Unstoppable Domains has followed in the tracks of many blockchain / crypto companies becoming the most recent unicorn startup. Unstoppable Domains is a blockchain based company that serves as a central hub for domain names and digital identifiers. A unicorn in terms of a startup is a privately held startup company valued at over 1 billion dollars typically in US currency. A tall feat for many startups yet has been commonplace amongst blockchain based companies. To give some context to Unstoppable Domains headline news, Ripple is valued at 15 billion dollars and is the most notable unicorn of 2022. OpenSea follows behind Ripple at number 2, given an evaluation of 12 billion dollars. Blockchain companies have become the hot ticket for venture capitalist and investors alike. As a fan of crypto I am very concerned about investors carelessness in investing into some of these companies. I understand that investment into these companies will help crypto as a whole but crypto / crypto companies are still considered alternative assets which raises concerns to see what will happen if we have another downturn in the market or the crypto market fails to return in less than 2 years. But that is for another article. Let us get back to discussing Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains evaluation is not necessarily shocking, like I mentioned earlier blockchain / crypto companies are selling like hot cakes to investors, everyone wants to be apart of one. Unstoppable Domains is no different, investors see Unstoppable Domains as the future of domain naming and digital identifiers but a billion dollar evaluation... I am unsure.
Unstoppable Domains Business Model
Unstoppable Domains provides users with crypto domains that are completely owned and controlled by the individual. Users purchase their domain name, once purchased, Unstoppable Domains collects its fee and that is it. The user never have to pay for hosting fees or a management fee to operate and maintain their domain. The benefit of having a crypto domain name allows cryptocurrency wallet holders to use their crypto domains to send and receive cryptocurrency payments. This removes the long and complicated error-prone alphanumeric addresses to send and receive money. To get money, all someone needs is your blockchain domain name.
What About ENS?
Ethereum Naming Service or ENS for short is a protocol that maps long crypto addresses into simple URLs, having a similar business model to Unstoppable Domains. The only true difference is that Unstoppable Domains is integrated Web 2 company that has moved into the Web 3 space unlike ENS, that is an exclusive Web 3 company. Many crypto enthusiasts believe that ENS could be given a higher evaluation than Unstoppable Domains, yet it will come down to marketing. Google was not necessarily the best company, it was the most used and had a constant stream of innovation. Look what happened to AOL, you must innovate and build to stay relevant in our society.
ENS vs UD
ENS: 1.67 million domain names registered
505 integrations
UD: 2.4 million domain names registered
295 integrations
The Future
I am not going to pretend that I can predict the future, no one can. However, we can look at the past to understand what the future might entail. The value of rare @s on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. go for hundreds of thousands dollars but people understand that now. That is what has scared me with crypto, that aren't arbitrage opportunities everyone knows that buying a domain name from either ENS or Unstoppable Domains that has a corporate name or a name like business.crypto will do well in the future, they so currently have them listed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is the issue if everyone knows something is going to be worth more in the future and people are buying just for future value then it will never raise to that value in the future or it will take much longer than originally anticipated. I have one of the rarest @s on Twitter @Hypothetical, got it in a business deal awhile back, I didn't think much of it back then but today I understand how valuable my @ is. People are buying .crypto, .dao, .eth, domains like crazy in hopes of future value. I do not disagree with the fact that crypto domain names might hold tons of future value but keep a couple things in mind.
1. Understand why you are buying a domain name
2. Are you buying from a company that will protect your name and continue to innovate so your name goes up in value
3. What is the correct value for that domain today, not in the future.
- If you are only thinking in future value and buy the domain Chase.crypto in hopes that Chase bank buys that domain from you for $200,000 in the future and you are buying it for $50,000 then you are making a bad purchase. Chase.crypto right now should be valued at around $10,000 and even that is high. These domain names are going for higher value than they are worth due to future returns. My warning is simple do not jump in because you think the rocket is about to take off, make the smart decision.
Happy trading!
- @Hypothetical
