ENS Name Wrapper + new ENS website are live!

GM GM!

Lots of big things have been happening in ENS recently. But unfortunately, shitcoin season has restarted. Not only is this taking away some of the excitement around all the positive developments in ENS, but it’s also seriously congesting the Ethereum network. Therefore, doing anything with ENS is cost prohibitive right now.

I suspect that will end relatively soon, and we’ll be able to start playing with the new ENS tools and watching what interesting things community members will do with them.

• The Name Wrapper is 100% officially live!!

  • The name wrapper is what allows sub-domains to be created off of the primary name, and for them to be their own individual NFT.

  • The profile page was also completely redone, and looks amazing! You can see mine below.

• Another big change to be aware is the verbage around sub-domains. They are now called subnames. I actually think this is a great change, although it will take some time to get used to.

  • Highly recommend going to the website and play with the new version. Looks great and is much more user friendly.

  • I haven’t had a chance to create a subname yet due to extremely expensive gas, but I will be creating tj.enshq.eth as my first one, as soon as gas gets back to a reasonable price.

  • alpha.ens.domains is the address

• The ENS Manager App has officially integrated MoonPay to allow users to buy an ENS name with only a credit card.

  • While I don’t think this is a massive development, it is good to at least have it as an option for those who learn about ENS and what their name, but don’t want to go through the multi-step process of creating a wallet.

  • I’m not exactly sure where the domain actually lives when bought with a credit card. But I imagine they have a good system for it. Not something I would recommend users do, but good as an option.

• Brantly Millegan, former ENS DAO director, has released his vision for something he is calling THE ETHEREUM FOLLOW PROTOCOL (EFP).

  • “I propose a protocol for following other Ethereum accounts that has its root on Ethereum and natively uses ENS. It should be a simple, open, composable, foundational protocol for the Ethereum ecosystem that makes use of existing Ethereum ecosystem primitives.”

  • Sounds like a cool idea that integrates with ENS, and I’m all for it!

• We’ve had some really big sales in the space in the last two weeks. While there are some valid questions about whether these are legitimate sales or not, nothing

  • Biggest was mazars.eth at 90eth ($180,000). This one is the most interesting, because it obviously seems ridiculous at first. But Mazars is a global accounting firm worth billions of dollars with 42,000 employees. So while that price is very high, it’s not that high for a company this large if they really want their name.

  • Next was epic.eth for 25eth ($50,000). This one makes a lot more sense, because that is a top tier word that could sell to so many different people for different reasons. It appears to have been bought by an investor and not an end user. So someone thinks this will be selling for mulitple six figures in the next few years.

  • 1234.eth was bought for 15eth ($30,000). Pretty straightforward. I would say that’s pretty high, but it is a unique number so it makes sense.

• Ledger, the leading hardware wallet company, has integrated ENS into their software.

  • This is massive news in my opinion, as Ledger has 1.5 million users who constantly look at random strings of characters every time they use their device. Being able to just see a readable ENS name will make it so much nicer, as well as more trustworthy and lowering risk.

  • I wrote a long thread about my thoughts on why this is a massive deal for ENS, and how we’re getting to a point where big Web3 infrastructure players will be expected to integrate with ENS to be seen as a trustworthy system.

Web3 Socials: The Future of Social Media and Human Verification

By: Crystal Zurn

I just watched a recent Bankless podcast "Leaving Web2 with Sriram Krishnan" and it really got me thinking about the future of social media. Sriram has previously worked at Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat before becoming a GP at a16z Crypto. In the podcast he discusses what is broken about Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and whether it can be fixed. He also discusses the future of content creators, how crypto and AI intersect, and much more. After you finish this article, go watch the podcast. You'll thank me later!

The Status Quo: Web2 Social Media

For the last several years, the social media industry has been dominated by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. But there are some rampant issues that occur on all of these platforms, much of them centered around bots and account verification.

Bots can and have been used to spread misinformation and propaganda, impersonate real users, and skew public opinion around pressing topics.

The current verification processes, such as blue checkmarks, are limited and can be circumvented or faked, leading to a false sense of security and authenticity. This inability to verify whether an account is human or not erodes trust in these platforms and discourages real users from engaging and sharing content.

Yes, encouraging users to pay money to prove their humanity can reduce bots, but what if you had to pay $8 on each social media platform you use? Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitch, Discord, and more? That can add up quickly and would make it more difficult for smaller, newer platforms to compete with established players.

The Social Media of Tomorrow

What if social media platforms used ENS instead? One ENS registration would work across all platforms, verifying that the user is a living, breathing human being. While this may negatively impact short-term income for social media companies, it will have positive long-term effects by increasing the quality of content and creating a premium user base.

Adapting to new technologies is crucial for survival in the industry. As with anything, if you don't innovate, you die. And the companies who refuse to pivot will collect dust along with the fax machines and pagers of the past.

Web3 Enhancements with AI

ENS offers solutions to multiple problems, such as decentralized ID authentication and management, payments and financial transactions, bot prevention, and censorship-resistant website and storage solutions. Add AI to the mix in web3 and the old web2 social media will look like a floppy disk in a world of cloud storage.

I realize that AI and ENS can be viewed as direct opposites of each other; ENS verifies Proof of Humanity, while AI is Not Human by definition. Despite their differences, it's important to recognize the opportunities that they present when paired together.

AI can also play a crucial role in this process. With the help of machine learning algorithms, social media platforms can train AI to detect and remove fake accounts, spam, and other types of fraudulent activity. AI can be taught to recognize patterns of behavior that are associated with bots, thus allowing these platforms to act more quickly and effectively to root out these fake accounts.

In combination with ENS, AI can greatly improve the verification process for social media accounts, helping to create a more secure and trustworthy online environment.

There are many other ideas for integrating ENS and AI into social channels, such as including blockchain-integrated verification systems like CAPTCHA or the social companies creating their own ENS subnames for verified users.

Final Prediction

There are already a handful of web3 social networks online today such as Lens and Farcaster, with more competitors certainly springing up in the months ahead. Users who join these channels know that, by default, all other users are human.

My guess is that ENS and AI are going to eventually overtake the world, social media included. I'm not confident that any of the existing web2 social media companies are willing to do the hard work of restructuring the foundation of their platforms to appeal to the web3 crowd.

I would bet that the next generation of online users will never even create or own an account on any existing web2 platforms; they will instinctively begin their online social journey on a web3-specific channel. Whether that is Bluesky, Lens Protocol, Farcaster, or a yet-to-be-created application, that is TBD.

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

Now you’re free to watch the Bankless podcast here!

• Don’t think I need to explain this one at all

• I own this one. If you want to be featured here, make sure you put your best names in my weekly shill threads, respond to this email, or respond on Twitter to @tjlarkin23 or @ens_hq

• Buy it here on ens.vision

Make sure you’re checking the ENS HQ website every day for the best tweets!

enshq.xyz

ENS HQ Investment DAO is officially live and accepting names!

If you have names you’re considering not renewing, fill out the form here and submit them. If we take them, we’ll give you 25% of the sales price when it sells! Here is the form link:

For you newbies who want to learn what all the hype with ENS is about but don't know where to start, check out our free Intro to ENS course on Gumroad.

ENS HQ Newsletter is written by:

TJ Larkin - @tjlarkin23
Crystal Zurn - @crystalzurn

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PS. If you want a chance to have your domain featured in this newsletter, respond to this email with your BEST (only one) domain at the absolute lowest price you'd let it go. The more reasonable the price, the higher likelihood we'll feature it. If it needs an explanation of why it's valuable, write no more than three bullet points as to why it's valuable.