Decentralised Domains

A look at what they are, and comparison between ENS and Unstoppable Domains

TLDR:

• Decentralised domains use NFTs on blockchain and smart contracts, rather than centralised authorities and systems like ICANN and DNS.

• ENS has a single domain ending, is governed by a DAO and rental only, while Unstoppable Domains is a private company with many domains at a one-off fee.

• Read on to see how to buy ENS and Unstoppable domains for yourself and set your public wallet to have its own domain name.

I own the “afox.eth” domain but this week I decided to buy a few new ENS and Unstoppable Domains to future proof myself.

As I went down the decentralised domain rabbit hole I thought it would be a good opportunity to write about them too as I haven’t made a post on them yet.

Decentralised Domains

The Internet has gotten us used to “.com” domains and their variants like “.co.uk” in the UK, “.fr” in France, and so on. Over time we’ve also seen the growth of many other top-level domains like “.biz”, “.org” and a Web3 favourite “.xyz”.

When you buy a domain name like “tokenpage.xyz” you are creating an entry in the Domain Name System (DNS) that you can associate with a website on the Internet.

However, what you may not be aware of is that these domain names operate in a centralised system. They are managed by central authorities like ICANN which oversees DNS and has accredited registrars who are the only ones allowed to sell domains. Owners must follow rules and policies or their domain can be taken down.

Decentralised domains aim to change this by operating on blockchain through smart contracts with no central authority, and hence sidestepping legacy authorities and systems, making them much harder to be censored or controlled.

All that said, the most common and useful use-case for decentralised domains today is simply to give a name to a public wallet, for example I can point people to my wallet by sharing “afox.eth” instead of “0x7bE8c264c9DCebA3A35990c78d5C4220D8724B6e”.

The two most well known players today are the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains. Yet, it’s worth noting that most chains have since copied the ENS model and created their own blockchain specific one, for example there are “.sol” domains for Solana and NEAR even has it’s own inbuilt name system with '“.near”.

ENS vs Unstoppable Domains

When comparing ENS and Unstoppable Domains (UD) we can see a few key similarities and differences that illustrate their individuals approaches.

Both work off the same fundamental basis of minting an on-chain NFT such that the wallet that owns it has all the rights associated with ownership of that domain. Although ENS is Ethereum specific and UD is more blockchain agnostic.

They also both allow for wallets to be given a name to identify them rather than their account address, as in the “afox.eth” example I gave above.

However that’s where the similarities end. Since firstly they both have very different governance models as UD is a private company more akin to traditional domain registrars, while ENS is ran as a community-centric DAO where token holders can vote on decisions.

Secondly, ENS addresses are rental only and require an annual fee where shorter names are more expensive than longer names. While UD only charges a one-time fee for domain registration with no annual renewal cost, so you get to own the domain forever until you decide to re-sell it.

Moreover, ENS only offer a single top level domain, namely “.eth”, while UD offer a variety of domain names like “.x”, “.crypto”, “.nft”, “.bitcoin” and more.

As you can see there’s plenty of differences between their approaches. Let’s take a quick look at buying and setting up a domain for each to compare further.

ENS

To buy an ENS domain start by opening up app.ens.domains and connect your wallet, then search for the domain you’re interested. In this case I chose afoxinweb3.eth.

You are then taken to a page to officially register and pay for that domain. Currently it costs $5/year for names 5 characters or longer, $160/year for names 4 characters in length, and $640/year for names 3 characters in length. Plus you can pay with a credit card if you prefer as opposed to crypto.

Next you have to confirm two transactions, one to kick off a timer for bidding for that name, and a second to effectively pay and register, and consequently mint the NFT.

Once both transactions are complete your NFT will be minted and you now own the domain for the given time! Once that time passes you will still own the domain as an NFT until someone else comes and pays to claim it for themselves.

If you want to set the domain so that it routes to your wallet account then you can go onto your profile and select “Set as primary name” and perform another transaction that calls the “SetName” function on the ENS smart contract to effectively set it.

Unstoppable Domain

The experience for Unstoppable domains is a bit different and bares more of a resemblance with traditional centralised domain registraars like namecheap.

Start by opening up unstoppabledomains.com and search for the domain you want, in this case I went for afox.x.

Your are then given an interface similar to traditional domain marketplaces. Here you can see alternative suggestions both of different domain endings and similar names.

For example it suggested afox.dao, afox.crypto, afox.nft as possible endings. Plus it also gave suggestions like afoxes.x, vixen.x, reynard.x that are variations on the name.

Selecting “Continue to Cart” you get the normal checkout experience where you can add multiple domains. Even though afox.x is expensive at $400 I decided to buy it because I saw it as an investment since it’s a domain I’ll own forever that won’t expire.

You’re then asked to connect your wallet and choose which account you want to mint the NFT to!

Plus you’re given a variety of options to pay for the mint with, including card, paypal, and crypto.com. If you choose crypto it will give you a specific address to send the ETH to as they currently only accept ETH.

After a small wait your domain NFT will be minted to your wallet! You can now see it along with all the other domains you own from the account page. By default these are Polygon NFTs but you can burn and mint them to turn them into Ethereum NFTs.

Selecting “Manage” you can assign the account wallet appropriately to the domain name by selecting “Reverse resolution” and update the domain’s UD profile. At some point in the future I may dive deeper into how all these settings work.

Conclusion

Decentralised domains offer an alternative to the Internet’s legacy centralised domains. While I don’t see centralised domains disappearing any time soon, there are things that are only possible with decentralised domains such as setting easy to remember names for your crypto accounts.

Both ENS and UD work by mitning NFTs on-chain for their domains. The difference between them is that ENS leans more towards a community-governed approach with ongoing fees, while UD is managed by a private company and focuses on a one-time payment model and a broader range of domain extensions.

There are pros and cons to both. Today “.eth” domains are more well known and desired. However with UD you get to own the domain rather than rent it, which may feel more worthwhile because you have a real asset that can be resold later.

Either way you now know how decentralised domains work and how you can buy one for yourself if you want!