NAVIGATING THE WEB
Over the last 35 years, the traditional Domain Name System (DNS) has played a critical role in mapping internet addresses to human-readable names – serving as the most basic level of user-friendly guideposts to navigating the Internet. The registration of domains like Poker.com, Hotels.com, and Pets.com helped map and unlock the early phase of the World Wide Web for mainstream users.
Domains hold significant economic value as intellectual property and marketing assets. Properties like Cars.com and Insurance.com are valued today at anywhere from $30 to $800 million. This makes domain names some of the most valuable pieces of digital real estate and one of the most critical infrastructure layers of our digital economy.
Yet the business and technology of traditional domain names haven’t kept up with the changing nature of how we interact and transact in today’s world. Managing a domain is a clunky, complex process. The challenge of keeping your domain – a key part of your business or identity – can come down to missing a renewal payment and losing that identity forever. Transferring a domain is a painful process that suffers from human error and poor service from an oligopoly of domain registrars. Despite being a crucial element of navigating Web 2.0, domains are in sore need of innovation.
The Future of Digital Identity
Enter Unstoppable Domains, an NFT domain name provider and digital identity platform working to onboard the world into Web 3.0. Unstoppable is the leading platform for Web3 digital identity with more than 2.5 million NFT-based domains registered and counting. Domains are widely available to consumers and provide users with ownership over their online identity. Eventually every Internet user and business will have an NFT domain that becomes their Web3 identity.
Unstoppable Domains solves two critical challenges:
1) simplifying an individual user’s Web3 digital identity by connecting numerous services (login, payments / commerce, messaging, verifications) to one universal, human-readable domain and
2) enabling owners to easily create and host websites without the need for traditional intermediaries in the Web2 Domain Name System (DNS) such as registries and registrars that charge renewal fees.
Unstoppable Domains enables domain owners to access, manage and control how they participate with and utilize their digital identity through their NFT domains.
NFT domains also provide a better user experience by enabling users to replace lengthy alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses with a universal human-readable name. Imagine sending money to “Satoshi.wallet” vs. “1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7.” The domain is stored in the owner’s crypto wallet where it can be linked to any piece of information or data and used as a universal Web3 username. Today, you can log into and transact with 250+ applications using your Unstoppable domain.
Unlike traditional domains, Unstoppable Domains users fully own and control their domain for a one time registration fee – no renewal fees, no minting fees, and no gas fees. We believe this idea of full ownership vs. a rental model is a core tenet to securing a Web3 identity. The ability for users to connect multiple services to their NFT domain such as login, payments, crypto transfers, messaging, verifications and more reduces the risk of losses from human error and makes Web3 more approachable for everyone.
UNLOCKING A USER-OWNED INTERNET
Since launching in late 2019, Unstoppable Domains has helped their customers to register over 2.5 million domains and generated over $80 million in sales. They now support over 300 integrations, including 150+ Web3 applications, 80+ wallets and exchanges where people can use their .crypto, .nft, .blockchain, .x, .bitcoin, .dao, or .wallet domains as their digital identity.
They’ve partnered with companies like Blockchain.com to provide domain names for their customers, where Blockchain.com’s 65 million wallet users will receive free .blockchain domains. Next year they plan to expand their offerings to include PFP photos, paid verifications (KYC, Twitter handles) and domain recovery.
We’re thrilled to lead Unstoppable Domains’ $65 million Series A funding round, as they solve the key challenges facing Web3 digital identity and ownership, simplifying transactions and mapping the infrastructure of a user-owned Internet. We’re pleased to be joined by Mayfield, Boost VC, Draper Associates, Spartan Group, Polygon, CoinGecko, Alchemy Ventures, CoinDCX, Pintu, and other strategic partners to continue elevating Unstoppable Domains’ mission in their Series A round.
