Web3 Domain Investments: Navigating the Opportunity of TLDs and SLDs

Ever wondered how meme coins are shaping the future of digital finance? Join me, Wen Airdrop, founder of iHeart Domains, as I sit down with Page Howe, a notable figure in the domain space. We kick off this Tech Talk podcast by examining the rollercoaster ride of meme coins—insightful yet risky—and navigate through the controversial ENS rebrand. Discover how these changes are shaking up domain value and market expansion while emphasizing the crucial role of developer actions and marketing strategies in this ever-evolving landscape.

Transitioning to "Outside the Bubble," we confront the challenge of engaging audiences beyond the digital ID space. I recount my enlightening conversation with Mani Patel from Forbes Web3 as part of our new membership into the Forbes Legacy Pass community. This chapter is a deep dive into the importance of aligning with brand ethos and the value of joining vetted communities. Shining a light on Vision's contributions to the ETH trading platform, we stress the importance of recognizing and valuing the efforts of builders in the Web3 domain space. 

Finally, we unpack the investment landscape of Web3 domains—from Top-Level Domains (TLDs) to Second-Level Domains (SLDs). Hear firsthand experiences dealing with the removal of ENS from the Opensea website and steering clear of scams, underscoring the need for secure platforms. Learn about the intricate hierarchy of Web3 domains and their potential as investment assets. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode offers a comprehensive guide to the economic dynamics, marketing strategies, and innovative uses of Web3 domains. Don't miss this opportunity to get ahead in the digital identity game!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

no-transcript. We will get started in just a moment. We will get started in just a moment. If you guys could all do me a favor, as you come into the space, please be sure to like and retweet using that bottom right-hand bubble. If you've got a question, feel free to leave a comment or request to come up to speak. But, yeah, we'll get started here in just a moment, pinned a couple things up at the top of the space and, yeah, looking forward to this one, all right, and we are going to go ahead and get started. I actually see Paige in the building, so I'm going to send you a speaker request. But, yeah, while we're waiting for him to come up and before we get into the main subject, I'm going to go ahead and introduce and welcome to space.

Speaker 1: 3:42

I do want to welcome everyone to our Tech Talk podcast. This is a live discussion that we record weekly here on X, where we highlight news, innovation, education, alpha and business development in the Web3 domain and digital identity space. I am your host, winn Airdrop, the founder of iHeart Domains, and we are your number one resource for unbiased Web3 and blockchain domain education, with over 100 Tech Talk episodes and YouTube videos produced and archived over the past two years. You can search our entire content archive for prior recordings and an easy to read overview of each episode at iHeartDomainscom. Also, our prior recordings are also available in podcast form on every major podcast player, including Apple Podcasts, spotify and iHeartRadio, easily reachable at techtalkhost, and one of the things that I pitted up at the top is actually I think it's a scroll through of Spotify for where our Tech Talk podcast is so very easy to get to and listen to our past episodes.

Speaker 1: 4:51

On your free time Again, as you guys are coming into the space, if you could please show love and like, retweet and again, if you've got a comment, feel free to leave it in the comment section. Before we start, I want to say hello and welcome to our guest, paige. How are you doing today, sir?

Speaker 2: 5:10

Doing great, hopefully coming through loud and clear.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yeah, you actually are loud and clear with no technical issues. Glad to have you here today. Hopefully the weekend's treated you well.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Yes, it's good. I spent all weekend playing around with meme coins, so I had a great time.

Speaker 1: 5:30

I'm going to pick your brain one day about how you play around with meme coins. I'm kind of pretty deep in the meme space and it can take you in the deep end Very easy to lose money.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Well, the only way to know that you don't want to be in them is to get in them. Enough to know that you don't want to be in them, otherwise you always kind of have the grasses greener. You know what I mean. Like, oh man, all I hear is everyone making all this money and probably, like people think about domains. You know, oh man, I think you know people are making all this money and then you kind of have to be in it to feel it, to go okay, now I see what it is, and so, anyway, that was what's fun about it this weekend ain't that the truth?

Speaker 1: 6:12

and that applies to everything. I think we always see like like the sugar before we go behind the curtain and see what it takes to make it, and getting in the trenches and playing with it definitely is a different experience. There's no second teacher. But, yeah, grateful as always to have you here, especially on this particular subject. This is one that I know we definitely get some gems from you on. And then also, yes, the kiosk is here. I'm going to invite you up as well, if anyone else wants to come up to speak. You know, provided that I'm familiar with you, please feel free to request a speaker role and I'll go ahead and add you on up. And yeah, without further ado.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Before we get into our main discussion, I do usually like to open up with some opening news, and there's been a few things that have happened in the domain space in the past. You know week and a couple of days or so that I wanted to kind of touch on, including, you know, one of the most recent, I think, was yesterday, was the ENS rebrand. Oh, that was the day before yesterday, the ENS rebrand. You know that's kind of being received with a few mixed emotions. We went from. You know uppercase ENS to lowercase ENS and you know a couple of maps and some things like that on the homepage. And yeah, you know I haven't tuned in too much beyond reading. You know some of the controversy on Twitter about how people feel about it. I haven't read too much. There's going to be like a big follow up campaign that comes with this and you know, you know more and more stuff that's attached to it that actually is aimed at bringing normies in, that's attached to it that actually is aimed at bringing normies in, but if not not sure how effective per se this may be in expanding our space any further, and that's, you know, that's going to tie into some of this conversation as well, because that's a big factor in investing right, especially in the SOD spaces, your value is attached to what the developer on the other end is doing and how they're marketing, and sometimes that can affect you in a good or a bad way.

Speaker 1: 8:38

But yeah, I'm saying all that to say I'm trying not to criticize it either way. I do want to see what comes, you know, after this. I mean, hopefully this was just kind of like the first. Hey, you know we rebranded our homepage. One thing I did think that you know and hope that maybe they'll look at is it is just a homepage facelift. So if you do click on the button to register a domain, it still takes you to the appensdomains where you know all the knowledge of blockchain and Ethereum and wallet addresses and connecting and all that still has to be present in the end user in order to register a domain. So probably still going to run into the same brick wall, even though you know the homepage is cute. But, yeah, this seems like a perfect time to welcome Kiosk into the space. How are you doing today, sir? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3: 9:36

Oh well, man, how are you doing?

Speaker 1: 9:39

I'm doing good, as always, man, I always give myself a reason to be happy.

Speaker 3: 9:42

Hell yeah, man Got to man, because always, man, I always give myself a reason to be happy. Hell yeah, man got to man, because I ain't gonna be anybody out there trying to find a reason for you, you know. So, hell yeah, no, I mean, I think, uh, I mean I do think there's more to it.

Speaker 3: 9:58

Uh, just kind of like seeing it seems like there's more to it. But uh, yeah, it just seemed real simple, nothing major. But I don't come at all these investments too much with too much expectations and what I fundamentally um I'm in it for you know what I mean which, uh, I think ens brings um everything with the rebranding or with no rebranding that I'm looking for out of my eads and stuff.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Yeah, I feel you on that perspective.

Speaker 1: 10:33

One thing that I do want, or a mindset that I kind of think I've adopted, is, outside of my one domain, right, my Grail domain, the one I'm going to use, the one that I'm here for the tech for, if I buy any other domains, I now, at this point, 100% care what the company, on the other hand, is planning to do to help me market and sell these domains. But again, I mean, ens is a very big entity. They are a staple and that's something to understand as well. You can be as critical of them as you want to be, but they are a staple, and that's something to understand as well. You can be as critical of them as you want to be, but they are a staple. They're not going anywhere and they will always likely be, you know, kind of the pinnacle that people look to, especially from, you know, a utility perspective. Again, they got that locked down, so we're kind of at the mercy of the pace that they want to move forward. But, yay, we got a new insider to move forward.

Speaker 3: 11:27

But yay, we got into, yeah, and that's kind of like the unfortunate reality that I kind of like just try to swallow and accept and then like, whatever they kind of got going, that that I can actually build on and like actually do right now is like that's um, I have to be happy with that, almost. You know I mean like, and then everything else is just kind of like the cherry on top or a plus, you know I mean. But that's kind of the reality. I mean that's the mindset I come at it with and I'm not saying that's right and I think a lot of people's perspectives and um like um takes and stuff on their like it will help and benefit ens and get them further along by taking the criticism and growing from it. But I'm not really the guy that's going to go and critique the website.

Speaker 4: 12:16

Who was it?

Speaker 3: 12:16

The Unstoppable, some Unstoppable people were actually helping ENS build a cleaner website or something. Actually doing the little notes and stuff actually like helping ens like build a cleaner website or something like actually doing like the little notes and stuff and it's like man they're helping. I mean that's help, I think I mean it's like, but I I mean I'm not critiquing them like that, like you know. I mean they don't. I own all my dot eats and the little projects I got that I'm, you know, wanting to build on and like use cases and all that like doesn't change with any of like a lot of without with any with anybody outside of me really so far, until they have to come knocking on my door like telling me I can't do this and I can't. Then I mean so far no one's really bothering my approaches towards this ENS stuff. So I'm real kind of satisfied and content with my position, but I can't. I mean I'm only speaking for myself.

Speaker 1: 13:11

You know that I heart man, so yeah, and ENS and eth are going to be a very big part of this conversation and we'll, we'll, we'll go over a couple of those, cause they're like I said, what they have going on as a brand does very much have to do with how you're able to value the asset in the end, but then there's also a lot of things that you have control over here as well and on both ends, and, like I said, we'll dive into that. On the TLD versus SLD conversation, yeah, I'm interested man.

Speaker 3: 13:44

I saw the post, post man you're typing and I don't even know what sld means. So I didn't, I didn't go and uh, like research. I was just like I'm gonna wait until we get here and like learn more. But uh, because I know you teach me all kinds of stuff, so it's like I figure I'd rather learn it from you anyway. So I'm, I'm into let's, I mean I'm ready to learn, so yeah, and you know what.

Speaker 1: 14:10

that's a hundred percent what I'm here for. And and it's gonna sound weird, but like I love that you don't know what an sld is, because it that makes the validity of my existence relevant. Right, it gives me purpose and that's the validity of my existence rather than right, it gives me purpose and that's the point. Right to create these spaces to make this easy to understand. And, again, there's room for all types of content. We definitely, you know, we need a Zig Ziglar, we need someone to help motivate us to get out there and sell and make money from our bags. But at the end of the day, some of us are going to be end users and kind of need to understand how these things work. And, you know, hopefully I can help fill that gap. And that kind of takes me to my next bit of opening news and actually my motivation behind doing so.

Speaker 1: 15:08

As you guys may have also seen, last week I did mint the Forbes Web3 NFT, became a member of their legacy pass and that's actually turning out to be a pretty solid value. You know, on paper, prior to minting, you know I had a couple expectations and you know hopes for what I'd be able to use the membership for and to kind of just spell that out, it's exactly that right. I would love to and I've said this many times. If you've met me in person, if you've ever had a conversation with me about who I determined my target audience to be, I love that all of you here are here in this space, all of us as investors. I love that I have something to give to you. But my target demographic are people that are outside of this space, that don't know the value of digital ID, aka outside the bubble. And you know the magic question is well, how do we get to people outside the bubble? And you know we've been kind of stabbing at that for the past two years. I'm sure most of us have been trying to do the same thing, and I figured the Forbes. You know, like I said on paper, what they laid out would be the utility I felt would be, you know, a good stepping stone in doing so, especially to a demographic of people that could take this seriously and potentially do something with it and partner.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Now, I keep saying on paper because in reality it seems like this relationship is probably going to be better than it looked on paper. I had a wonderful conversation with Manny Patel. I think, as I spelled out in the tweet, she immediately understands our space holds some eth. I think they did a breakfast with unstoppable domains during consensus. So to be immediately in line and to not have to go through that process of even explaining what I do or what this is, that is a breath of fresh air. But then some of the things that she enlightened me on as far as you know, again reassuring that me and our brand and our ethos is on the right track, that was also very encouraging. Go for it, paige very encouraging.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Go for it, paige. Yeah, those spaces though that Forbes hosts, those are fire. I thought I've been in a few of their web-through spaces and I mean I was too late to join the wait list for the Legacy Pass. I don't think I made it. Whenever I first learned about it, it was too late to join the wait list for the legacy pass. I don't think I've made it. Whenever I first learned about it it was too late. But yeah, those those spaces are educational and, like, I learned a lot from those spaces. But you know I'm only 10 months in the game. You know the high hour, so y'all are teaching me so much on like a fundamental level on all of these spaces.

Speaker 1: 17:43

It's just like I'm just trying to, like, gather up all the information I can so I can continue to build with more knowledge and more. You know. Information, you know, I mean Absolutely and I mean, as you know, we've met in person, you know, we've had a dialogue. Any benefit that I'm able to receive, you know, I do try to reciprocate to members of my community. I'm just a naturally genuinely helpful person. So you kind of got that already.

Speaker 1: 18:16

In regards to the membership directly, though, if anybody is still interested in getting that membership and this ain't no show, this is just telling you the facts there's 1,917 of them. Uh, they're an application basis. Um, I think they're doing this in waves of cohorts, so I think they're almost halfway minted, or maybe they minted more than half. They're accepting and approving applications on a one-on-one basis, which, like that's the other cool thing too we're going to end up with a completely vetted community of people from all different walks of the space and life that that have something, you know, hopefully, to add to it. So we'll see how that one pops off. It does come with a little price tag. For some it ain't nothing, for some it's like hell. No, I ain't paying it, but for me it came out to be about $1,200 fiat. It was .33 ETH at the time, which was $1,200. So that is something to take into consideration and it is a soulbound NFT. So that $1,200, you're only getting that out of the value you get out of the

Speaker 1: 19:16

community. And yeah, the last piece of kind of news I wanted to touch on before we get into the main topic I do try not to drag this on for too long is more not news, but as a shout out. I did make a tweet and I do want to say this live and submit this in. I want to give a shout out to Vision. I know all too well what it feels like to be unappreciated when you're building and when you're adding value to the space. And I'm not even going, I'm definitely not going to measure my value up to the value that Vision has

Speaker 1: 19:52

provided. If you're a eth trader, there is no other platform that has made it as easy for you to create a market, buy, sell, trade register, do anything for your eaves, domains, division, and so you know, hopefully, despite the recognition that they may not be receiving from where it should be coming from, hopefully they continue to still build. Hopefully they still feel the recognition and love from the rest of us. And yeah, for me and iHeartDomains, I just wanted some shout out to you guys, To Philian and the Rocket and everybody over there.

Speaker 3: 20:27

I agree with that. I second that 100% too. And did you notice that they removed OpenSea from the website on ENS? So that's a start in the right direction, at least I mean, because I don't think I think OpenSea. Whenever I first jumped in to ENS and buying ENS names, I almost got scammed by OpenSea allowing fake digits on their platform and stuff, so it's like that automatically didn't fly good. And then I found Vision right away and since then I haven't had a sway or move way and and since then I haven't had a sway or move and um. So I think whether they put them on the website or not I don't know, I can't really, I don't understand enough to what, but I know that they're doing a lot for their community. Vision is definitely worthy of being on the website. But at least they removed open c, because I don't think openSea needs to be. I mean OpenSea. That's the worst for your, for ENS, if people can be scammed and have that bad taste, think about it.

Speaker 3: 21:31

I own 400 ENS names and at the beginning if I got scammed I wouldn't come back. I'd be like man, what ENS, excuse me, you know. So I would definitely not be promoting OpenSea, but that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. When that happened I remember I was like but luckily I didn't fall for it. But someone was like yeah, the digits aren't going for that cheap and and then I sent it to them and then they told they told me that they're like yeah, that's a, those are the fake digits on OpenSea. I'm like what?

Speaker 1: 22:06

those are the fake digits on OpenSea. I'm like what, yeah, that was kind of a prevalent scam at a time on OpenSea, that the hidden characters. I remember talking about that and everybody ignored me because I probably wasn't explaining it right. But yeah, again, another big. You know value to the space to make it safe to navigate and register things and it's something that you know we value to the space to make it safe to navigate and register things and it's something that you know we definitely shouldn't take for granted. And yeah, without further ado, let's jump into the main discussion Again, as you guys are coming into the space. Thank you all for being here. Please like and retweet. If you do want to come up and add to the discussion, you can feel free to request a speaker role.

Speaker 1: 22:45

But the topic of the space TLDs versus SLDs, which are more profitable investments. One of the first things I want to do is I do want to start the space by clarifying that in this particular discussion, we are talking about domains or digital identity assets in Web3 and not the DNS ecosystem that these acronyms originally derived from. That's a whole different ballgame. In economics, barrier entry and politics are way different. But yeah, and I want to start by with the definition so that we kind of got that out the way. In the domain space, tld stands for top-level domains, and I'm going to go over this again. Repetition is education but TLDs the most common TLD that you guys may know of in the Web2 space would be the com and com or the xyz and xyz, the info and info, et cetera. On the Web3 side we are all familiar with the eth and eth, the x and x, et cetera. So simply put, tld right of the dot, sld stands for second level domain or left of the dot, and that would be in this case, your Microsoft in the Microsoftcom or your Apple in the Applecom or your kiosk in the kiosk. That would be your SLD.

Speaker 1: 24:10

So yeah, hopefully that answers that question. And again, I want to thank both you and Paige for being up here on Statewide. Paige has dropped off as a speaker. Hopefully you're able to pop back up as a speaker, so I do want to get Paige's input. But yeah, I do want to thank you for being here and definitely want to go ahead and dive into this discussion. And yeah, if you have anything to add before I get started, go for it. Kiosk.

Speaker 3: 24:39

Oh yeah, no, I didn't know about that. You said secondary level domain, so I didn't. Or is you said secondary level domain, or is that what you labeled?

Speaker 1: 24:49

it Second level.

Speaker 3: 24:51

Second level All right, yeah, I didn't know that. So then it's like the parent domain, like the parent. Is that considered the same thing or not?

Speaker 1: 25:05

It could be to an extent. I'm trying to figure out a way to explain this in a more layman's terms, or perhaps you know what. This might be a good opportunity for Paige to hop in. In a non-domain term, how would you explain the relationship between a TLD and an SLD?

Speaker 2: 25:23

Yeah, hopefully you can hear me. Yes, sir, yes, sir, okay, so I guess the biggest you know. We live by analogies. So think about your. You know your file name when you save something to your. We used to have a thing called a hard drive where you saved a file or an Excel file and it would be, you know, know, pagexls or something. So it's this idea that you have an identifier that has a top level. You know that's what's to the right, which we, as Marcus, saidcomnetorg. And then you have the second level, and the reason it's important is when someone tries to find the website or the email address or whatever record your domain name represents, first they're going to go to the top level. They're going to say tell me who's in charge of com.

Speaker 2: 26:14

And then they're going to go to the second level and say tell me who's in charge of iHeartDomainscom, domainscom, and so it's a it's kind of an original decentralized way of doing it where if I have a top level domain, I'm in charge of that top level domain and other people have second level domains and they're in charge of their second level domains. I don't have to be in charge of every single domain in the whole space. I'm in charge of the top level. People buy into the second level, Like you said, 1254.eth Ethereum name service runseth.

Speaker 2: 26:52

They own that real estate and you're renting from them the second level in it. So you'll always only be as good or only be as bad as their top level, and I think that's probably the best way to understand it. You could also have a third level you can have, like today, itcom they sell domains like pagehowitcom. They got accepted by GoDaddy, and so the way the internet file system was originally envisioned is that you'd have these hierarchies a top level, a second level, a third level, even a fourth level when we first started.

Speaker 3: 27:32

What are they labeling this in DNS? Are they labeling third level, exactly Web?

Speaker 2: 27:38

3 is using the DNS words of top level domain and second level domain.

Speaker 3: 27:44

What about third level, though'm saying, what about?

Speaker 2: 27:46

that Same thing.

Speaker 3: 27:47

Dub domain. What's that?

Speaker 2: 27:49

So if I own pagehowitcom, pagehow would be the third level, it would be the second level, com would be the first level. So they're just calling those third levels though.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Well, what we've been calling them as of recently and you've been seeing a lot of examples of this as of recent, because now it's a thing I think most people have been calling them subs so what you're referring to as subs, where you're seeing something, somethingdgeneth, that is actually a third level domain, the something, something.

Speaker 3: 28:21

Yeah, I'm understanding. I just didn't know how y'all labeled it or what would y'all call it, like how y'all got TLD, sld, so then, like are y'all labeling that as something in DNS? Because we know them as subs. But I'm just, I just didn't, I was just wondering if y'all named that.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Yeah, and it's kind of interoperable terminology because I think even in the DNS space some people refer to those as subs to an extent, but third level domains would be what we're calling subs, and then the fourth. Yeah, I mean those are probably just all be called fourths because that's just a lot of dilution there in the dots. But, yeah, hopefully that clears that up. And thank you for that example as well, Paige. That was an awesome example.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Yeah great.

Speaker 2: 29:10

So I think what you're presented with in most cases, especially in the Web2 space and even the Web3 space, is you're presented with an opportunity to pay somebody who owns the top level in their space, in their domain. That's where the word domain comes from. It's their domain, it's like their country, it's their virtual country on the internet that they own. And then you own the second level. That's what X owns Xcom and Google owns Googlecom. And once you have Googlecom, anything that you do to the left of it to add a sub or or add something like, uh, you know, um, you know someone might say go to shopgooglecom.

Speaker 2: 30:00

You control that entire universe of everything you know, up, the third levels and the fourth levels and everything. So it's kind of like a hierarchy of who owns it and and the, the com or the top level domain name is the country, maybe. And then you rent space and then inside your space of your second level domain, if you want to do third levels, you own all that, but the user still gets to use the same internet, the same file protocols, the same integr integrations, the same technology to interact with with everything first level, second level, third level. You know, in the dns space I can be page at pagehowitcom or something. So that's what's this combination of decentral and centralized.

Speaker 2: 30:50

So I, 25 years ago, I found out about domains because I wanted to get my own com. It was called the guy that applied to get web at the time, which still hasn't been given out, and that's literally Marcus. What got me into domains is me wanting to have my own, my own space. I wanted to be on the receiving end of the revenue, not paying someone else to rent property in their area, but I wanted to be on the receiving end of the revenue, not paying someone else to rent property in their area, but I wanted to be on the receiving end of operating my own tap level domain, because I get to use the internet for free. I don't have to build an antenna to send a TV signal or a radio signal, I don't have to wire underneath a city a bunch of wires or I don't have to put up a dish for communications or modems. I get to use the whole internet. And then I get to own this virtual property on the internet which is my top level domain.

Speaker 2: 31:44

And so that's what got me excited about it. And it wasn't until even though I was involved with some projects where they did SLDs no one ever let me own my own. And that's where you know I've had so much fun the last couple of years owning my own TLDs. You know whether it was the handshake protocol originally, whether it was knowing that I can do SLDs on my Unstoppable or ETH or the Freename platform the Freename Classic platform, I guess, is what we call it and that allows me to own my own TLD. So I have v and I have homepages and I have digits, and that lets me own that and I get to create and innovate and own everything to the left of my TLD and innovate and own everything to the left of my TLD.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Yes, sir, yes, sir, yeah. The, the, the world of web three, has given pretty much all of us a second, or probably even our first, chance that we weren't aware of it, you know, 30 years ago to participate in the digital real estate boom after either missing out or like, like you were saying, like it not even being accessible in the world of what we call Web 2. I also love the phrase that you use, the hierarchy as well, and that's one of the things that you know it's very important to this conversation because, depending on where you can get in the hierarchy right, there's different opportunity, but then there's also different responsibilities that might add a different balance or value to that opportunity or detract from it. Kind of akin to like, I'm a grown adult and I have a child and I look at how well my daughter has it, not having to do anything except exist, while you know I do all the hard labor and sometimes I wish I was a kid. Now I know she's looking at me, wishing that she was an adult and could make all the decisions on her own. And again, with the hierarchy of life, there's different benefits as well as different responsibilities, because I'm sure once the bills hit her, she'd wish she could trade and go back to a kid, and that's some of the things that we're going to talk about is the different opportunities that exist in the different hierarchies of how we can exist in the space, and super glad that you laid that out for us.

Speaker 1: 34:01

And then, in regards to Web3, the SLDs, which, as we explained, are on the left of the dot, and TLDs on the right of the dot, both have and are continuing to create a market and both can present extremely lucrative investment opportunities.

Speaker 1: 34:20

To understand which one may be more valuable as an investment to you, though, it's important that we understand again the differences in those opportunities and the limitations that each one presents. I do again want to clarify, because we're going to use a lot of interchangeable terminology and at points we're going to pop in some Web 2 stuff, but I do want to clarify that we're talking about Web 3 domains, aka digital identity. Another thing that I want to clarify is that the utility of each provider of Web 3 domains does vary substantially from you know, a ton of utility to none, right. So, even though these assets that we may talk about interchangeably in this conversation exist and are sold in the same market. That is a huge factor in the overall value of these assets and that can change at any moment. So anything that you hear from this conversation I'm saying all that to say please do your own research. This is not financial advice. Go for it.

Speaker 2: 35:18

Hey, marcus, I'll jump in. I think, marcus, you're trying to basically share the code. Word for Web3 domain or digital identity is don't go type this into your browser. It's not going to show up and that is the negative way to look at it. And what I want to kind of walk people down a pathway is that there's 300 million Web2 domains out there and the idea that every one of those domains is being bought by someone who's going to go build a website is just ludicrous. What's happened over the last 20 years, in my opinion, is that people just like owning stuff and there's a big part of digital identity and just digital collecting that just says I want to own something and maybe it'll be worth something in the future.

Speaker 2: 36:06

Now, right now, as Marcus said, a Web3 domain is kind of code for the fact that when you type it into your computer, you type in like page howv, your browser is going to go look where's v, that's the top level domain name, who's in charge of it, and how do I find out who's in charge of page howv? First I have to find v, I have to find out who's in charge, and when you type it into Chrome or Safari or you send an email, the whole internet has a list of who's in charge of everything. So if it says dot com, they know to go to VeriSign. They say VeriSign, who's in charge of iHeartDomainscom? And they say, oh, it looks like it's a website being hosted at GoDaddy and that's how they know where to go to get the information. So we're going to go back to this word hierarchy.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Your browser first ask where do I get information about this top level domain? And then verisign says go to the registrar and they have a list of who owns this domain and where the information is. So it's a request for data and it's a return of data. And tell me if that doesn't sound like the blockchain. So the web3 domain company said hey, how about this, instead of verisign or godaddy keeping a list of who owns different domains, we'll put it on the blockchain and so your browser, if it's equipped and if it's approved, and if it knows how to connect to the blockchain.

Speaker 2: 37:37

instead of looking on GoDaddy or VeriSign who runs com, it's going to go to the blockchain and say how do I get the content for pagehowv, how do I find out what the webpage looks like on pagehowv? And it's simply requesting it from a different place. Now the people that control com they don't want anyone else to get into the club of owning com or owning top-level domain names. They like their club to only have about 2,000 of them. You got to pay 300,000 to a million to be part of the club. They only allow new people every 10 years or so. And if you run one of these top level domain names in Web2, you've got to sell through. You have to sell through these registrars that are their own little monopolies. So Web3, I think, skipped ahead and said wait.

Speaker 4: 38:28

I don't want any of that.

Speaker 2: 38:29

I want to be able to have my own domain, look it up on the blockchain and tell me where it is. But it's a fight. It's a fight. But the reason that I think that it's going to get nothing but better is that it's a simple idea to just make a tweak in your setting of your browser to go look up free name, or to be on the Brave browser and see Unstoppable, or be on other browsers and see ETH. It's just a little tweak, it's not much. And that tweak comes from downloading an app or a DAP, and millions of people are used to downloading little apps. So if I tell them to come see v, hey, real quick, just download this app so you can see v. That's not the big barrier. It was 20 years ago. So that's why, even though Marcus is saying hey, code word, everybody, these are Web3 domains.

Speaker 2: 39:25

I look at it and I say, but at least I can get one, at least I can play in this space, and if I have to advertise how to get to see mine, that's okay. The parallels I use are Netflix. If you want to watch a show on Netflix, you can't turn on your cable box. You have to download the Netflix app and once you do, you see this whole world of content, and so that's the way I think about. You know, the Web3 world. Is that the idea that people download an app to be able to see these spaces? I'm willing to put up with that, because I can own my own one in this world and I can't in Web2.

Speaker 1: 40:19

Yeah, I love that you expanded on that, because it does often seem that when we and I personally, as you always know try to do my best to shine the spotlight on what I think the advantages and focused solely on the Web2 domain space even though there's, you know, I'm sure plenty of lucrative opportunities that still exist in the Web2 space is because this space is accessible on every level to anyone listening to this space, and so we're not talking about opportunities that are beyond your reach. We're not talking about opportunities that don't exist or that you can be regulated out of. These are actionable conversations. These are conversations that you can listen to, get inspired by, and then go directly to a platform such as FreeName and go shop for a TLD if it inspires you to do so, or you can go to the ENS or UD or wherever you can, permissionlessly and participate in the space at whatever level you're motivated to do so, at, which it's not so easy to do in the DNS space, unless you've got a million dollars sitting in your bank account right now.

Speaker 2: 41:21

Hey Marcus, I didn't get a chance to tell you, but I'm going to say something for the first time here that I think is going to at least be a good parallel for me to explain free name and owning a free name tld, because I think it is, you know, a little different. Handshake allows you to own your tlds, but they call them strings. They have a lot of aspirations beside that. So I use the free name platform and the way I'm going to describe it and and this will be said for the first time here on iHeart Domains is think about investing in meme coins.

Speaker 2: 41:57

You buy someone's meme coin, you're buying someone else's coin for the hope that it'll go up and you can sell. Just like pumpfun allows you to create your own sole token with an existing platform that has a fair contract and rules, and you don't have to build their existing registrar, their existing way of building a TLD, and I can do the part that I like, which is marketing community building, but I don't have to go build the whole app to be able to have people download a plugin to see my TLD. So I think for me, free name is kind of the pump dot fund out of domain name. So instead of buying on someone else's property, someone else's land, instead of renting or being a sharecropper, you could own your own and you can receive up to half the revenue of every domain that sells. And so that's kind of my new analogy, marcus, dropping it for the first time here. What do you think?

Speaker 1: 43:12

That's kind of my new analogy, marcus, dropping it for the first time here. What do you think? You know what? I'm listening to it and I'm like that makes sense and that is actually easily explainable and solid too, because, yeah, a lot of people are getting used to now being able to launch their own collections on Pumped Out Fund because they do have the security. That's actually very easily translatable. So I'm probably going to steal that one from you. If you don't mind, go for it.

Speaker 1: 43:38

And yeah, with that being said, I do want to get into the meat of the conversation and we're going to run through this kind of relatively quickly, as I usually like to keep these TED Talks for an hour or so so that they're digestible. Again, these are placed on our podcast and you know there's a certain kind of format we like to keep. But I want to keep this conversation simple and easy to follow and, as such, I've kind of broken this down into three categories to kind of understand the value of you know kind of one versus the other. From an investment perspective and despite the title, it's not really a verse, because there is most of us that are in the Web3 domain space, if you've heard or invest in TLDs, you're probably still buying SLDs from other providers because you understand that a diversified bag of both will likely be for the win. A diversified bag of both will likely be for the win. It's just important to understand you know kind of the benefits of what to expect from both, especially while the industry and the market is growing. So those, these three particular categories you know, that I kind of wanted to go through, is understanding the target market between SLDs and TLDs, again in the Web3 space, the investment pros and cons, which we're going to touch on, some of the stuff that Paige just brought up, because that's a big thing, and then also you know the kind of income opportunity that exists, and we actually got a really good example of that today.

Speaker 1: 45:10

Again, one of the biggest differences and factors to understanding the value between an SLD or a TLD in the Web3 space is to even identify who their target markets are. You're not selling the same thing to the same people and if you don't know who you're selling to, it's going to be hard to sell it. So an SLD, despite what you're able to do with it, despite the fact that some people will be able to create very successful subdomain registries and all this good stuff, withpto, defi, wallet, whatever ends up in the wallet of an end user that is using it for digital identity so the end user for an SLD is at some point going to be someone who understands the space and has acquired it in order to use it, acquired it in order to use it. Another potential customer for SLDs are also builders or developers who are going to be integrating these into DApps or naming protocols or smart contracts with them, and that's another thing to understand. Again, understanding who your market is will very much understand kind of what it will take to hold. It will give you an idea of really how much to put into the space.

Speaker 1: 46:35

I made a comment I think it may have even been attached to this spaces when I first made the spaces announcement. Why would anybody spend an etherbore on an SLD when they could buy a TLD for the same amount? And there are some instances where you know that would make sense and actually, like I said, we did get a very good example of that today that I'll go through in a little bit. But there is a market for SLDs at a retail, not a premium level. But it does first help to understand who your target market even is, because those of us who've got a bag of domain names, and it also may also help on your registration journey as well.

Speaker 1: 47:16

Um, you know, just like many of us are registered, registering, you know, web2 domains that make no sense and, um, you know we're not seeing success with it's because we don't understand who the end user is going to be and might be the reason why some of us end up with hundreds and hundreds of ens or unstoppable domains in our wallets before we're finally able to do something else with them is that we didn't understand who the end customer was to begin with.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Obviously, we are one of the customers of SLDs, and I'd say we in regards to investors or flippers. So there is obviously a market to flip wholesale to other people who hope to flip in the future. I don't know how much profit margin or how lucrative that market in particular is going to be, especially right now where we haven't really established much demand outside of, probably, e&s domains for the space in general. But that is one of the markets. And then, like I said, as I mentioned earlier, some people will be very successful and already have been successful with building subdomain registries via platforms like Vision, I think they did. Dgeneth WebHash, I know, is going to enable that ability for people who are using their ENS domain to build decentralized websites.

Speaker 3: 48:35

Have you seen namespaces widget they have yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:39

That thing's fire man, because I'm doing a bunch of third level domain like projects, where it's going to take where you own, like a subdomain, and owning a subdomain will bring whatever I use, like use the, or whatever I do like tie utility wise to that, the owning of the subdomain will matter. But, yeah, that widget, though, plugging that into any website, you know, I think it's going to be huge. I think it's going to be huge. And I think QR codes I think kind of gets you in a where you may not even know about that TLD but you're marketed with a QR code that interests you and you scan the QR code and it'll point you you to this e or you know what I mean. So I think, yeah, I'm interested in everything y'all are talking about. So I'm interested in diving deep into your conversation.

Speaker 3: 49:48

My phone's on the charger too. I heart, so I may. I'm kind of jumping. Whenever I got something to say, I kind of just jump to the phone to say so I apologize.

Speaker 1: 49:59

No, you're all good and I appreciate the input. And yeah, namespace is another. I've actually reached out to them and that's going to be a very lucrative part of the space, especially for those who have, you know, grillil East and you know even Grail DNS domains that would make very good subdomain registries. And again, as that market, the ability or knowing that that's something that you can do with this very much affects, I think, the investment potential and investment value of these. I said kind of all these categories to summarize that SLDs generally are meant for a retail customer and, kind of using the analogy, imagine yourself being like a used car dealership. Right, your end customer is the customer. You may get lucky every now and then and be able to sell one of your cars to another used car dealer, if you happen to get the right grill in there and want to get off of it, but your customer is going to be the one that you go out and advertise and sell it to and that's going to be the person that drives that car until the engine falls out of it. Hopefully that was a good enough analogy.

Speaker 1: 51:13

Now, going back to the TLB, which is the top level domain, again the right of the dot and again, we're still talking about the Web3 space. We're talking about more of a wholesale or entrepreneurial customer and, again, depending on and that's another thing too that I wanna highlight as well, I think we said again depending on and that's another thing too that I want to highlight as well, I think we said again what Paige was saying earlier about the hierarchy there's a level of responsibility that comes with investing in either one of these. You know, investing in SLDs is certainly probably the most passive way and in some cases it's going to be the most risk-free way to enter the space and there's benefit to just being a retail customer, waiting it out and finding the next person that loves it more than you did. However, for those of us who want to be in the space in a more aggressive manner, like you said, that want control, that want ownership, that want to be able to build something on this digital real estate, the TLD offers more of a wholesale solution and its target demographic is a little bit different, even though it can intermingle. So still, if you have a registry, I guess, goal or mindset or project, it will enable you to be a registry. However, it just removes the dilution from that registry and, you know, depending on what kind of brand you can build on your own and that can be easier said than done for most, done for most but depending on the brand that you're able to build and the TLD itself, that dilution is something that you definitely want to get rid of.

Speaker 1: 53:03

I understand, for some people, having that eth attached on the other side of your SLD and selling subs off of it is probably the only reason some people are going to register SLDs off of it, and so that's something else you've got to weigh out. But if you do have a strong enough brand and you do want to build a registry without the dilution of having a dot, something else, attached to it, then you'll look at entering the space on the TLD level. Again, that ownership from the top of the food chain. Also going back to brands for even internal use and for like logins, employee logins for DApps, for things like that you know there's, if the option exists to have your own TLD and if it works, obviously if it resolves within your ecosystem, I do see that as going to be a growing market for this industry as well. Also developers, right, somebody who's wanting to build out their again their own protocol or something like that that requires them to have ownership at that level.

Speaker 1: 54:04

Communities for tribe, identities for utilities, decentralized chats I think we talked with D-Web about a month ago.

Speaker 1: 54:12

They have a decentralized chat that is token gated and domain gated, so you can actually get your chat based on the TLD right, not even just at the NFT level but at the TLD level, so you can have your own corporate community chat, your own all that good stuff that's encrypted from end to end.

Speaker 1: 54:29

And then, last but not least, from end to end. And then last but not least, your target demographic or your market for TLDs will also be, at some level, other investors or flippers. But again, those investors and flippers are going to have to understand the opportunity again that exists at this level and it's not for everybody. And so again, wrapping all that up, to say that the target market I've identified retail kind of as an SLD target market, wholesale as a TLD target market. Yeah, hopefully those definitions help people kind of better gauge what mindset they should be in when they're looking at either as an investment. And again, you know the title may seem clickbaity, it's not a verse. There's an opportunity in both. There's just a different strategy and different limits. You know that you should mentally approach each with Wanted to get your feedback on that page if you have any.

Speaker 2: 55:30

Yeah, I think you know the places where I think about investing in Web3. Tlds and SLDs are one new themes and new trends. A generic word like ai, maybe AI gen becomes a real big word not gen AI, but AI gen. You know what I mean and you've got the ability to after all, the stuff is taken in Web 2, maybe create something that just sounds cool for people to own and you can say, well, do I want to be ai gen? I'm just making up this word.

Speaker 2: 56:13

Please do not go by aiGen or aiGen domain names. I'm just making it up. It could be robotics, could be holography, whatever. So you say, okay, well, I can be aiGen, and then I can let people buy MarcusaiGen, iheartdomainsaigen, sportsaigen, musicaigen, and I can sell them those names and, like you said, marcus, they'll be a consumer, they'll get a product that can do something With their domain name. They can set up a website. They can use it as a crypto address. They can just use it as something to put on their Twitter or on their just it's kind of like a looky here, like the thing in front of a used car lot where the arms are going. You're just using it to kind of just get someone's attention. You know I'm sportsai gen. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4: 57:01

And people be like wow, that's that's, wow, that's you know and you can start a conversation with it.

Speaker 2: 57:06

So you can either buy sportsai gen in some of the TLDs that don't exist on the Web2 space, like crypto from Unstoppable eth, from E&S, maybe metaverse and usa at Freename, so you can buy the SLD. And because you're buying a usable domain name, that's easier for people to understand why they may want to buy it, as opposed to kind of selling them a machine or a business opportunity. That's what the TLD is. It doesn't really do anything for you. You can't send an email to aiGen. You can't send an e-mail to aiGen. So it's whether you're selling a machine that can do stuff or whether you're actually selling a product that you could wrap up in a bag a domain name.

Speaker 2: 57:57

So those are the ways I think about investing in SLDs or TLDs, and then the hybrid is when you talk about what's called across the dot, meaning that you can think about a word like you may say well, I'd never buy what's a good one to say your bag, I'd never buy dot your bag. You know what I mean. But if you did, then people could be like own your dot bag, watch dot your bag, mine dot your bag, you know. So you can do these things that are kind of combinations of the left and the right side, and so that's kind of what I was thinking about as you were sharing.

Speaker 1: 58:40

Oh yeah loving the name hacks. Oh my bad, Go for it, Kias.

Speaker 4: 58:48

No, I was just chiming in and saying that's fire, like that creativity of like doing the SLD with the TLD and like just. I mean it kind of just goes to show like the endless potential with these TLDs. You know, it's like me personally I'm sticking to like established like a Web3 TLD, that's e. So I haven't like started when started like a dot kiosk or anything, but I mean it's just fire, they like the creativity, like just. And I mean I know the fact that you already know about, like understand all this. Y'all probably came up with it all already.

Speaker 2: 59:31

But, um, yeah, that's cool, I like that great, yeah, I think dot eve does have the most flex and the most credibility, where sometimes it's nice to buy an sld and someone else's tld that spent hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, developing the brand and develop it. So you're like, hey, I, I don't want to be new, I don't want to be different, I don't want to be new, I don't want to be different, I don't want to have to explain a bunch of stuff. I want something that people already want and I'm just going to be a trader, and I'm either going to be a trader or a consumer. And then the other way is you're saying, hey, I might have more time than I do money. You know I can't afford to buy a three digit or a four digit, so I'm going to create something. But what was interesting in the last month is and please don't tell me the score of the game because I'm recording it here the European Championships. But if you watch the advertising on the sideboards, bookingcom actually has on the sideboards bookingyeah, and there is no yeah, tld, yeah, and there is no dot, yeah, tld. But it's the idea that something, dot, something, has become so ingrained, kind of, in our community. I think Nike did something like this 10 years ago where they did, like, you know, get dot strong or something like that. Just that format is kind of ingrained where you know, booking dotap, even though it's not a resolvable domain name, it just sounds cool and so I think that's where you know you get into.

Speaker 2: 1:01:00

This idea of Web3 is fast, adaptable, isn't? You know, bound by some of the stuff. But you know, hear me say this 99% of my money and 99% of my names are in Web 2. I'm glad the internet works. I'm glad it doesn't break. I'm glad it's kept up. I'm glad it's fair for everybody. It's global, it moves slowly, and that's the technology that we're talking on right now. I just want to be able to play in certain niches and certain areas and have imagination where I'm not held back. So that's kind of how I think about Web 2 and Web 3.

Speaker 1: 1:01:40

Yeah, and definitely again, and you know I think I took several opportunities in this conversation to please everybody there is a big difference between the assets that you were talking about in the Web 3 space and you know the assets that you were talking about in the Web3 space and the assets that we're talking about in the Web2 space. You know we are an industry that I believe is going to grow together, that provides value together, and you know, specifically for my platform, you know we've chosen to focus more on the Web3 side of the space because that's the space I came into but to help usher in, you know, kind of the best path moving forward on how to blend those two worlds. A couple of things that you guys both of you guys brought up and that segues us into the next category that I was talking about. You know Kios, you mentioned. You know you primarily invest in ease and you know Kiosk, you mentioned. You know you primarily invest in East and you know Page, referenced back to the hierarchy again Again, you know some people depending on the time, energy, your cash flow, et cetera, there are pros or cons to investing in this space at one level to another.

Speaker 1: 1:02:46

That's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about some of the investment pros and cons that exist for SLDs and TLDs and, again, as I was saying earlier, the conversations that I like to have here are actionable conversations. This, in particular, is specific to the providers that we already know and exist in the space. So, going to like what Kiyos said, what I'm going to talk about as far as the investment pros and cons is, it's referencing pretty much ENS and UD. There's a lot of amazing providers that will probably exist in the future. There's going to be some that are trash, but if you're sitting at home right now with one ETH and you're deciding today I want to either go buy an SLD or TLD, again, you know, this space will hopefully give you a way to go down a rabbit hole and create some action with the way the industry exists today, and same with TLDs. When I'm speaking about TLDs, I'm speaking about the opportunity that exists with registrars such as Freename, something that if you like what you hear, you can go directly there and grab one today if you felt like, or go do your research. That exists now, so just wanted to put that out there. But yeah, so going to something like a eth, why somebody would, you know, prefer an investment in a Grail or whatever eth as opposed to taking on the responsibility of a TLD is.

Speaker 1: 1:04:13

You know, as Paige also mentioned before, you've got someone who, at the TLD level, has pretty much done all the branding and marketing work for you. You know they already have an established secondary market. You know ENS domains have had a secondary market that has been attractive and profitable for many for quite some time. Unstoppable is, you know, doing their thing and it's just developed their secondary market. There are other marketplaces that are being developed by individual entities that kind of like immediately and off back integrate, either Unstoppable or ENS, because they wouldn't have a marketplace if they didn't integrate either Unstoppable or ENS, because they wouldn't have a marketplace if they didn't. You get the benefit of them being behemoths in the space and them having a vast network of supporting ecosystem builders and partnerships. Basically, they've done the work for you and that's a big deal right?

Speaker 1: 1:05:10

Because, again, if you want a passive way to exist in the ecosystem, if you're a set it and forget it person, if you want to be able to buy something, put it on the marketplace and hope that someone finds it and not be responsible for how it works in the future. An SLD with an established provider is going to be your way to go and nothing else is going to provide that same type of value. Going to be your way to go and nothing else is going to provide that same type of value. You know, also both for you and for your end user, and it's not always a negative thing, even though we say it jokingly, you know, having a cult mentality behind you know kind of your ecosystem keeps it alive and keeps it relevant.

Speaker 1: 1:05:52

Someone said something and I'm sure it's probably been said a hundred times in other places, but when you hear it for the first time it has an impact and I heard it for the first time yesterday. Someone said that there's no, you can't say culture without cult, and it's like that's the first time. I kind of heard it in a super positive way. That made it make sense. There is culture within ENS and within Unstoppable, and that culture is going to attract people to the ecosystem without you having to do anything and just by law of numbers, at some point there'll be enough people that get attracted to the ecosystem that they have to eventually look at the real estate that you have within that ecosystem, as long as it's not like the bottom of the barrel, worse, hyphenated with a bunch of numbers and emoji stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:06:34

If you've got regular stuff, people will probably eventually come just because of the ecosystem that exists from where you bought the SLD from. So that's a big benefit You're looking for, setting and forget it. Your most likely path of success is going to be there, also, for a lot of people depending on, especially since the opportunity is still fresh. Obviously, to get Grail domains from ENS or from Unstoppable at a reasonable price might not be the easiest thing to do, but there's still some all right ones out there and for those who were able to be here when the protocols first opened, you've got grounds that you were sitting on that only cost you $5. So the barrier to entry for most to enter into the space at the SLD level whether it's you're like again investing in your own personal identity or you're investing in resale can be as cheap as five bucks, and the amount that you're able to flip it to the next person for, depending on what it is, can be infinite. The good news is is it only has to be six dollars in order for you to make a profit and exit the space without losing money, if you're able to enter for as cheap as five dollars, so that that risk is also gone. And we'll talk about that a little bit when we get into the TLDs, because TLDs can take quite a bit of money to market and get out there and establish an audience for it. Not everybody has the money to sink into it. Now the cons to an SLD is most aren't scalable beyond. Like I said at some point the past. The potato has to end and you either got to find an end user that wants the name or it's stuck in the wallet of the flipper that can't find a way to move it.

Speaker 1: 1:08:25

I know a lot of us we use the words or I mean we make the declaration that we're going to build on our digital identity. That doesn't mean much right now until more utility is created for Web3 domains. So at the moment most of us are just flippers, right, and we're seen that way by the ecosystems that we collect these SLDs from and unfortunately you know that that that's. That's a con when, when you're trying to to get tools built, when you're trying to get you know the TLD owner to be a team player for helping you offload your bags, and that's something that you know, a lot of us have definitely been very vocal about in the recent, in recent conversations. So, yeah, do you interview.

Speaker 1: 1:09:13

Before I keep going and get into the kind of the TLD side, any of you guys have any input on that? And again, if anybody in the audience wants to come up and speak, feel free to do so. I am gonna try to run through this little quickly but we're getting into the meat of some of this and I do wanna touch on this. But yeah, if anybody wants to hop up and add to the conversation, feel free and request a speaker role. But yeah, kiosk page. Uh, any input on that?

Speaker 4: 1:09:42

I just registered uh another city as we're speaking right now, uh, dot eth. So I was in the background doing that. I apologize there you go couple go and man, I, yeah, I, I agree with everything you're saying and I'd say continue on, carry on, my friend.

Speaker 1: 1:10:04

Yes, sir, yes, sir. Moving on to the, to the TLB investment pros, so, as opposed to, you know the end user being the customer, you know, only you know kind of being able to scale with it, well, you can't really scale, aside from, like I said, setting up a secondary registry, you've really just got one customer, you know, a TLD. You can actually build a real business behind you, can build a corporation behind you, can build something that can be exited, and that's a little different than flipping a thing. Right, flipping an item and exiting a business can have two different values and it takes completely different effort. But that's, that's the difference. When you're buying a PLD, again, you know you're a wholesale customer and you're buying something that can now generate revenue rather than being something that needs to be flipped.

Speaker 1: 1:10:55

Some of those pros and again, you know I can only talk about the providers that exist now that are actionable. When we're speaking about Freename and this is, you know, the conversation that we had with Davide a couple weeks ago their solution is turnkey, right. So if you are trying to enter this space at the TLD level and despite lack of utility, lack of it, however, you want to feel about Web3 domains in general, if you're entering this business and you've already made the decision to build in this business and to grow and see where it goes. You know their turnkey support system. You know the ability to set up registration pages, the ability to add custom artwork, the ability to customize virtually every aspect of both your experience and the registerers whoever's registering domains experience that is a big deal and it's a big tool in helping you be more successful. Go for it. Kiosk you got it. A big tool in helping you be more successful. Go for it.

Speaker 4: 1:11:53

Kiosk. You got it. I was just going to ask if, and I was actually just going to go look it up. I'm sure it's probably a simple question, but, like is TLDs and SLDs? Are they all considered digital real estate still, or is it just you building on?

Speaker 1: 1:12:14

someone else's TLD. Yeah, no, it's all digital real estate. So imagine well, take land and land in a house, right um it sounds like.

Speaker 4: 1:12:24

It sounds like the tld is more so like the land, you know what I mean. Like it's like oh, you want land, well, you gotta well, the tld is more like the landlord.

Speaker 2: 1:12:33

How's that?

Speaker 1: 1:12:35

yes, both the land and the landlord. Now, if you understand real estate, the other thing to understand as well is not all land is the same either. Uh, so just like dot eth would probably consider it a prime piece of real estate in downtown manhattan, um, you know, dot, whatever it is, might be considered a piece of land in the middle of California that you can buy tokenized right now as an NFT, and it might be a little bit hard to market to the next person than someone who's got that prime real estate. But yeah, that that would be the analogy.

Speaker 1: 1:13:06

So is it again? Is it more, if you're looking at TLD versus SLD, which is more valuable to use an investor in the long run? Is it the land in the middle of nowhere or is it owning the house that is on top of the land that's owned by someone else? In the real estate world, you know, being able to flip that condo or that house is going to be a lot more lucrative than trying to flip a barn in the middle of nowhere. So that's that's something to weigh out too. I'm kind of glad you brought that up.

Speaker 2: 1:13:33

Yeah, and Marcus, don't forget that the reason the SLDs have value is it's kind of like renting space in a mall. If you rent space in a mall which, for those of you under 40, used to be this place we went that had a lot of stores in one place and you went there to kind of get the vibe of being all these stores. The job of a store owner is to pay the landlord for a piece of prime real estate and then do something with that. So what I would say to everybody when you buy an SLD like Markets says, when you buy a domain name are you going to flip it or are you going to do something with it? Are you going to put a concert on it? Are you going to put a store on it? Are you going to put a store on it? Are you going to put an experience on it? Are you going to put content on it?

Speaker 2: 1:14:18

It's what that domain name allows you to do. That's probably the number one way to monetize a domain name, and so the value of a domain name is simply what does a good domain name allow you to do better or more profitably than another one? So, whether it's like Kiosk is showing you his digits there 1, 2, 5, 4,. I show up at an Ethereum convention and I'm 1, 1, 1, 1, it's kind of like man. Look at that, you know what I mean. And if I'm 6391, that's okay. I'm still a four-digit person, but it's kind of.

Speaker 2: 1:14:58

The quality of your domain name can either mean a little sum for prestige or the fact that it's easier to remember. If your domain name is 50% easier to remember than another name, then you're going to have to spend less on advertising to get the same number of people to come to it. So the functional value of domain name web two or web three is what you can do with it Receive crypto, build a store, build brand identity. So that's what's in a domain name. And then the TLD is a different animal because you're using it to operate a shopping mall, and so your job is to make the shopping mall really attractive, to have people want to rent stores or rent domain names in your shopping mall and you do things like you know. You create an environment that looks like it breeds success. So other people want to be involved with your project. So it is kind of two different ways to go about it.

Speaker 1: 1:15:58

Yes, sir, Going back to the landfill, I love the shopping mall, If you do happen to end up with the land in the middle of nowhere rather than the next attractive step, which would be the shopping mall. One of the big important things and this is going back to the TLD investment, you know, kind of the pros is it's still land. And if you own per se what we call mineral rights, that's the ability to derive value from the minerals and natural assets that are on the land, you have something that can produce an infinite amount of assets and revenue to you. And you never know and I'm saying that to say this that even if you end up with that TLD, that does seem like it's a piece of land in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 1: 1:16:41

You never know when it eventually it does click or a narrative aligns up with it, and at that point it will become that well, that never shuts off and that's like again something that you just it's yours, it's mine.

Speaker 2: 1:16:55

You can't go get a shopping mall in the middle of San Antonio, but if you go out in the middle of nowhere you can have it and you can sit there and say this is mine and the reason I'm buying this is because I want it. So, again, using the technologies from the providers makes you know. Like I said, free name can be like the pump dot fun of creating your own top level domain. You don't have to write the smart contract, you don't have to create the revenue method. You know, I checked into the one that Kios talked about namespace for a dot ETH and I signed up. I own dot tech punk or tech punk dot ETH so I can sell people you know, page dottechpunketh, so-and-sotechpunketh.

Speaker 1: 1:17:48

And so you're using someone else to do the platform work so you can do the marketing and community. Yes sir, yes sir. Now I want to slide in kind of to the last part of the categories and that's. You know, what does the income opportunities look like on either side? And although we're not going to be talking about real numbers because it's just all speculative, again a good example, I think a super fair example that we can speculate on kind of together, occurred today. I don't know if you wanted to say something before I got started, but go for it, paige.

Speaker 2: 1:18:18

No, but I will show the real numbers on v when we get to the end.

Speaker 1: 1:18:23

There you go, there you go, but yeah. So the example I wanted to use today, which I think most of us have become aware of, is xx. So xx is an unstoppable domain. It is aesthetically a grail. I mean, some may even say it's the grail of grails, especially for UD. I mean, these people will say whatever, but in any event, there's certainly going to be a secondary market for it 10K the buyer is going to be okay, I think they're going to be very okay.

Speaker 1: 1:18:59

And when I look at this sale XX for 10K again, going back to the question that I asked, you know kind of before in the introduction of the space, if you had an Ethermore to spend on domains, why would you ever buy an SOD over a TLD? This may be an example where it makes sense. So, and just to break this down again, simply, the owner of X, which is, or X the TLD owner, which would be you if you own X or whatever it is they made $10,000 straight up. They sold a digital asset off of their TLD and they made 10K from this sale, plus whatever other fruit that this TLD yields or has yielded both in the past and in forevermore, and the potential revenue of x as a TLD will probably be millions upon millions, upon millions, you know, as they continue to market and become more successful with it. That is the opportunity with this TLD. That is what this transaction presented to the owner of exe. Now, although that sounds great, to get the TLD to the point where it could yield fruit that can sell for $10,000, to the point where it could yield fruit that can sell for $10,000, likely costs unstoppable hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in marketing For a grail. That's definitely worth it, as we see, because it's producing those type of results, but that's not something that's readily accessible to everyone. But if it is, you can obviously see the money in owning that type of asset.

Speaker 1: 1:20:34

Now, on the buyer's end, the person that now owns this XX, the profit and opportunity is now limited to who and how long it may take for them to convince someone else to spend at least 20K if they want to make that 10K profit, the same profit that was just made on this sale on secondary, you know, as far as selling that one name to another person, right, but I think 10K, with that being said, 10k to spend on this particular domain, to sit on it and hold, to sell to the next person for 20K, I think, is a lot more accessible for most people than the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it probably would take to develop out this TLD. The question now becomes for the person on the other end how hard will it be to convince somebody in the future to buy XX for at least 20K in the future, to buy XX for at least 20K? And in this particular case and that's why I said this is a very fair example for how this kind of transaction could work out on both sides. In this particular case, I don't think it's going to be hard at all. In fact, I think one day, maybe it may take a few flips, maybe this one diamond hand may see it, but I think one day we may actually see a million dollar sale coming from this, and all that profit is going to go to the SOD owner, not to the TLD.

Speaker 1: 1:22:00

And I'm saying all that to say that, depending on the asset again, the space that exists now, the value that exists in these different TLD providers now and in the TLD that you're even able to acquire yourself, and the price that you're able to get it out, and all these different factors they make the question of which are more profitable investments almost impossible to answer, because they both, with diversity, can be great investment opportunities. There's just those factors, like we explained above, that you'll need to consider and need to look at in order to make you know the right decision. Because in this case, the person who bought XX could potentially make a bunch more money with a lot less headache than the person ie Unstoppable who you know every day has to face a landslide of FUD and all kinds of other things in order to add value and gain registrations on the XTLD. But for the right company and for the right corporation, and if you've got that bank account, you may be able to turn it again into an asset that produces millions upon millions of revenue into eternity. So there's definitely opportunity on both sides and I wanted to use that example to say that none of us are wrong. You're not wrong on either side, that you're participating in the space. There's going to be winners on both sides of the space. Again, it's just important to understand who your market is. You know how to best market and sell these domains and basically, you know what opportunity exists. If you decide to go, you know full-fledged and head. What do you call it. What is it? Dive head-in into either side of the space.

Speaker 1: 1:23:39

Before we close, I wanted to give an opportunity for anyone else to add any input. We've gone on for about an hour and almost a half, so very long space, yeah, if any of you guys want to add anything again. Thank you for both of you for being here. You both dropped some amazing insight and input. Um, anybody who missed any part of the space? Uh, as always, our spaces are recorded. Uh, so you are able to go and listen to the recordings. Uh, both on here and on our website, and, uh, you'll be able to listen back to them once they're uploaded to our podcast. But, yeah, want to give an opportunity to the page and kiosk to leave us with any final words if you have any or any input.

Speaker 4: 1:24:16

What's your website? Tld that you? What's your main website? Is it dot com or is it what TLD you get off of?

Speaker 1: 1:24:24

Are you talking about for digital identity or for, like resolving to a website For the podcast?

Speaker 4: 1:24:29

like for the podcast, like to go listen to it again, or you know, like what is your main or what is the TLD website.

Speaker 1: 1:24:39

Yeah, so my the to get to the podcast is tech talkhost. So yeah, it's not acom, it's ahost TLD, which is in DNS. I like the way it sounded, which is why I used it, and so you know, kind of fun fact. And again, I've mentioned a double down on this before as a Web2 investor. Most of my Web2 domains are personal investments that are either related to Web3 and have something to do with our platform or protocol, or like actually usable, actually usable. And so techtalkhost looked and this is a trend I think that we'll eventually get to, especially as more and more of these things start being used in the DNS side as digital identity, because that's a market as well. I think a lot of these attractive and, like you said, these name hacks and these nice flowing, you know TLDs that previously were getting no play in that space will become more usable. And also, I use techtalkhost because techtalkcom is unavailable, because it costs a whole bunch of money or it's being sent on by somebody. So that's the opportunity again that exists at Web3.

Speaker 4: 1:25:43

That's a good one host, I thought for the podcast. I thought you did good on that.

Speaker 1: 1:25:51

Yeah, I like it. I also have namernewscom, but I like techtalkhost a lot better. Go for it Paige.

Speaker 2: 1:25:59

Yeah, I guess back to the XX. So I think there's two ways that I might look at valuing whether to invest in something. If you don't think a TLD that's not on the ICANN system is worth anything, then you wouldn't even pay a dollar for XX. So I understand that and if you're at zero, nothing will move you off zero.

Speaker 2: 1:26:22

But some people me say that well, there's no good or bad names, there's just names at good prices and names at bad prices. So if I say that Xcom would be worth 100 million dollars and that you know, there's only a one per, there's only a seven percent chance that unstoppable is going to get the dot x from ican. Well, now I'm down to seven million. And then I say, well, there's only a three percent chance that this and that and you could work your way where it's a good deal, so you can apply some risk deductions on different domains. But back to the idea of owning a TLD. The way I look at it is this is the most amazing thing about operating TLDs when I own homepages or v, I own every combination of 60 letters that can go in that domain name and I don't have to pay any carrying cost at all to have the alpha, the possibility of selling any name, any number, any combination of letters, any word, any city, any brandable of letters, any word, any city, any brandable. All the possible combinations of letter are like inventory in my top level domain that I don't have to carry, I don't have to ship, I don't have to pay taxes on, I don't have to stock inventory. I simply have every possible name that could exist in my top-level domain as available product which, if you think about it, if I can build v and homepages to make sense, there may be 2,000 words that are awesome. There may be 150 cities, there may be 50 states, there may be 100 countries. There may be 500 great brandable words, there may be 300 great product names that all pay over $10 per click. So when you think about that ability to have, you know, almost an unlimited amount of things that you can sell once you build the brand value of your top-level domain, once you build the brand value of your top-level domain, then there's no doubt that the Web3 top-level domains don't work on all the browsers right now.

Speaker 2: 1:28:40

But I'm not sure if I have to compare the risk of a Web3 TLD possibly being more and more accepted over the next five years versus buying the 300 millionth best domain name that's out there now. Those are both risks, they're just different type of risk. But since I don't have to pay renewals, at least on the free name system for TLDs or domain names, it makes it a lot easier to wait. So thanks for the space, marcus. I enjoyed talking about TLDs and SLDs. Love talking with you, kiosh. You asked some great questions and I hope everybody has a great day.

Speaker 1: 1:29:21

Absolutely, and thank you for being here and again, dropping invaluable knowledge. And if anybody isn't already following, both Paige and Kiosh, you know, please, please, do so. And also like, as you said you know, but well, I guess I'm kind of what do you call it? Remixing what you said. But builders, you know, builders, for the most part, will appreciate a blank slate and, as you said, you know, being able to have all of that inventory, you know, unclaimed on your TLD and it's a lot because there's a lot you can do with it. You know, as far as attracting the right people, as you're continuing to build and, if nothing else, for everyone, you know, hopefully this space has gave you guys, you know, additional information to travel down the rabbit hole of opportunity that exists both at the SLD and the TLD level. Again, it's for some, it's not for others. Obviously, a lot of work has to be done to make the TLD on the right of the dot successful, but if it is achieved, the opportunity is what you make it and it could be a very fruitful opportunity. So, if you're already here and you're investing, it's worth it to take a look. And again, there's also going to be a lot of examples of people who are entering the space again at a more passive level by investing in those Grail SLDs, and those will also be a good example for us to study from. And you know, if you're on the TLD side of the space or outside of the space you're looking for an easy way to hop in and get your feet wet. It is also worth taking a look, but again, doing everything within the lens of investing. You know what do you call it Investing wisely and investing with caution.

Speaker 1: 1:31:12

As we close, I want to remind everybody to give us a follow here on X, to check us out on Warpcast if you're not already on Warpcast Forecaster, also on YouTube and please support our tech talks by sharing our spaces. And, most importantly, we'll leave you guys with a little saying focus on your mission and not your condition and happy, demanding. Thank you guys for joining me this Wednesday. I will talk to you guys next week. Got a couple actually I forgot about. We got some solid AMAs lined up in this couple weeks. One of them might surprise you, it's a big one. So I look forward to seeing you guys in the next couple weeks and again, thank you for being here with me doing this Tech Talks.