On-Chain Credentialing and Blockchain Domains

Top of Mind

On January 5, ENS announced a partnership with Coinbase. It added minting for “cb.id” domains within Coinbase’s mobile wallet applications on both IOS and Android. Blockchain domains like ENS or Unstoppable Domains were one of the first forms of decentralized identity. They allowed anyone with an Ethereum wallet to mint a group of letters as an NFT to be used in place of their alphanumeric blockchain address. Unlike a Web2 domain name, a blockchain domain can be used as a payment gateway and cannot be deleted.

Over the past year, ENS saw steady registration and renewal growth through October, due to a high rate of domain expirations after April. The project currently has 2.8 million registered names, with over half stemming from activity in 2022. For Unstoppable Domains, peak activity occurred shortly after launch in late 2021. The project has maintained steady traction over the past year, but at just over half of the weekly domain registrations of ENS.

While ENS seems to draw new registrations at a higher rate than its main competitor, its general activity has declined since Q3’22. The partnership between Coinbase and ENS has the potential to jump start the project’s future growth and revenue by making NFT usernames available to over 100 million Coinbase wallet users.

On-Chain Credentialing Landscape