From Fashion to Web3: Digital Domaining with Insights from IHeartDomains

Join the riveting journey with Marcus aka Wen Airdrop, the innovative mind behind IHeartDomains LLC, as we traverse the paradigm shift from the glitz of fashion to the groundbreaking world of Web3 domains. Marcus opens up about his personal evolution that led to a devotion to digital identity maxis, and how he turned a missed opportunity with the ENS airdrop into a driving force behind the educational platform, IHeartDomains. Unpack the significance of domains in carving out decentralized identities and the exciting future they promise for online interactions.

Venture into the transformative landscape where Web3 and traditional domain services collide, challenging the norms of digital ownership and user experience. We discuss the delicate interplay among giants like ENS, Handshake, and Unstoppable Domains, and how this synergy is revolutionizing asset tokenization on the blockchain. By examining the values of decentralization versus the perks of centralized services, the conversation reveals a nuanced approach to the future of domain services, where interoperability plays a starring role in shaping the internet's next chapter.

As we peer into the domain auction marketplace's horizon, Marcus lends his expertise on the thrilling integration of decentralized digital identities with DeFi. We explore the emergence of domain auctions as platforms for community building and price discovery, setting the stage for a domain auction market that embraces inclusivity and interoperability. The upcoming community auction, with its focus on bridged Web2 domains, promises a glimpse into a world where your digital identity and domain not only define you but also empower you across the digital universe.

Chapters

• 0:04 Exploring Web3 Domains With Marcus
• 22:10 Evolution of Domain Services in Web3
• 32:19 Future of Web Domains
• 40:46 The Future of Decentralized Digital Identity
• 47:54 DeFi Integration in Domain Auctions
• 57:36 Community Auction and Domain Auction Marketplace

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

you, you, you, hey everyone, gm, gm. So today we welcome Marcus to our domain space. Let's just wait for a few more minutes here so we can get started.

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yeah, hi, I see a couple people I know in the crowd. Thank you guys for pulling up. If you can do me a favor and like and read, tweet and see some more people in here. Nice to be on the other side of the questioning block this time.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Yeah, sorry for the last minute domain space today. So we had a call with Marcus this morning and we just spontaneously scheduled this domain space to get started Our domain space. As you know, we started our RWA space last week and we're also starting our domain space. So there are two brands right now, once RWA and others domain. So we're really excited to be here and really push the domain space forward with meaningful educational content, as we invited Marcus today, one of the best domain educators in the space. So thank you so much, marcus, to be here, and I'm so sorry about the last minute invitation. We can do better next time with the like earlier marketing campaign for this so we can have more, more guests here. But don't worry about it, because we're going to record the space and we're going to publish the content on on subsec, so we're going to capture the moment. So don't worry about it. We're going to have a great conversation. So let's just wait for one more minute here we can get started.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Yeah, and I was going to say I'm honored to be here and, again, it's recorded, so it's on record for anybody who wants to to listen back in the future. But yeah, even being considered or called a domain expert, is you know something? I'm very proud to be considered, something like that. Yeah, definitely glad to, like I said, answer some questions and get some info out there.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Great. So now we can get started. I think as we go along there are more people joining and there were people people listening to the recordings or reading the content on subsec if they like the written content. So welcome domain enthusiasts to the electrifying NINFI Domainer space, your portal to the cutting edge frontier of the internet's future. So here we embark on a thrilling journey through the dynamic world of domains, guided by the brightest minds in the domain industry.

Speaker 1: 12:03

So today we invite the best domain educator you can ever find in the web three domain space, marcus. So Marcus is the founder of iHeart Domains. So hey, marcus, yeah, so Marcus founded iHeart Domain with the aim of educating the technologies and missions behind internet domains in web three, whether it's decentralized domain name services or centralized naming services. So today we're really glad to have invited Marcus here to to share his story into going to domains and also his visions in terms of using domains in the future of internet, whether it's for decentralized identities or using domains to interact with decentralized and centralized social networks.

Speaker 1: 12:59

So glad to be here, to be here with you, marcus, and thank you for accepting our invitation. It's really great to have you here to produce meaningful content for our domain industry. I think it's a great start and and as long as we can push the things forward and to really be a Domainer entrepreneur, we can really start this seed going and really push the Domainer industry forward in web three. So my first question for you is tell us a bit more about your background and how you got interested in domains and specifically domains in web three, and why does Domain click to instead of other I guess naftis or other assets out there in in the crypto space?

Speaker 2: 13:56

Yeah, well, first, thank you again for allowing me to be here. I really appreciate the intro and to answer your question A little bit about my background, I have been in the business development space pretty much my entire life. I've created and exited multiple businesses, my most notable of which being a celebrity fashion company that I started which did the spoke men's wear for everyone from Hollywood entertainers to professional athletes. A lot of relationships developed there. When I exited that business, transitioning from that lifestyle, which was a very, very high-paced lifestyle, I had actually become an influencer in the process. So transitioning from that lifestyle into what is now my family life is when I came across crypto, as I do with, or as I did at that time with, most things. Whenever I would discover something, I would share it with my mother, who was the closest person to me besides my wife and my daughter. The first thing I discovered was DeFi. So that's how I entered the space. I entered the space in 2021 through deep DeFi. This is like that weird yield farming where you got it. I entered the hard way.

Speaker 2: 15:20

I discovered digital identity during the ENS airdrop, which I missed. I had found at the time, unstoppable demands and that's where my name when airdrop had come from. I bought that name to troll them to see if they would airdrop tokens the holders of unstoppable and then trolling them work. They banned me for quite a while from the community. But, taking all that back, during this process of discovering cryptocurrency, DeFi, digital identity I ran all these ideas across to my mother and she immediately rejected all of them, except for digital identity. It seemed like that was what made sense.

Speaker 2: 16:00

She acquired some names on the spot and then, as anybody who knows me personally knows, that pretty tragic event happened very soon thereafter. I was lost. I'm in this new space, crypto web 3. I'm trying to learn it, I'm trying to find a place, but I'm lost. Something big is gone and all I can remember was one path that I had, one person that I was able to convince that this space even makes sense. I was able to have that conversation through digital identity. I started dedicating my time to learning and collecting. I pretty much became a maxi of digital identity and that turned into the idea for our heart domains. For those who also know me very well, you also know that that heart is more than an emoji. My family name is actually love. So did that in memory of my mother. So, yeah, that's my backstory as to how I got involved with this side of the space.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Yeah, thank you, marcus, for your heartwarming introduction and I'm sorry to hear about the story, but I think, luckily, you can kind of transform this life experience to something very meaningful with our heart domains to really push the DID space forward, as we know. So, as we know, this blockchain industry really started in 2008, with Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin white paper, and then it really gets a lot of hype in 2017 when Vitalik wrote the white paper for Ethereum, where you can not only have P2P cash but also write programmable smart contracts on top of decentralized servers or database. So right after that I think in 2018, the creator of NFTs one of them is William Androken. We invited him over two weeks ago and they wrote about the standards for ERC 721, where NFTs was given birth, and after that there was DeFi Summer and a lot of the rest is history.

Speaker 1: 18:28

So when you joined the industry in 2021, of course, it was the last ball round you joined at the top of the market and I joined the same way too, so we both learned the hard way of the industry, but luckily, we are here today. We are still here grinding. So my question for you will be in terms of domains within Web3, what's kind of the historical trends you have observed from 2021 to now 2024? What has changed from Ethereum and NINI services to unstoppable domains and to Visionio, and what have changed and what do you think will be the future?

Speaker 2: 19:14

Yeah, actually a whole lot has changed. I'm going to kind of address this from two different points, because when I say a whole lot has changed, a whole lot has changed in one spectrum and then it's kind of pretty much the same in the other. So since I've entered the space up until now, ens or ETH has always had the most liquidity and ability to trade and make profits from some of the names, and that's still the exact same today. So that part still the same, right. But as far as the space itself, what existed then versus what exists now, the people that I've encountered then versus now, and kind of the what do you call it, the narrative that's being spoken then versus now, when I first entered the space there was really only two domain entities that were being spoke of, well, three, and the third one was kind of being spoke of in the distance and that was ENS, unstoppable and handshake, right. So you kind of belong to one team or another and I entered, I suppose you would say, under team unstoppable, and that was until I went to my first names, con, and met the people from handshake and then kind of got a different grasp of the space and its entirety and where it could go. So at that moment I became not a member of team anything, but I became a neutral observer in that space. And that's where I want to say I would notice most of the changes from that point forward, because until then I was in the bubble right.

Speaker 2: 20:54

But then once I got outside of that bubble and started looking at the space, and from that point on I became, you know, I've always kind of been, on this, neutral. I've had this, this neutral approach to the meaning. I've always tried to, you know, to go to each community and give them, you know, the respect that deserve and listen to their tech and if it's worth it I'll invest in. But again, taking it back to that point, a lot of Maxiism. That's the way the space existed then and it stayed like that probably up until a few months ago. So, coming from those three, we now exist in a space where there's probably hundreds of naming services that we could probably all list at least a dozen off of our fingertips.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Back then the conversation was the worst thing in the world possible is that there was more naming services. Now we exist in the world where there's a whole bunch of different naming services in the conversations now figuring out how to coexist and people even building their bags with other naming services. That's a big difference. We've got people building utility that include all naming services, trying to give people value, as opposed to building for one ecosystem or another. Now again, there's still some areas of separatism, but we've still grown from that until now.

Speaker 2: 22:10

And then I would say the biggest thing or the biggest difference between when I entered the space then versus now is I don't think we ever considered that Web two domains would play such a big part in Web three demanding and that they would even become an asset. That we're now looking at, as you know what it is becoming over here in the Web three side. You know there's been a lot of integration between the two worlds. Web three to main is. Web two to main is I mean we've got page in the crowd Perfect example of just different conversations. That didn't exist when I came in the space. So that that would be my answers to what's different and what's changed from from now to then.

Speaker 1: 22:56

Yeah, thank you, marcus, for the answer. I think, yeah, you mentioned many changes from where you enter the space where there are only a few decentralized naming services, to now we can see, like in all of the different public blockchains, they have their own decentralized naming services, such as dot, bit, dot, so dot, ease, of course, and also you have also seen centralized naming services entering Web3, which, with the mission of tokenizing real-world assets on chain, like the mission we're having on NINFI. So, just before we talk about centralized naming services or decentralized naming services, what's your observation? Because you, basically, you are founder of a media company. You are basically the super connector node for information in terms of domains. So, within this decentralized naming service landscape. So what's your most exciting observations you can share with our audience today about interoperability of the different domain names and the best decentralized domain name services out there you recommend people to have and any other things features you would like to share about decentralized naming services?

Speaker 2: 24:29

Yeah, we actually just had a space a couple days ago it was more related towards you know what's the market for the domains but kind of dug into the naming services, some being decentralized and some being centralized, and where I think the market lies for them. And I guess the question is, what am I most excited about? On the decentralized naming services and and as such, to me, I think we're starting to grow towards a world where it's a blend of the two. So the only purely like decentralized naming services that I know of would be like, well, ens for the most part, and then my handshake, obviously like the, the, the strides that ENS is making, you know, whether it's attached to Ether, whether it's, you know, from the ENS ecosystem itself. I mean those strides have been monumental. You know with them, you know integrating with GoDaddy and with the gasless DNS. Second, empowering people to create name services using, you know, web 2 extensions if you have, you know, slds on that side or if you're lucky enough to own a registrar and have a TLD. So on the decentralized side, a lot of those platforms are very much empowering people who are developing in the space. And again, these were conversations that weren't really being had a few years ago. Remember it was like a big deal when the only person who was building, you know, a name service outside of the two that was connected to ETH was was dot art. Now, you know it's kind of like a thing Now.

Speaker 2: 25:59

With that being said, I think we're also starting to see the value that you know kind of the best, or each world, and maybe even a blend of the both worlds, is going to play in the ecosystem, and I'm talking about the centralized domains. So of course, you know we were familiar with Unstoppable. You know also to an extent on the registrar program you've got free name. You know they're developing at an extremely fast pace because centralization and having a team and having a budget, you know, and it affords you the ability to focus. So a lot of adoption is coming into that space as well, where you know most of us I think that have you know bags, and into the centralized name services. You know kind of hedged our investments on both sides.

Speaker 1: 26:47

So thank you, marcus. I think for the audience who are unfamiliar with decentralized name services today, can you introduce, like maybe, the difference between unstoppable domains and other decentralized name services like EMS and Handshake. What are the differences here?

Speaker 2: 27:07

Yeah, so decentralization, I guess, from a definition perspective, versus centralization. In the domain world, it's being run or not being controlled by a centralized entity or a team or something that was funded by VC money. So, for instance, the Handshake protocol operates kind of like the Bitcoin protocol does. There is no formal team, there is no one in control of the protocol. Anyone who's invested in the protocol is a director and consensus controls what happens with the chain and the naming protocol. I know EMS works a little bit different, but it in essence works the same way. It is controlled by a DAO. That DAO is decentralized. Decision making and things like that take place from there.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Right, and a lot of people that come into blockchain with the decentralization ethos, the ownership ethos, the you know all that good stuff.

Speaker 2: 28:07

That's what that appeals to, because obviously you don't want to put your money into an asset that you feel an outside entity can have a hand in taking. Now that, in contrast to centralized entities such as like a seven stop a bowl and free name, these entities were formed as businesses, so they have boards, they have, they raise funds, they have corporate as well as you know a public agenda and in some cases, you know, in the event that their product is deemed incompatible with laws or whatever it is, those products can be discontinued just like in any other corporate environment. And so for some people that is the biggest fear in the planet that if I put money into something, something can take it from me. And most of those situations are extremely extreme, which is why I say I think we kind of over overvalued decentralization versus centralization, especially considering the utility that needs to be built in this space. But but, yeah that, hopefully that answers the question of the definition of that.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Yes, I remember I asked our engineer, sammy, about well, what's the difference between centralization and decentralization? And the answer he gave me to assess whether something is decentralized is that if the team behind the protocol dies, you can still use the service. That's decentralization. So actually like if we still have validators who are running the nodes and the service can be immortal. For centralized services, if the team behind the dies, you might not have to service, such as if you are having this iPhone to listen to the space and if Apple dies and then you won't be able to update your software or continue running apps on it. So I guess that's that's a kind of assessment for for yourself to determine whether something is decentralized or centralized.

Speaker 1: 30:16

So here really comes the debate here. So someone questions about tokenization domains or tokenization of RWAs. So the argument goes so if you provide a channel, for example you, you can tokenize US dollars on chain, that basically providing a channel for, like absorbing kind of fiat money on chain onto crypto assets. So in the future maybe the real world asset will be diluted infinitely, so everything will be decentralized, will be crypto assets. So one day we may need we may not need real world asset or in our case we may not need domains. So, marcus, as you are educator in the space, do you think that in the future kind of centralized domains would coexist with decentralized meme services to really carve the future of internet together?

Speaker 2: 31:18

yeah, because there are two different things. Well, yeah, so there are two different things, and I get that you can turn, you know, a web three domain or web two domain into some form of decentralized NFT asset. That exists a web three, but it would still be that centralized asset. So I'm not going to pretend that the web three domain is a web two domain or a web two domain is a web three domain, regardless of which one figures out a way to enter each's world. So, with that being said, there are two different things. You use one to route to an address on the internet and you use the other to route to an address on the blockchain. We're developing the use cases you know right now, internally, as a geek community and building out tech. We're developing the use cases for needing to route to a blockchain address and we're trying to create that use case for the rest of the world. But the rest of the world already understands what the use case regular domains are and they use them every single day.

Speaker 2: 32:19

Do I think that at some point, regular domain names are going to become obsolete?

Speaker 2: 32:24

I don't know, unless you can figure out a better way to get to the internet.

Speaker 2: 32:29

I theorized before that you know, the generations that are coming after us are probably going to use social media more often than not to discover new brands and even the launch their own brands, but still in the sense that's using like the regular internet, that's not using like a hundred percent web three, so you'll need a mix of both. Right, because now, once they get on it, this digital identity is how they'll identify themselves. Now, now we're transitioning from the use case of how people get from one destination to another to now, when we get here and we're all in this big old town together, how do we identify, interact with each other? This is where the web three domains will come into place and really shine and improve its use case, improve its value. So I don't I don't think either will replace each other. I think, though, they they both have different use cases. They're two different things, and I think those two different things will just continue to become more relevant and amplified, and we'll have to work together at some point right.

Speaker 1: 33:31

So imagine there's our, could you mention you've distinguished like centralized means services and decentralized means services are different things. Imagine there are two sets but they do have some cross sections, but as time goes by that difference will amplify. So what do you think it's the utility, major utility difference here, that kind of diverge, both new services in terms of utility just to clarify on the question are we comparing decentralized with three naming services, or when I'm saying yeah, it's like how, how web two you want me web two verse web three, or yeah?

Speaker 1: 34:14

web two versus web three? How would they diverge in terms of utility?

Speaker 2: 34:18

as kind of two times goes by, how would the difference that like accumulates and Well, yeah, and kind of going back to what I just said, you know the utility is completely different. So over time I don't know how much you can really evolve. You know, resolving a word into an IP address, but sure I can is going to keep on I can, and in doing what it does and making sure that that doesn't stop working. But on the web three side, yeah, I mean, like I said, it's tied to blockchain. The more relevance and the more interaction that people have a blockchain, the more need for wallets, the more need there's going to be for, you know, personalization and making that part easier.

Speaker 2: 35:06

I know web three is is trying its hardest to resolve and web two, and so if that's accomplished and you know, hey, there's that utility, that'll come with it as well, and then there's that coexistence.

Speaker 2: 35:19

You know, some of the things that I do appreciate for most of the web three builders is that they're building there. So, even though these are two completely different things and I just keep wanting to say that so people understand that they're still building in in respect of the possibility of there being an opportunity to work together. So most of the web three registrars are, you know, obviously excluding I can extension so that whatever they do you know, build and create that does end up in that world isn't stepping on as many toes as it could, right. So I appreciate our web three naming services for that and you never know. I mean there's been conversations and you know there's going to be likely applications for some of the web three to these that exist now, you know, in the icon space and then you know we'll do, will become web three and then we will see, you know, those perfect hybrid extensions. Did that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 36:18

Yeah, yeah, that does. Yeah, I was seen. I was in East London last week and I, as you know, like I think, majority or the founder crowd of the NS, they are actually based in the UK. So there's quite a booth of us in East London to kind of incentivize hackers to build with the NS. So I guess now the question is, the question people often get from us is that what are the specific use cases, apart from kind of replacing this very hard to remember while they're dressed into a human readable names? What are the specific use cases markers you have observed for for us?

Speaker 2: 37:14

Yeah, we can go way deep down this rabbit hole and this extends beyond just E&S. So when I'm asking this question, I'm answering on behalf of any web three domain name that isn't NFT. Again, you know we're extremely fixated on them resolving his web addresses, but the biggest utility lies in the fact that they're NFT. So, yes, they resolved here web three domain addresses. That is one utility. Outside of that, the ability to create token gated experiences using naming, I think is going to have an extremely large use case in the future. We're already using it and experimenting with it. You know, kind of on a daily basis, in the platforms that we use, people like exclusivity, people like to belong to communities. You know different platforms, especially using E&S, have the ability to issue identity to hundreds of thousands and millions of people at one time and then they're able to create experiences that only these people have access to because these are NFT domain names that can be used as NFTs, even like and this is something that I was explaining you know, recently, the trip out to LA during the Grammy award weekend.

Speaker 2: 38:31

You know, one of the utility use cases I was explaining to entertainers is you know, if you're creating content, want to create a fan club. You want to do things like this. You know, first and foremost, people would die. You know to and I'm saying that figuratively, but you know to associate the identity with someone, like a Beyonce right. That's a domain name that would fly off the shelves, but then what right? Then you can use it to control and create all different kinds of experiences. You can immediately airdrop things to people that belong to that community. You know there's a lot of things that you can do with digital identity because they're NFTs that you know don't exist in the traditional space and, like I said, they apply to anything that is a name and as an NFT, and not just specifically to E&S.

Speaker 1: 39:21

Yes, I think I understand your point here. So E&S or other, any other decentralized name services, they are inherently non-fungible tokens, which means you can run auto acceptable smart contracts on it. So anything you can imagine you can do with NFTs. And I think, marcus, you are also very you are a fan of a forecaster and you use a worldcaster a lot. And what's your, what's your observation or your kind of vision in terms of using domains, whether it's centralized or decentralized, with decentralized socials? And yeah, I guess my first question would be how would, how would the NFT domains interact with decentralized socials? And what's your imaginations here? And I guess your imagination would enlighten a lot of developers in the space to develop certain like smart contracts to do something very interesting in forecaster.

Speaker 2: 40:32

Yeah, I'm a I'm a workcast weirdo. I certainly love it more than it loves me, but, with that being said, I'm extremely bullish on the platform and created a little bit of content around it. To answer your question, if it's workcast, it ends up being the end all be all platform that grows and adopts the masses, and so be it. If it ends up being somebody else, then so be it. But they're a great example of kind of the world that we would hope to exist, which would be the best world, best of both worlds, of, again, social media and owning your content and your name. So the way the current setup works and workcast is when you establish an account, it creates a wallet for you. You're able to set up a username, just like you are anywhere else, and that becomes your username, and I believe that that username is centralized. Maybe at some point they'll make it centralized, but what they allow you the ability to do and it's only one naming service they allow you to do this with. So far you guess who that is, but still, it's a start better than nothing. They allow you, in lieu of that username, to use your in estimate name and as your identity, and that does a couple things right that allows you to port in, especially when more things are built on the far caster workcast or network that you do the exact same thing. First, it brings to fruition the reality that you can actually own your identity and just be one thing. I don't have to go to a platform and be something different, I own it here, and it's giving validity to that concept. And as more protocols are built on far caster, they'll all do the same thing.

Speaker 2: 42:18

So how does that translate into what would be the ideal world for, for, like I said, for digital identity in the regular social media space?

Speaker 2: 42:26

Well, I think Twitter at some point will need to allow the ability to port in, you know, in s or unstoppable or some other name service, so that we can interoperably interchange our identity or take our identity from one point or another without having to swap it out. Some feedback that that I'm receiving or that you know that I'm also experiencing from the workcast and the dot e thing is that you know, with people who are familiar with the ecosystem and again, you know dot e has a very maxi s mentality, which is a good thing. There's a certain level of trust that comes with seeing a dot e thunder person's profile and knowing it was ported and it's real kind of like a bot sniffer. We all hate being in platforms or being somewhere where it's filled with bots, not knowing if you're interacting with real people and so real digital identity that we trust and kind of as a stamp of approval from the space, being able to port that you know kind of around different ecosystems, I think is going to solve a lot of problems.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Yes, I think. I think merely just understanding the term decentralized identity itself it's it's quite profound term. It's just like people are always asking what is Web three anyways? So if you tell them you just have to understand what is decentralized ledger and then you understand what Web three is. I think understanding decentralized IDs already can solve a lot of questions, because in web two everything is kind of top down so, which was, I think web was not built with this intention. It was open source and later in web two, platforms took over, so data are no longer owned by users itself. So in Web three everything will be from bottom up, so you own your identity first, the kind of you kind of go you crash the platform section with your ID because they no longer own you anymore, so you can use your ID to access different applications. And that's already very profound in terms of in terms of social networking for for the web citizens.

Speaker 1: 44:47

I think what's interesting about like Web two domain name services is that it's already been very adopted since the very early days of the internet. And also you can, since you can resolve your web two domains to your DNS through the DNS, the gasslers DNS stack. I think it can be also doable by resolving your web two domains into any other decentralized name services, so only a domain that's regulated by a creditable institution in the world such as ICANN. You can basically penetrate every other systems in Web three with your domains and that's, and that domains actually interwoven with other kind of identities you own in the in the web three space, likeesobit.

Speaker 1: 45:48

I think that's already very beautiful and already in the in the web two space, you can use your domain to create websites and then in the in the website, you can have your own IPs, your SEOs, seo assets and also, and yeah, and so basically what Nifine does is we add a smart contract layer on top of it so you can do more things with your domains. So, from my imagination, like everyone in the future in Web three would be owning their own identity and their domains, and that would be a whole different social media experience in my, in my personal views. Yeah, so, mark, mark, can you?

Speaker 2: 46:36

I was going to say sorry to interrupt just for winding back to one of the things you were saying about, you know being used, web two and the Web three.

Speaker 2: 46:43

I do think it's important to know and going back to kind of to give you guys a little bit of flowers, there is a big difference between what you end up with when you use DNS sec to turn on essentially E and S functionality on a Web two domain. Then there is with turning your Web two domain, bridging it in and into an NFT, and then doing all that NFT stuff that I just talked about, because one can do one and one can't, I believe, name five NFTs. Once you have the NFT, and then all that good stuff I just said comes with it. The DNS sec domains, though, although they will work for reverse resolution and they do look snazzy when they show up in different platforms, they're not in that tea. So simply doing that will not allow you to build communities and sell subs and do all that. Just one point, that out.

Speaker 1: 47:34

Yeah, thank you, marcus, for pointing this out. It's just like, as my imagination goes, with smart contracts domains allow you to really get hold of your own content and join the web series space. So my next question for you is that every podcast I listened, they seem to put a lot of stress on plugging DeFi in every single kind of web-threat applications, and I know that you also write contents on domain auctions. So can you basically explain why kind of putting this financialization element in kind of applications is meaningful, or it's just like a short-term transitionary thing that would observe in terms of transitioning from Web 2 to Web 3? Because I think, like plugging DeFi, it's assuming that everyone would use DeFi for every single internet application they would use, which is quite different from like Web 2 application behaviors. So what's your thought about that?

Speaker 2: 48:56

I think it's because 90% of the market that is here is what's being built for and that's what's here. You know the people who are using and buying Web 3 domain names right now are coming from. You know the token and NFT and DeFi space. So it makes sense, if they're your original or your initial customer base, to kind of develop and integrate what they'll use within it. And that's why I say you know a lot of the use case for these domain names. You know, even though we put so much emphasis on them working in one ecosystem that already works perfectly, there's a whole lot that it could do for this ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 49:44

However, you know we do got to develop outside the bubble because even people who want DeFi or love DeFi, it's still a bubble and we won't grow that fast. But I hope that was the answer to your question. I mean people incorporate DeFi into everything they're building, because that's why we're here. People gamify you know everything in this space because you know 99% of us are here to make, to turn, you know, the $1,000 into a million dollars or $10 into $100,000 or whatever opportunities that you know. This risky game that's over here is promising.

Speaker 1: 50:21

Right, yeah, I think I understand what you mean now because, yeah, it was this industry was invented that way, so there are a lot of DeFi components built in. So, marcus, I know you have an auction program, so can you kind of introduce your auction program to our audience here and also for us, neemfi, to learn about how to integrate with your products?

Speaker 2: 50:50

Yeah, so we actually recently partnered with a brand, a blockchain auction platform called GBM and held first auction at the beginning of the month with GBM. Most of those assets in the auction were unstoppable. The main's had a couple of free name TLDs, but basically so kind of winding back and giving an overview of iHeart domains and what it is, you know, turned into a business development. You know marketing investment platform. You know I've spent the past year and a half creating education and content to give people to understand you know the anatomy, the use cases and kind of direction that went through. Domains are going so that we can establish a market not only now but in the future for people coming in and so kind of continuing on that mission. You know, in addition to you know, content and other things that I've developed to create this market, this partnership with GBM was another tool that I introduced to actually create a market, so a place where people can discover price discovery on these Web. Three domain assets Again. You know the E&S ecosystem pretty much has a good hold on liquidity and finding value of those names, but some of the ecosystems that exist outside of that have had a little harder time. You know some of the grills, moving for what they're worth, some of the other names you know finding you know their value in their place and establishing their floor. So that's what the auction is. The auction is a domain name auction, a Web three, and I'm going to kind of explain that a little bit too, but it's a Web three domain in auction that takes place completely on the blockchain. You pay the cryptocurrency, you win these digital assets and then it settles on the blockchain. It is a gamified platform, so it incentivizes people who outbid each other. If you get outbid in the initial part of the auction, you actually do receive a bounty directly to your wallet of 10%. Then it decreases for each subsequent person that gets outbid, but it incentivizes people to participate all the way through. Again, like I said, the first one we did was held on the Polygon network, and so those assets in that auction were mainly unstoppable, and then a couple of Dissentia Web. Based on the feedback, we actually made quite a few different adjustments, and this is what I'm excited to talk about, and mainfile is a big part of it as well.

Speaker 2: 53:21

Going back to the Warpcaster thing again, if you're not on Warpcast not financial advice it is a great platform if you're bullish on blockchain, digital ID, all that good stuff, in line with my bullish Dissentia, warpcast and in Basechain in particular, we moved or had GBM recreate the Dapp on base. So now our auction will exist on the basechain and that does a couple of things. Some of the updates that we're doing in addition to that is we're going to be able to accept names from any blockchain and we're going to create the duplicates of them on base and incorporate that into the auction. So we'll now be taking ENS, Instavable Free Name, handshake, dotsats, everything. So that's that part Looking forward to our first auction, our first major community auction that'll be taking place on the 15th.

Speaker 2: 54:14

What we're doing to introduce ourselves to the base platform, however, is we created a special lot of six Web2 domain names that we bridged completely over into Web3 using NameFile, onto the base platform. So, first of all, flowers to you guys for being multi-chain and allowing people to mint not only to East Mainnet but also the base, because base is pumping and there's a lot of liquidity that's going over there. A lot of building. If you're not already familiar, get familiar. But yeah, thank you guys for developing the ability to bridge domains over there, which opened up the door for me to create this first auction using these six domains.

Speaker 2: 54:51

Going back to what I was saying earlier, when you use just traditional DNS sec, what you're getting on the other end is a domain that will work as an DNS but it does not an FT.

Speaker 2: 54:59

You cannot do all those things with it. These are so anybody who participates in this auction on the base network using ETH that buys any one of these six domain names, if you win that auction, you will own a real-world digital asset that you can now move as an NFT. You can interact with you, send it to another wallet. That wallet owns it, you send it somewhere else. It owns it. All that good stuff and you're able to control the web, to records and turn it into a website and do all those good things. So real assets on base chain bridge through name-fi VR auction. That's going to be on the 29th. It's going to be a 48-hour auction. There is going to be no reserve or minimum bid on all six of these domains. So I might lose my ass, but I am doing this in order to introduce my platform to base and in order to introduce name-fi and this amazing technology to the rest of you. We are here to grow and build together.

Speaker 1: 55:52

Thank you, marcus, for your applause. I just pass your credits to our engineering team because it's their efforts of making multi-chain possible and we're thinking of expanding to more chain ecosystems just to get better user experiences with better ecosystem support, better more protocols, more DeFi protocols and more marketplaces. So thank you, marcus, for your past credits to our team. And just a question here, for I think it's very exciting to hear about your auction project, so would you integrate the auction in functionality into iHeartDomain's website?

Speaker 2: 56:38

Yes, so the auction is a DEAP that was built for us by GBM. Easiest way to get to it it is currently on our website. If you go into the bar at the top where it says Find a Domain score, right down you'll see auction and then, yeah, it'll take you right to the auction DEAP. You'll start seeing assets uploaded in there in the next day or so. You guys are about to hear my dog go crazy right now because somebody's about to ring in my door to try to sell me a roof. So just zone it out. But yeah, that's the easiest way to get to the auction.

Speaker 1: 57:14

Oh wow, I just opened your website and entered the app. It looks really nice. You can connect your wallets on the top and then participate into the auctions you would release in the 15th of April, I guess. Did I hear that correctly?

Speaker 2: 57:36

Yeah. So on the 15th of April is going to be a repeat of our community auction. So 29th Introduction to Base Chain, our debut with the six domains that have been bridged on the main five. These are web two domains that have been bridged into web three. The 15th is going to be the second community auction. So what we did with the first auction and what we'll do with subsequent auctions in the future, again here to help create a tool to develop the market and discover pricing for these domains. So I opened submission for domains in the auction up to the community. So, as I did then, I will send out, you know, a request for domains from people who are in the community, people who participated in the last auction, people who have been reaching out wanting to participate in this one. I will allow them to submit domains Again. This time you will be able to submit in S, the first block chain. These will be available web two domains that you've bridged over through main five, handshake, anything that pretty much anything that exists. The same process that will be custodied in our custody wallet.

Speaker 2: 58:45

We will create the assets that will be placed into the auction. You win the auction, you get sent the assets. The other person gets sent the money Simple and on the block chain and this will all take place on base using Ethereum. One is polygon, ethereum On the polygon chain. Even though the transactions are super cheap, you kind of had to get used to using mattock and ethereum to currencies. I really didn't take that into consideration. Base is just ETH. Eth is the gas, eth is the currency. Just put ETH over there, use it for either or, so don't have to use two different currencies. Kind of takes that confusion out of picture.

Speaker 1: 59:27

Right, that's. That's our reason for choosing EBM compatible chains for deploying or contract and applications, because I think just make it very easy for the users to just use ETH and to keep it minimal. So did I hear it right that everyone can submit their domains into your auctions as a community effort? That's really interesting.

Speaker 2: 59:57

Yeah, so, and let me kind of redefine everyone, because in everyone, everyone is everyone that, like I said, in the community we do, and the last option it was invite only, and this one, and probably subsequent ones, will always be invite only and not for a couple reasons. Right A again, my platform is here to to support others that support it, and so, first and foremost, my obligation is to those people. You know it's fun getting up and not just talking to myself every day, so I'd like to show love to other people who who've kept me going in the space. But also, you know, just from physical capacity of the auction itself, because I explained the last time, we have 20 slots, can't include everybody, have to have some way to narrow it down. So it's not personal, it's just the way it is. So I suggest and this might be a hard thing for some people to do but if you'd like to participate in our auction, if you see value in it, make friends, join the community. You know, especially a workcast. So that's another thing I want to put out there in workcast.

Speaker 2: 1:01:04

Workcast works kind of as a combination of Twitter and like Reddit, so you post content out there just like you would on Twitter, but you're able to post that content in relevant channels in the same way you would as Reddit.

Speaker 2: 1:01:19

So we own the channel Web3Domains and I encourage anybody who's also bullish on Web3Domains.

Speaker 2: 1:01:24

If you've got content that you want to post, if you want to show your domains, if you want to ask questions and you're on workcaster, cast into that channel and that's that's where we're going to be the most active. I'm actually going to be incentivizing people who participate in that channel. So another good thing about workcast is they have an embedded tipping system. Because I've been active on there for so long, I get a certain amount of tips and I'm able to give away for free every single day. So, yeah, if you participate in the channel, that's one way to get noticed and get invited to participate in the auction, but that'll also get you tipped in the platform, which turns into real money, and it's real, real money. We can go all day about how much money people are made for free on workcast, but, yeah, it's a great ecosystem. But that's the answer to that Limited from space, so it's not for everybody, everybody, but I do extend it to the people that have been part of our, our core community.

Speaker 1: 1:02:24

Yeah, thank you, Marcus. I think you can also conduct a dedicated Twitter space on teaching people how to use Focaster and joining the tipping system or creating their own frames. I think that would be pretty exciting, for that would be like very exciting for most of the audience here and more people to come. So, as part of because you are hosting this NAMFiDomain's auctions very soon, would it be possible for you to share about the names the activities you will be auctioning in your marketplace?

Speaker 2: 1:03:03

Yeah, yeah. So again, it's six web two domains that I bridged over to NAMFiD and I'm going to go through all six right now. So the first one and I'm going in no uncertain order is just the way that I'm seeing them here on OpenSea I've got GPTScalingcom. So for anybody that's looking for any GPT related domains, gptscaling is perfect for anybody who's using GPTScal businesses both small businesses, medium businesses, whatever your imagination can take you there. Again, these are real web two domains. So if you purchase this domain, you can immediately build a brand and a website on it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:45

The next one is bitcoin-namescom, another self-explanatory one. You just got the hyphen in the middle. A lot of people built some solid brands and the hyphen really doesn't bother them. So for anybody who's in the Bitcoin naming space, you know Bitcoin names is the perfect name to get started. Again, it's direct match. So Bitcoin names, you know you don't have to try that hard to convey to somebody with the point of that website is.

Speaker 2: 1:04:13

The next one is Ether Voyage. This one's more of a brand name. So you know, if you're using Ethereum or any of that ecosystem, you know, to create something voyage-related. If that relates to you, then that's a brand rule. So you know it's a word that doesn't necessarily make sense unless you create a brand to make it make sense. The next one is DeFi mindset. Defi mindset is actually a solid one. You know. My mindset when registering that was you know a person would be attracted to it if they wanted to build a brand. You know kind of around DeFi coaching or, you know, being an influencer or anything like that, or even putting out, you know, like I said, good content related to cryptocurrency and trading that one actually gets a pretty good valuation as well. On Dan, which I'll screenshot at some point it's worth over one K in their ecosystem and that doesn't mean anything kind of just like one of the GoDaddy appraisals. What I'm saying is to say not that that their appraisal is accurate, but the fact that it appraises it for more than 100 bucks means something. If you've been in Dan, pretty much all the trash gets valued at 100 bucks. Everything gets a $100 valuation. Let's just got a little bit of legs to it. So this one's got legs to it. That's what I want to say. The next one and this was funny and hopefully whoever looks at it and wants to buy it will see it in the same humor is meanttorugcom. I actually registered that after getting wrote because I'd meant to the rug and I thought it was funny that that's all I do is meant rugs, and so I thought it was a good parody website. Now, whether somebody's able to turn that into something that you know reclaims rugs or turns it into a rug project or something like that, there you go, you know, let your imagination run with it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:03

And then, lastly, is Web 3 News with a Z. You make news, you're in Web 3, you like the spelling with a Z. I got the name, the main name for you, and these are allcom. So all of them are on thecom namespace. You know these are ICANN TLGs. When they were bridged over to NAME5, they were automatically registered for a year over there, so they all expire approximately one year from a couple days ago. So you're getting fresh registrations. So, yeah, hopefully that answers your question.

Speaker 1: 1:06:37

All right. Thank you, marcus, for sharing the offer here. I think we are closing to the end of our space today, so I'm really happy you pushed your product out there, the auction marketplace. I think it's awesome. I think it's a really age-dominated industry In a very good way, so people can actually auction their domains on your websites. So, apart from auctioning, what are other product directions you have observed for domainers in terms of providing more functionalities to domainers' demand? Or, yeah, what's your observation To conclude today's space?

Speaker 2: 1:07:25

Well, yeah, especially on the Web3 side, and that's mostly what I'm talking to. Again, space is super bullish. A lot of people building. I'm glad. A lot of platforms are getting over that we have to be the only person that exists Mind-setting or getting onto the. Let's build together to get more people into space. So Web3 domains now can be used for instant messaging. I know the central web has a messaging service where you can message directly, unstoppable, with their badges and their messaging. Ens is incorporated, I think, with MailChain and a couple other messengers.

Speaker 2: 1:07:58

Free name All of these different platforms and tools that are out there that people can go and interact and play with and use your Web3 domain now. Free name DNS. If you want to see a website on your Web3 domain natively on your computer, you can go ahead and do that. Handshake and Thunderbolt and Spaceship there's so much being built so I encourage everybody to continue learning. Our platform is dual purpose. I'm an investor. I'm here to create a market. I'm here to sell domains, to put the narrative out here for how they work, but I also educate, and I do that selflessly. So come to the platform, learn about what these things can do, participate, add your own content.

Speaker 2: 1:08:42

We are very much growing and building. There can't be more than a couple million of us currently in the Web3 domain trading space and there's billions of people that we're creating a market for, so extremely bullish for the future. Bullish on platforms again like Warcast, that are giving use to at least one Web3 naming services One Web3 naming service. I don't know how I got tongue tied on that, so, for nothing else, I'm going to support them for that. Hopefully they incorporate more, hopefully more people build more services and incorporate more. But it ain't going away. That's what's not going to happen. We're not going to wake up tomorrow. People are going to sayeath is stupidx is stupid and that we can shut it all down. It's going to keep building, so we're in the right place, 100% believe that.

Speaker 1: 1:09:29

Thank you so much, marcus. I think you wrap up the whole space for me, so I don't have to do a summary here for a difference between centralized naming services and decentralized naming services. Naming services and social media, as we talk about, and also your auctioning system and also other amazing ecosystem products out there for domainers to plug in and play. So thank you everyone for coming to our space today and thank you so much, marcus, for being here and providing such meaningful education content for our domainers, and we look forward to welcoming you next time on our domain space. And thank you everyone for your time.

Speaker 2: 1:10:14

Thank you as well. It was a pleasure as always. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 1: 1:10:17

Thank you, marcus, bye-bye, have a good day.