems more suitable, big companies enjoy risk management:)
I think giving more options is just the spirit of ENS team, I’m sure that their open and “willing to cooperate” attitude will make the ENS ecosystem a prosperous one. After all currently there are 2 types of domain in the market: traditional domain and blockchain domain, and no doubt, .eth is just the .com in the blockchain domain.
