Earlier this week, the man, the myth, the legend Anthony Pompliano sat down with Unstoppable Domains CEO Bradley Kam to talk about the future of crypto domains, crypto payments, and the decentralized internet.
Here are my 8 biggest takeaways from the conversation:
1. What does Unstoppable Domains do?
UD builds domain names on blockchains. It's like GoDaddy for the blockchain, where you can find, buy, and manage domains all from UnstoppableDomains.com. In other words, they provide tools that make it easier for people to use the decentralized web.
2. What problem does UD solve?
Not only do you have a 20 character address, but you have dozens of them for different cryptocurrencies. This does not at all appear how future payments should work.
[When sending crypto to someone,] We've all had this stressed-out feeling of typing the address, checking it, triple checking it, maybe doing a test transaction, panicking for an extra 30 seconds, then finally willing yourself to press the button. That's the current experience with crypto payments.
We need to make it more like Venmo. On Venmo, you don't have to do any of those things. Even if I want to send my friend $10,000, I can find them, verify their profile picture, and I immediately feel confident that the payment will go through easily to the right person.
Crypto domains fix this.
I've been using "benblog.crypto" for several months now, and it's WAY easier for me to tell you to send Bitcoin there than to give you an enormous block of random characters to copy, paste, and stress about messing up when sending me crypto.
3. Other huge use cases of .Crypto domains
3a. Interoperability
In the traditional world you've got a Venmo or Paypal account with your username for payments, your Facebook or Whatsapp username for messaging, and a ".com" domain for your website. With a blockchain domain, you can just have one username where people can send you money, send you a message, AND visit your website all in the same place.
Since it's all going to the same username, it's much simpler and more secure. You'll KNOW you're sending money to the right person, since they'll have the same domain name attached to their payment address as they do their website, messaging, etc.
3b. Crypto payment addresses can now go viral
You could imagine a campaign where somebody tries to do fundraising, and essentially the payment address could go viral.
Right now you have to say: 'Here's a cause I care about. Click on this link, read this description, go through these payment details, here's a credit card section, put in all your personal information, OH what about your billing address......ALL of these barriers before you can finally support that campaign.
Once ".Crypto" addresses become mainstream, you could say, "hey, pay 'feedthechildren.crypto'" or something like that, then you could just share that on the internet and people around the world could send money to it seamlessly. That address is the only information that people need to know.
-Brad
This is SUPER exciting. A future where we could create viral, frictionless fundraising campaigns would make it possible to unlock capital for people who need it with the click of a button, without needing to jump through endless hoops just to be able to accept donations.
Pomp added,
"Not only are these domains more accessible, but they're more meme-able."
If I go advertise my "benblog.crypto" BTC address enough on Publish0x, it will stick in people's minds, which creates an enormous boost in value for my personal brand. (Not like I'm doing that right now or anything... :D )
4. What exactly is the decentralized web?
It's a sort of "alternate web" where users are in full control, exactly like crypto is doing in the financial world.
In traditional finance, banks control your money, and can seize or manipulate it. Similarly, under the status quo of the web, DNS servers (which are in cahoots with the government) can take control of your web presence whenever they want to. That's no bueno.
5. Property rights in the real world vs. on the internet
I LOVE this quote:
"We have property rights in the real world, but for some reason, when we moved things to the internet, all of a sudden it became OK for companies to take everything from you. You would never allow a company to walk into your house and take your stuff--that's exactly what's happening online right now."
6. Twitter verification for ".Crypto" domains UPDATE
You can now attach your Twitter handle to your .Crypto address, making it more secure, and even easier for people to verify that they're paying the right person. After hearing Brad raving about how this will make crypto transactions a "more Venmo-like experience," I was sold! Using the affiliate credits I earned from you beautiful people using my Unstoppable Domains affiliate link, I was able to nab a Twitter verification for my primary .Crypto domain: "benblog.crypto"
This Twitter verification feature is brand new, so it's currently only supported on the MEW desktop wallet. But once it becomes more widespread, people will see my Twitter handle pop up when they're about to send me BTC to my address, "benblog.crypto". This is a TOTAL game-changer for the crypto payment experience, since everyone who's ever sent a large amount of Bitcoin knows...it's stressful sending hard-earned sats to a gobblygook string of random characters.
7. Thoughts on how crypto domains will give people freedom to be exactly how private/public they want to be on the web.
In the early days of the web, the problem was that you would never know who you were talking to on the internet. There was no ID anywhere, and it was completely anonymous. NOW, it's the opposite -- there's too much ID on the internet. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter...everyone is completely public.
In the blockchain world, users will be able to choose:
Users can go to the completely private side of the spectrum, or they can go to the completely public side of the spectrum, or anywhere in between. We won't be forced to go one way or the other, because apps won't control us.
8. What use cases of the decentralized web is Brad most excited about?
a. The ability of having one domain name controlled by a group of people.
This matters because of one word: Liability.
If you control your domain name in GoDaddy, and you're the admin, you have legal responsibility. For a lot of projects that are trying to be open-source & community-driven, they have this admin liability problem. If the domain name is controlled by 1,000 members of the community who can also vote on its contents, that'll change the entire legal framework.
b. More seamless charging for content.
The most basic type of content monetization that just doesn't work on the regular internet:
"Pay me a dollar, and you can watch this video."
This won't be the monetization strategy for every single case, but it will be perfect for a lot of content. For example, for places like Netflix, you have to pay a lump sum of money and have a bazillion movies and TV shows you can watch. But what if you only want to watch one show?
The decentralized web will make it much easier to implement this new payment method, where you can pay a tiny amount of money to watch only what you want to, without the rest of that payment being wasted through excessive bundling of content.
Huge shoutout to Pomp and Brad for sharing this awesome conversation with the world!
If you're ready to dive into this exciting new world of crypto domains, I suggest you check out my full Crypto Domains Series, where I break down why I bet nearly $2,000 of my crypto investment capital into loading up on .Crypto Domains.
I'll see you there!
-Ben
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