What is Starname?
Starname has created a universal name service for cryptocurrency wallets and dApps to allow a user to bring all of their cryptocurrency addresses to one platform to facilitate easy payments of any chosen cryptocurrency. The service is non-custodial and means that all payments go directly to the wallet of the user’s choice which means that users will not incur transaction fees twice in receiving and transferring funds to their personal wallet.
The simplest way to explain what Starname does is to equate it to PayPal.me which allows an individual to send money without the requirement for banking details. Note that I discuss below the reasons as to why Starname believes they provide a better offering than PayPal.me.
There are two ways in which I envision Starname could be used. By purchasing a basic Starname, users will have their Starname with the suffix of “*iov” or “*cosmos”. This wouldn’t pose an issue for an individual as they will be able to derive the utility from the product that they want. However, users could purchase a premium Starname which is currently over 100 times more expensive than a basic Starname. This allows them to create their own suffix, for example “*google” or “*reddit'' which businesses may purchase themselves to allow their employees to create Starname’s that associate with their brand. I would assume that the cost of a basic Starname or premium Starname are not bound and the community would be able to vote to adjust the cost of these to strike a balance between profitability and uptake. Note that two users cannot have the same Starname and that premium Starname’s are likely to have IP checks done to ensure that an individual does not purchase a lucrative premium Starname and hold it hostage.
Starname has two tools that enable the service to exist, the Blockchain Name Service and the Blockchain Communication Protocol.
The Blockchain Name Service acts in the same manner as a DNS for the internet. It gives the IP address of the blockchain that a token belongs to. This enables Starname to aggregate all of the blockchains relevant. Thereafter, the Blockchain Communication Protocol is a standardised set of rules to ensure token creators that their tokens and blockchains are visible and can be exchanged.
Feel free to have a look at the introductory video produced by IOV SAS, the developers of Starname, explaining what Starname is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOISRcVwchQ).
Please also feel free to have a look at this video where the developers of Starname demonstrate how a payment could be made using Starname (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ4wcxvljy4).
Who is in Starname’s team?
Karim Ganem is the co-founder of IOV SAS, the developer of Starchain. Looking at his professional career, I was unable to find significant information as his two most recent ventures were no longer online. Therefore, I copy the extract that Starname provided in relation to Karim. He “has worked with the project since the beginning. He has been a tech entrepreneur for over 20 years, 12 of them in New York. He’s an award winner and published author passionate about blockchain technology, that he wants to make universally accessible and adopted by all.”
Dave Puchyr is the CTO at IOV SAS. Prior to working at IOV, where he worked at multiple software development businesses showing his prowess in blockchain (developing a proof-of-concept dApp and smart contracts) as well as developing multiple products across smartphone apps and web apps.
Stephane has worked in key IT positions for major banks in New York for over 20 years. A polymath developer, he has extensive experience in project and people management. Stephane has worked on several large-scale user projects and has great expertise in business tech.
What is the IOV token required for?
The IOV token is required for:
- Purchase of a basic or premium Starname;
- Addition or changes in cryptocurrency addresses attached to a Starname;
- Staking to allow validation of blocks; and
- Used for governance (after sufficient growth of the network, IOV SAS submitted and passed a proposal to “burn” a number of tokens to reduce total supply).
Who is Starname working with?
Starname is still in its infancy as a platform and therefore does not have an expansive list of partners.
Request Network is a payment platform that targets businesses with their B2B invoicing system. Businesses can send invoices to customers which can be easily utilised for tax purposes. Starname will look to embed themselves within the invoicing system.
Starname has formalised a partnership with LPBC European Entrepreneur Club - a group with 400 companies, 3000 leaders and 500 CEOs with revenues between €100k and €500m. The aim is to create 1 Starname per entity to facilitate simple payments of cryptocurrency. It is also understood that Ipanema Consulting - a French blockchain business, will potentially implement Starname for the companies they work with.
There are also ongoing conversations with Colis Prive, a leading delivery business in Europe.
Sputnik Network is an interchain bot that simplifies the process of cryptocurrency tipping on social media such as Twitter and Telegram. The integration allows IOV tokens to be easily tipped to users with the format of “@[username] [amount]iov #sputnik”. Sputnik Network also uses Starname for its payment process.
What does Starname have in plan for the future?
Starname is looking to implement a connection to Google Drive which allows easy connection to Starname using just a gmail account. Full details have not yet been released on how this will work but if done successfully, I would imagine that it will make onboarding users easy even for people with little to no knowledge on cryptocurrencies.
Request Network intends to enable Starname addresses as a form of invoicing address. This would make it easier for both parties as the invoicing party would no longer have to search through a list of addresses for the right blockchain.
It should be noted that the long-term growth of Starname would be strengthened by two main items - simplicity of use and marketing. Bringing awareness of a platform that simplifies processes will likely increase the uptake of Starname exponentially.
Who are Starname’s competitors?
PayPal offers a “one-click” service with PayPal.me which generates a link for users (paypal.me/YourName) that can be easily shared to allow other people to send money significantly easier than with the usage of banking details.
Parties that make payments to a user with PayPal.are not required to know any details about the payee nor even have the PayPal app. This reduces the barriers for usage and is why we have seen significant uptake in the usage of this service. However, PayPal as a provider has a number of fees and only supports fiat transfers (which further suffer when making international settlements).
Bitpay is a cryptocurrency equivalent to PayPal.me and therefore would theoretically solve the problem of fiat transfer issues. However, Bitpay also falls foul of their scale of fees and charges the merchant a 1% processing fee for payments.
PayPal.me and Bitpay are both centralised solutions in this space. The benefit of decentralisation includes the lack of KYC procedures and the considerable increase in speed of transactions. The removal of a middleman acts to prevent the creation of a limiting factor whereby the middleman is unable to process transactions as they are coming in.
It should be noted that Starname is not free of transaction fees. Rather, they additionally have a cost to creating a Starname and adding details to it. Currently making a Starname has a transaction fee of 2 IOV. This places the cost of making an account at c.?0.10, this is intended to be stable against fiat and therefore adjusted as IOV’s token price moves. Note that there are zero commission fees when making transactions to users outside of the network fee of the cryptocurrency that is being paid.
This means that although there is a marginal cost to creating an account, sending transactions are exponentially cheaper for parties to make which will make usage of the platform considerably more cost-effective for users.
Where can you buy IOV tokens?
Users can purchase IOV tokens in three ways, all different in nature and surprisingly more accessible than other small-cap coins:
- Purchased on Bilaxy, a centralised exchange - IOV/USDT;
- Purchased on Uniswap, a decentralised exchange - IOV/WETH; and
- Purchased directly from their website with fiat.
As part of the Cosmos ecosystem, Starname will be able to utilise inter-blockchain communication which will make the trading of Cosmos tokens between each other significantly easier. The developers have not yet mentioned when they expect to enable IBC on Starname.
Conclusions
First and foremost, I am a small holder of IOV tokens and it comprises less than 1% of my portfolio. However, I definitely think that Starname has a strong growth plan ahead of it and executing it will likely implement it into the majority of cryptocurrency users’ lives.
I wouldn’t go as far to say as it will easily break into the Top 100 by market cap but it doesn’t have to do that to be a successful platform that has made significant growth.
My view is influenced by the fact that Starname’s objective will simplify cryptocurrency transactions to something more simple than debit/credit card transactions and bring it on par to PayPal.me, which the majority of people could vouch for as a beneficial upgrade for people. The integration with Google Drive would make this even simpler and is the landmark at which point IOV SAS have stated that they will ramp up their marketing.
Objectively speaking, marketing is the biggest limiting factor for Starname and correcting this will hopefully see this simple tool being used in our lives.
