On the release date, Brenden Rearick did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
The increase in Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains shows that the blockchain is growing up
Crypto investing is in a whole new place from where it was a year ago. Then the hype was in the driving Bored Ape Yacht Club, Axie Infinity (AXS-USD) and Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD) “to the moon.” Now, investors are focusing on more meaningful projects that advance the reach of blockchain. One of the best pieces of evidence supporting this transition is the growth of Ethereum naming service (ENS-USD).
The macroeconomic factors at play last year made the crypto market ripe for speculative investment. Creators of meme coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were thus able to exploit these market conditions to their own advantage. As a result, the market saw astonishing growth among tokens such as Shiba Inu, while NFTs regularly sold for tens of millions of dollars.
However, with the crypto crash sending the market into a much-needed corrective period, investors can sense a maturing in terms of prominent themes taking the spotlight today. Bored Ape cartoons are on the way out as the trend sours, and meme coins have failed to maintain the same relevance as the days when Elon Musk tweeted about them. Now, things like Ethereum (ETH-USD) The merger upgrade has been in the center. Investors are less concerned with get-rich-quick schemes and more concerned with finding practical use cases for the blockchain world.
Ethereum Name Service’s growing success is another symptom of this maturation. The project aims to connect investors with web domain names stored on the blockchain as NFTs. There is a much more practical use for the technology than what the digital art trend has shown. Recently, the service even surpassed the monolithic Bored Ape collection in terms of trading volume on platforms such as Open seaalso.
Growing Pains: Ethereum Name Service (ENS) takes on GoDaddy
The past few months have been particularly kind to the Ethereum Name Service. The ENS crypto has been able to nearly double its value since the beginning of July, approaching $16 today. But even more impressive are the project’s income figures. Developers say they made over $4.7 million in August alone, thanks to over two million new domains being registered through the service.
ENS’s wild success has recently attracted the interest of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. Buterin offers a potential fee system for the service to adopt after he noted that the project did not maximize its revenue in the face of the increase in new customers.
The service ENS offers to its users is proof of the blockchain industry’s infiltration of mainstream technology. But the project’s successes are not without growing pains. This week, ENS found itself suing a more common domain name service, Go dad (SNEEZE:GDDY).
ENS parent company True names complaint alleges that GoDaddy falsely declared the “eth.link” domain name expired before selling it to a third party. However, the Ethereum Name Service claims ownership over the domain name and calls the sale illegitimate. Back in July, GoDaddy posted a message on its website saying that the name would be available in early September; this announcement came after GoDaddy chose to renew and then immediately remove the renewal of the domain earlier this summer.
Blockchain is getting serious, and it’s having a big effect on the wider technology space. Although, unfortunately, this step in the market’s maturation apparently leads to clashes with the more traditional world of technology.
