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- Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is blowing up
Welcome back to Decentra Daily, where we deliver Web3 news to you on a silver platter, with a ‘side’ of what we call humor.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
The only thing worth writing about today is what is being talked about all over NFT Twitter, the volume of sales on OpenSea of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains.
Table of contents:
Volume on OpenSea for ENS
Recent ENS sales
Highest ENS sales of all-time
Brands buying their ENS
Should you be getting an ENS?
Winners and losers of the day
👀ENS Volume on OpenSea 👀
ENS domains are single handedly keeping OpenSea’s volume afloat today. As you can see below in the last 24 hours ENS has done 2,513 ETH in volume, and has increased in volume by 588% in the past week!
It is eye catching that yesterday ENS sales made up 19% of OpenSea's volume, as NFTstatistics.eth posted:
Recent ENS sales
There has been a feeding frenzy on ENS domains these last few weeks. The attention is currently on numbers, mainly consisting of 3 and 4 digit ENS names.
There has also been a rush towards numbers in different languages, namely Arabic, Korean, and Chinese.
000.eth sold 2 days ago for 300 ETH, and ٠٠٧.eth (007 in Arabic) sold less than 24 hours ago for 55 ETH. This shows that people are willing to spend big on ENS names.
We understand that lower digits are an easier identifier, and that most NFT collections are made up of 10,000 or less pieces, which could make ENS domains between 000 and 10,000 'valuable'.
ENS has not released 1 and 2 digit ENS names yet, so we will see how valued these will be once the current mania dies down, and they are released at a later date (assuming ENS does this).
Highest all-time ENS sales
Shorter ENS names generally sell for higher amounts, similar to DNS (.com's). For example cars.com will always be worth more than cheapcars.com, even though more people probably want cheap cars....especially in this market.
Commonly used words also garner a premium. Words that are commonly used in the public vernacular are often focused upon by marketing, SEO, and PR professionals, making easily recognizable and understood words/ENS domains sought after.
So, it's no surprise that the highest ENS sales consist of low numbers, or short and easily recognizable words. Here's the top 10 ENS sales on OpenSea.
paradigm.eth - 420 ETH
000.eth - 300 ETH
porno.eth - 184 ETH
sam.eth - 100 ETH
003.eth - 83.5 ETH
wallet.eth - 75 WETH
deepak.eth - 75 ETH
crypto.eth - 60 WETH
artdao.eth - 59 ETH
555.eth - 55.5 ETH
Brands getting their ENS names
We have seen large brands purchasing their ENS domain names, or related terms, and using them on their social media accounts (mainly Twitter).
Brands like Puma, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, and many more have purchased their .eth names. Budweiser even purchased beer.eth for 30 ETH ($95,000 at the time).
Many of these brands want to get in on the NFT/Web3/metaverse craze, whether they believe in decentralization, or are just looking to make a buck is another matter.
However, big brands and celebrities buying ENS domains and using them on their social accounts will inevitably lead to more people wanting .eth names as status symbols.
Well should you buy an ENS name?
If you want to buy an ENS name you can mint directly from their website here, or buy on OpenSea's secondary market.
The use cases for ENS names will be plentiful moving forward. You can read more about ENS domains on their website, or we have compiled a list of what ENS is, and will be used for:
Web3 identity (username)
Wallet gateway to receive NFTs/Crypto/tokens
Censorship resistant websites
Logins to various services
Subdomain creator
Access to payments, metaverses, games, clubs etc.
It is important to note that ENS does not have the monopoly on decentralized naming for wallets. Competitors like Unstoppable Domains sell domains with different extensions .nft, .crypto (and more).
Decentra Daily's take: We understand that in some cultures numbers can be considered a status symbol, with some wealthy people willing to spend millions on single digit drivers licenses for example.
Having a short/memorable digital identifier that is easier to remember than your typical 42 character (official address) can be convenient.
However, typically most people send their full addresses or ENS domains, where another user will simply copy and paste them into the recipient field. Making shorter names redundant at times.
Notable domain trader @danielgothits recently tweeted a sentiment that we here at Decentra Daily also feel towards ENS domains:
ENS domains can be used for identities, communities, brands and more! But, pay attention to those final words of his, especially the last two....."SPECULATIVE IMO"
If you do indeed purchase an ENS domain, or other decentralized domain service name, do not expect to make money!
Have fun trying to find unique names if you want though! It can be fun (we've tried). If you get lucky, or are extremely savvy, you could make $$$.
In saying this, if you want to try and make ENS trades, then be careful you aren't the one left 'holding the bag' as there will be many 'bagholders'......but hey, at least they'll have some nice shiny numbers? And maybe a Saudi Prince will want them off you one day.
Get an ENS (.eth) or other decentralized name for the use cases that decentralized naming will bring, not for monetary gain.
Winners and Losers
The projects that have stood out to us the most in the past 24 hours, the good, and bad.
Winner: God Hates NFTees - Floor price up 381% in the last 24 hours (0.351 ETH → 1.69 ETH)
Is this the Rick and Morty team? They claim to just be inspired by, but for something that was a free mint just a few days ago to climb this high already, I feel there must be something more to this. It’s a pretty funny project, Rick and Morty style characters holding up clever meme signs, likely paying homage to the fake NFT protest that The Hundreds staged at NFT NYC. How high will it go??
Loser: Wzrds - Floor Price down 10% in the last 24 hours (0.2 ETH → 0.18 ETH)
I feel like the only projects we’re writing about in here are free mints these days! Wzrds was another free mint launched a few days ago, a story driven project about wizards who’ve lost their powers. The animation is well done, but this project looks like it peaked at 0.5 ETH a few days ago, and has been trending down since then. Apparently only chapter 1 of many at the moment, so who knows where it goes in the future.
Headlines of the day
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.