Web2 vs Web3 Domains: Your Name, Your Keys, your Future

The battle between Web2 and Web3 domains represents much more than just technological evolution – it's about who truly owns and controls our digital identities. In this eye-opening Tech Talk episode, Marcus (WenAirdrop) dives deep into why traditional domain ownership is fundamentally flawed and how blockchain-based domains are revolutionizing our relationship with online identity.

For decades, we've accepted a system where we never actually own our domain names – we just rent them annually from registrars, risking total loss if we miss a payment. Web3 domains flip this model on its head with permanent ownership secured by blockchain technology. No annual fees. No risk of seizure. True digital property rights.

The episode explores Freename's latest integration with BNB Chain, expanding their multi-chain domain offerings to eight different blockchains. This flexibility allows users to choose the ecosystem that aligns with their needs while maintaining complete ownership of their digital identity.

Beyond just replacing complicated wallet addresses with human-readable names, Web3 domains serve as universal login credentials across applications, profile management systems, and community-building tools. The most exciting development might be democratized access to top-level domains (TLDs) – something requiring millions of dollars and regulatory approval in Web2, now accessible to everyday users in Web3.

Whether you're a crypto enthusiast, entrepreneur, investor, or simply someone concerned about digital ownership rights, this episode illuminates why Web3 domains represent the future of how we'll establish, manage, and monetize our online presence. The question isn't whether Web3 domains will become essential – it's whether you'll recognize the opportunity while it's still early.

Listen now to understand which domain system offers better utility for your digital future, and discover how platforms like FreeName are making it possible to truly ow

Own a Web3 TLD with Freename
Freename.io is the leading Domains platform in Web3. Users can mint their own customized Web3 TLDs.

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Chapters

• 1:36 Episode Introduction & Web3 News
• 8:42 Understanding Web3 Domain Workshops
• 15:37 Core Differences Between Web2 & Web3 Domains
• 19:57 Real-World Use Cases & Utility
• 26:37 Investment Opportunities in Web3 Domains
• 34:30 Q&A: Regulations & Digital Identity
• 47:29 Key Takeaways & Episode Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 2: 1:36

Thank you, hello. Hello, we'll get started here in just a moment. Hopefully everybody can hear me clearly. Yeah, posted a couple of things at the top of the space as somewhat of a controversial title, I guess, to some people, but definitely the foundation of a great conversation. Looking forward to getting into today Again. It's a continuation of some conversations we've already been having this week, as well as our workshop from yesterday. So, yeah, we will get into it in just a second Again. Appreciate the love.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Thank you guys for coming and listening live. If you could, please hit that bottom right-hand bubble like retweet. If you want to come up and ask a question, feel free to do so or leave a comment. But, yeah, just one more second. We'll get right into it. All right, all right, all right.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Again, thank you guys for being here and welcome to our Tech Talk podcast. This is a live discussion that I record here every single week on X, where we highlight news, innovation, education, alpha and business development in the Web3 technology and digital identity space. I am your host, marcus aka OneAirdrop, the founder of iHeartDomains and community manager at Freename. For the past two and a half years, we have been your number one resource for unbiased Web3 and blockchain domain educational content and spaces, with over 100, and some of these tech talk episodes and YouTube videos yeah, that we produced over that period of time. If you want to see our entire archive of tech talks, you can do so either on our website at iHeartDomainscom, where they are all accompanied with a short blog overview of the episode in question, or you can listen to it easily on your favorite podcast player, and it's easy to see that archive at techtalkhost, also on YouTube as well. So, yeah, no matter how you want to digest all this alpha, we try to provide for you as usual.

Speaker 2: 3:43

I do want to open up with just a little bit of opening news, some of which is pinned up at the top of the space. So we've been, we're kind of I mean, we're still in the middle of some of the biggest news from a free name surrounding the minimass snap and you know got a quite, quite a lot still that we're going to be focusing on that. But one of the kind of I guess you'd say parallel announcements that's come out that's equally as big is our integration with B&B Chain. So B&B Chain just recently retweeted and informed basically their world that free name domains are now available to be minted on their chain and they work on that platform. So, you know, as is true fashion, we will now begin the process of, you know, creating partnerships and integrations and, you know, building some great utility for domains that are now being chosen to be minted on BNB chain. But, you know, them officially recognizing that partnership, opening doors for us to, you know, continue to expand the footprint and utility. You know, for holders, whether you're an SLD holder, you know, in our ecosystem, you're able to choose which blockchain you want to mint on from either the SLD or the TLD level. So, you know, having that choice. Now, if you're bullish on BNB chain which at one point, you know, admittedly, I was very, very, very bullish on that chain Then, yeah, this is a happy moment for you. And, again, just to remind you, green and domains you can mint on eight different blockchains, including now BNB Base, solana, polygon, chiliz, say, and a few others and more to come. So, yeah, expect a lot more content and context regarding that particular integration so that we can make it make sense to everybody, so you can begin taking advantage of it. And then also and we're going to kind of get quick and tense subject to the update news really short, just want to re-remind everybody that our own personal registry for the TLDs that we own on FreeDane are open and are available for registration and are now available to be minted on BNB chain. You will see one of those pinned up at the top defiwalletexchain.8888 and defiwallet or, yeah, did I say defi wallet twice? Well, you see it defiwalletexchain.888, defi wallet all available to be minted. The one in particular at the top will take you straight to the landing page for defi wallet. But, yeah, any of the free name existing coupon codes will work, so those are available as well, which means you can get your forever name on any one of these TLDs for as low as like $2 or $3. And so, yeah, yeah, I definitely want you to take advantage of that, especially as I take this space to make it make sense. So, uh, again, welcome, uh, to our tech talk.

Speaker 2: 6:34

This is the web three domain workshop series. Uh, where we explore the future of digital identity, branding and ownership on chain. This is a collaborative effort that we do with Freedame. As I explained at the beginning of every one of our workshops, we do this both for our VIP community in private on Thursdays. So if you are a VIP member of the Freedame community. This is a utility that's available to you In those workshops. We do them via Google Meet so that you are able to interact. You're able to see my face. We screen share, we dig through these in pretty good detail. The purpose of these workshops for the VIP community is to assist in business development and growth and to help nurture you in your journey in Web 3.0 domain. We are a very collaborative partnership, as I've explained many times, I think, on X, so that's a utility that we offer directly to the VIP community.

Speaker 2: 7:27

And then I do this the following day on Fridays, via my tech talk, because these conversations are important for the general space. Again, while I might be talking specifically about an opportunity that lies with 3Dame, that opportunity, you know, or how to capitalize on an opportunity, can be copied and pasted to pretty much any naming service, and a lot of the tools that FreeName has already built, like the Resolver, resolves other name services. So a lot of what I'm talking about, I think, is beneficial to you, whether you're bullish on, you know, the FN ecosystem or any ecosystem in general, which is why we see value in recreating the workshop in this form. So, again, welcome to our Web3 domain workshop. Hopefully you will get value from this conversation. I think, again, it's a very good conversation to have, especially, you know, as our space begins to create a lot of gray area between Web2 and Web3 domaining. So, yeah, very excited to get into it.

Speaker 2: 8:26

Um, one of the things I also usually do before getting into these spaces is I usually, uh, you know, define the difference between web two and web three domains, but considering that this entire space is centered around that topic, we're going to skip that part. So, yeah, now we're going to dive right into it. So, yeah, if you're listening to this for the first time and also if you're I know everyone listening live. That is Twitter native and Web3 domain native a lot of things that I might say might be repetitious, might be things that you've already heard, because this is published as a podcast and on YouTube. This does reach a much larger audience than I get here live, and a lot of that audience has never heard of Web3 domains or Web3 in general before. So forgive me if I slow things down a little bit or if it feels like I'm talking to a completely different demographic, but all right. So if you've ever wondered why people in Web3 are ditching traditional dot coms in favor of things like eafs, exes, or even launching their own top-level domains like bgen or

Speaker 2: 9:28

.420. This is what we're going to cover in this episode. We're going to look at the core differences between the Web2 domains and Web3 domains. We won't dive so much into the ecosystem of Web2 domain, but talk about some of the technical differences. We're going to talk about the real-world use cases in emerging tech around Web3 naming. We're going to talk about why Web3 domains have potential that is greater than just being for websites, which is the core utility of Web2Domaining. And then, most importantly, we're going to talk about the investment opportunity, especially, you know, with Web3 TLDs, and why now is the time to get in while it's still early. So, with that being said, let's start with what we already know and are familiar with with Web2

Speaker 2: 10:16

Domaining. So these are your dot coms, your dot nets, dot orgs, dot, ais, dot X, ynets, orgs, ais, xyzs, et cetera. We all know them, we're all familiar with them. We use them on a daily basis to go from point A to point B on the internet. They've been around since the 90s and, for the most part, they work. Yeah, they do what they're supposed to. But here's the deal

Speaker 2: 10:40

right. So when you get into and I would say I don't know what the exact ratio is between like business owners on the planet that have domain names versus like regular people who just use them, but for the most part, when you start getting into, you know the side of the fence where you're actually needing a domain or registering a domain and dealing with that part of ownership, the thing that you'll realize is that you'll never actually own your Web2 domain. You start off with initial registration and then, every single year, like the tax man, they come for their due and if you miss that due, your domain will essentially be lost. It will go to an auction, to an expired auction, and then someone else will either grab it or it'll drop and it can be re -registered again by someone else. But in any event, if you don't pay for it every single year without bail, or if you don't register for multiple years up front, it's not something that you truly own. It's an asset that you can lose. You know you're renting it from whatever registrar that you've. You know you registered it

Speaker 2: 11:42

from. And then, lastly and again, it's not the biggest fear necessarily for everyone, but it can happen and other things have happened. But you can also lose your domain for other reasons. Right, you can be. You know your domain can be censored, it can be removed. In the case of ai, which is a very popular TLD, it's got a high premium on it. Things are moving like hotcakes, but it has a very well-known and a very well-stamped, you know set of rules and regulations that are aligned with that TLD. There are things you cannot build on that TLD and if you do so, you run the risk of eventually getting it shut

Speaker 2: 12:19

down. And so, again, when it comes to ownership, or even owning the content that you connected to, it's not permanent. It can't be permanent. That's by design. There are benefits to that and then, for some, there are, you know, negatives to that. So, again, even though you can build an entire brand and business and identity because this is still identity your dot com. There's a lot of companies that are known specifically by their domain name. It's still identity. There's a lot of companies that are known specifically by their domain name. It's still identity. You're not really in control of it, as we're growing into an age where everything is starting to become digital and now we're starting to become this new thing called on-chain, that can become a problem, all

Speaker 2: 12:58

right. So transitioning now to Web3 domains. And again, throughout this, it must be emphasized that this is built on a completely different technology stack, as each works natively. They do not do the same thing and were not built for the same purpose. However, there is a lot of synergy and gray area that is being built between the two spaces where, eventually, both will be able to do both. But now again, switching the conversation to Web3 domains. They aren't the same thing but similar, but let's start talking about

Speaker 2: 13:34

them. So again, unlike Web2 domains, which are basically, they live and operate in the traditional DNS system that is governed by ICANN, web3 domains live on the blockchain, they are decentralized, they are tokenized and, in most cases, once you met them, you own them forever. There are some protocols that operate the same way on a rental basis, where, if you don't pay the renewal fee, you can lose it, but again, specifically to our value offering, our domains are forever free. So again, paying once you own your domain forever, no renewals, no subscriptions. And this becomes extremely important when it comes to that word called identity, which is something that I drill down on constantly. How can you name yourself something, or be something, or share that you are something. If eventually it could be something else, right? I think names, just like our real names in real life, have permanence. I think names on the blockchain need permanence as well. So, value number one paying once, owning

Speaker 2: 14:39

forever. Don't have to worry about losing your name for any reason whatsoever, unless you're clumsy with your crypto keys. Again, now, they're censorship resistant. Although you can't build content on them, you can set up a bunch of different content records, which are just as important as the content itself, and again, we're going to this gray area in the future where you actually can, like sort of build content on them. However, that, you know, continues to progress or continues to evolve. The underlying value is still the same. Whatever you're able to build will be censorship resistant because, again, in order to change content, in order to modify, alter or in any way interact with this domain name, you will need access to the crypto keys that manage or own that NFTft. And so, not your keys, not your crypto, not your domain. Another centralized entity for no, for any reason cannot come and take your domain because they feel like it. Um, so, yeah, big plus there as

Speaker 2: 15:42

well. Some minuses to that also, uh and, and thankfully we haven't come into, I don't think, any examples of how that can go weird. I'm sure we will at some point and you know, hey, we'll figure out how the world chooses to address it then, but for now that is. One big perk is that, at least for now, you can create censorship-resistant content or content records connected to your Web3 domain name. So again, owning your data, owning what's connected to it and protected from anyone being able to erase it. Then again, like we were saying earlier, the potential for it to be more than just a website In Web3, again different purpose than these even being created In Web2, web2 domains were a necessity to humanize and to make it easier to interact with websites, which are basically attached to IP

Speaker 2: 16:34

addresses. The way the internet really works is IP addresses route to websites and your domain name resolves the IP address. In Web 3, almost everything that we do interact with, especially our identity, ie our wallet, is a 0x address. It's 0x, a bunch of numbers and characters, and that is essentially your first form of digital identity, just in the same as it. You know, you can't really remember or it's not practical to operate copying and pasting IP addresses. It's not practical or it's not friendly in any way to normies to operate by copying and pasting zero X addresses either. Nor, when you're trying to look up something, find records of something, look for a transaction, look for a document, look for an NFT, is it practical to have to search for it via its zero X address? And so Web3 domains resolve to zero X addresses, making these easier to read, interact with, share, et

Speaker 2: 17:32

cetera. But, that being said, first and foremost, the biggest utility and the biggest way that it operates more than just a Web2 domain, is that you can use these things to send and receive money. So it is your wallet address. Because it resolves and replaces your wallet address, it now becomes your wallet address. And so, as we know, now, with our MetaMask snap plugin, you can go to MetaMask and type in winairdrop, which is my Web3 digital identity, and it will pull up my wallet address and allow you to send me money. I dare every single person who is listening to this space to try that just one time. Go for it Then, in addition to that so that's utility number one again, a lot of great

Speaker 2: 18:13

area. I'm. I'm talking about assets in their native form, okay, so. So right now I'm talking about the benefits of web3 native domain names and and prior, when we were talking about web2 domain names and talking about what they can do natively and web2 what they're built for again, a lot of gray area right now. At some point, both of these will be able to do both, but I'm just talking about what they can do natively in Web 2, what they're built for Again, a lot of gray area right now. At some point, both of these will be able to do both, but I'm just talking about what they do now. Okay, so yes, I do realize that now the technology exists for your com to be your wallet, now your technology exists for it to become an NFT and Web 3.0 digital ID and the other benefits that come with Web 3.0 be assigned to Web2 domains and vice

Speaker 2: 18:51

versa. Right, we have pre-named DNS and all kinds of other things that allow people to create Web2 content attached to Web3 domains. But yeah, I'm talking about native utility, just to clarify that. But yeah, you could build decentralized websites, which is a completely different animal than what you can currently build on Web2 domains. These are websites where, again, the content is stored on a decentralized server that cannot be, you know, erased or edited or censored or anything like that, so that technology creating, you know, kind of that Web2 atmosphere for Web3. And then, continuing on and we've had these conversations, you know, more than just a wallet, you'll be able to use these to log into Web3 apps for real digital identity within those apps, to be able to receive PO apps, for token gating, for online reputation, for all these good things. And you know, in our case these are interoperable across multiple ecosystems so it really can be your all-in-one digital identity. So now let's talk about real-world utility, now that we've kind of clarified what they both do and compare them a little bit head-to-head. So, again, with a Web2 domain, you can build a website in like three seconds and it will work, end of

Speaker 2: 20:06

story. If you're looking for that utility, if you're a brand new business, if you need to get an online presence, if you want these things to work and not have to explain it to anybody, I mean, that works, the internet works. Nobody's trying to replace the internet. I think that's a big misconception, maybe because of just like, how creative people are with marketing Web3TLDs. But no, but these are not meant to replace the internet. That that process works, that will always have value, however the technology stack, the value that this adds on top as a layer, on top of web 2, as we get, you know, a completely new breed of you know, digital entrepreneurs, digital products that can be sold, where we start being able to take more control and ownership over our data and monetization. Then we start seeing the value of Web3 domains. But at the end of the day it's always still going to have to be built on Web2

Speaker 2: 21:02

frameworks. So the utility of Web2 domains for the most part, perceptually, is limited to building a website. They can actually do more. There are a lot of ways that DNS and you know, for security and for reverse resolution on that side and all that stuff. There's a lot of ways that Web2 domains are using the backend. But, as I explained yesterday during the workshop, perceptually you ask 99.99% of people what a com is used for and they're going to say building a website and again, done an awesome job at branding that People won't look for anything else to build a website. But also people won't look at a com to do anything else if they don't need a website. So that's what you can do with a Web 2 domain build a website With a Web 3 domain on the utility side and, again, a lot of this is in

Speaker 2: 21:51

development. We are still we're early, but all of this is workable too, and it's workable in a surprisingly good way. Right, there's a lot you can surprisingly do, like today, and one of those is you can currently build a decentralized website. This is a question that I answered on one of the spaces that we did on Tuesday. I was asked a question and the guest before us answered no, but you can actually. Now, is it a little janky? Sure? Do you got to be super smart and maybe a dev? Sure, but is it possible? Yup, and that's the framework in the beginnings for the UI to continue to improve and eventually become one

Speaker 2: 22:33

click. But we've mentioned platforms like WebHash. We've mentioned the free name DNS. There's ways to do it. So, with a Web3 domain, today, you can build a centralized website. You can also receive crypto payments directly to that name, rather than having to copy paste the 0x address. You can log into dms. You know we've talked about how you know nouns and their ecosystem uses. Um, you know reverse resolution and digital identity in their auction process and within their community for voting, participating in the dow. It has value. Right, you can send and receive entities or tokens kind of goes right back to the crypto payments. Whatever you need to send to somebody, it's a lot easier to send it to a name than hoping that you did not copy that zero X address correctly. And then also, again, this has value as people are coming into the digital space, as more people are starting to build and monetize at Web3, your name is your

Speaker 2: 23:31

name. Some of you, if you know, you know, but that's like kind of a popular phrase here but my name is my name, right, when it comes to branding being able to brand something as powerful and as multi-useful as your domain name I think we're going to start seeing a lot of examples of that as people start to put it in practice. So even like right now, with the Twitter handle, like you brand yourself with that, you become that. But sharing that name across the Twitter sphere, across the world, is only useful on Twitter, the only way somebody can really use it unless you have that same handle kind of mirrored everywhere and you know uniformly. But you still have to tell people. You have to look for this name. Think about a universal

Speaker 2: 24:17

username. Uh, and I explained how these work in forecast and how they actually have created an amazing ecosystem using digital identity where you can log into other apps with forecast, and it brings that one identity with you everywhere. So we're going to end up coming to that, and then it'll be an identity that you own, and then it'll be an identity that you can send money to, and then it'll be an identity that you can type in and you can verify that this person is a human being or holds a certain asset and et cetera, something that can do more than just our simple social profiles. So that is also, you know, the future of Web2 domain names. And then, if you are able to go the distance or enter kind of the other side of the equation, which is owning a TLD, you can now create entire naming layers for a community, entire namespaces that you can build value from. So huge leap in utility for how people are currently using Web2 domains, for how people you know are currently and are anticipating using Web3

Speaker 2: 25:17

domains. So it's not just that Web3 domains do more Again, they're built for how the internet and how the next generation of entrepreneurs is evolving. They're designed to move with you across wallets, games, marketplaces, daos, platforms and beyond. So, as the Web3 space goes and I say this constantly. Still, the value of these, the value of Web3 domains, is literally tied to the growth of Web3. So if you believe that Web3 will eventually become the end be all all encompassing ecosystem of the planet Earth, then everyone's going to need a name and everything's going to be the name All

Speaker 2: 25:57

right. So, shifting to the investment opportunity and we talked about this as well yesterday, so don't get it wrong the Web two domain ecosystem by far eclipses the web 3 domain ecosystem currently. I mean, yeah, I mean that's just. There's nothing else to say about that. I mean, it's been around for 30 years. You have both a very vibrant Secondary ecosystem for premium domains, and I'm sure you've heard stories like Hotels dot com selling for $11 million or Voicecom for $30 million. You know these are very investable assets that are the real deal. I've met the guys who sold these things. These are serious people,

Speaker 2: 26:42

right. The thing is, though, and as I spoke about yesterday, is that at that level, right at, I want to make a living doing the main level, for a lot of people that's just not accessible. So A all the good names are gone, right, are there names that you can still hand, register or catch on expired auctions or things like that that you can still flip and make money on. Yeah, and it's still an extremely lucrative business to be in and nothing I say is going to stop anyone who's in that business from being in that business, and it's not intended to do that. But if you don't have either you know, a lot of capital behind you to go pick a bunch of really good names so that you have a higher likelihood of being able to sell them and make a profit, of being able to sell them and make a profit, or I mean, if you, you know, if you don't feel like there is enough you know inventory out there for you to truly build a portfolio that you can stand on, then Web3 presents like really a clean slate of opportunity for you. Even at this stage, right even after you know protocols like ENS have already, you know, come and launched and you know protocols like ens have already, you know, come and launched and, you know, done their thing, and ud's already come and launched and done their

Speaker 2: 27:56

thing. You know free name provided a completely different opportunity and lucrative opportunity and then even took it a step forward by providing the opportunity a completely different level as well. So in our space, the web3 space, uh, you not only are able to invest you a similar fashion as you are in Web2 in premium names. So if you have arteth, you go make some money. If you got financex, you're probably going to make some money, or pariscrypto, you're probably going to be able to flip that and make some money. But on platforms like Freename, you can take the ability to create a revenue source and build a business much further by owning a top-level domain. Again, this can be something that you can use not only to create your own naming ecosystem for your community. Literally, it could just be a utility or it could be something. If you build that kind of community where people want to be bullish, want to join, want to show their signal that they're associated with it, you know you can register domains on it, just like people register their domains on every other TLD out there, for whatever reason they feel like they like

Speaker 2: 28:57

it. And if you have a popular enough TLD, so like look at this right, look at, just look at when people wonder where can my TLD go? And even at this stage, where can my TLD go? My lineage is eth. Right, eth was dead. It's a real ICANN TLD that was basically hijacked and cloned by ENS, right, and they found a value for the Web3 that just did not exist in

Speaker 2: 29:25

Web2. Web2 is completely dominated by com. Most people don't think about many extensions outside of it, except for, like ai, like I said, which is on fire io, org in you know all those ones, right, but just in the last couple of years, with eth, they were able to take a nothing TLB, add value to it in the Web 3 space and sell what millions of them, the Web3 space, and sell what millions of them. And if you yourself, if you're creative enough and create something that people like or that is popular enough, don't matter what it is, that same potential exists for you. So will some of us make hundreds or thousands of dollars on your TLD, and will that be our ceiling? Sure, if that's the only effort that you put into it. But what I'm saying, though, for real, for real is.

Speaker 2: 30:13

ENS has made hundreds of millions of dollars on one TLD. All of us on this stage got one TLD. So think about that, the opportunity that currently exists for you if you're able to find the right connections and build the right bridges and create the right amount of value behind your Web3 TLD, and you're able to do this at a fraction of what you could do this for in Web2, like the process in Web2, as we explained several times, it ain't this, it ain't just going on a website and registering your TLD. You've gotta have hundreds of thousands of dollars, participate in auction. You know the drill. To have the same opportunity in Web 2, is something else completely different, where that opportunity right now is right at our fingertips here in Web 3. What that essentially means again going back to the being able to register your own top-level domain is that, instead of having to register just second domains like Jessicaweb3, you can now be the owner of Jessica or even web3, which in our case I think we don't have web3. We may have blocked it out, or if somebody does in our community on web3, congrats to you. But my point is is that you're able to own the right of the dot, which then produces assets on the left of the dot, and these are all NFT independently owned assets that once you own, the other person, the hierarchical person on the chain cannot then come and remove and snatch away from you, which can even happen yeah, sorry to hear this, but which can still even happen with ENS sub-level domains. So for a lot of people in the ENS community that have used creating third level or sub-level domain registries just to work around to try to get the same benefit, the problem with doing that is, yeah, they're not real and they are completely controllable by the owner of the SLD or second-level domain in this case. And so there's still a lot of security and ownership issues with that. If you're coming to Web3, you know to kind of for that reason, right, like we talked about at the initial beginning, if the value of being here in Web3 is ownership, then yeah, that makes sense. So, in any event, when you register a domain on someone's TLD, on Freename, it is your SLD. No one can take that from you. So that is how it works here.

Speaker 2: 32:37

Again, digital real estate 2.0, but with way more flexibility and built in earning path. So again, we are extremely early. Why is now the time to get into the space. Again, it's about opportunity. While everybody is side-eyeing and smirking, it is the best time for you to be looking and accumulating, because nothing will ever be as cheap as when no one understands what it is and doesn't know why they want it wanted. And then nothing is more expensive than when everyone finally clicks and figure out that they needed it this whole time and starts to rush to get it. And that's where you want to be, is you want to be right there with your bag of names, with your ecosystem built, with your platform, with your community, with whatever value that you have for your naming system? You want to be there waiting for that moment of click.

Speaker 2: 33:30

And it will happen. Again, as I said, this is directly tied to the growth of Web 3 itself. It's a no brainer, it's just a way of things. People the masses that will enter the space will not be able to manage zero hex addresses. They cannot manage IP addresses. It's just again, it's common sense. It's not an if, it's just a when. Even right now and we know it, we see it Almost every single person that's currently in Web3 uses a Web3 domain name. So if you're already here, you've already adopted this, and when more people get here, they're going to adopt it as well. And if you've got a cool enough name, they're going to buy you because it's going to be a cool and workable choice. But yeah, no-transcript.

Speaker 3: 34:23

Hey, good morning. Fantastic recap, and actually I'm going to be taking the archive of this and I'll be sending this to a couple people in my industry on the SEO side, number one. So I want to say thank you. And number two, I've got some things I'm going to send you later on. I dropped off the map a little bit, so I want to catch up with you on a couple things For this purpose, for the archive, for the listeners on the podcast later. Today is the 28th of March.

Speaker 3: 34:49

A significant amount of regulation is going on right now and changes on the financial side of the industry, everything from investments to banking, and that's going to be the stuff with Ripple, the stable coin, the digital asset reserve currency. So at least the average person on the street is starting to hear a little bit more about it. If they just follow, say, trump or politics, pro or con, whatever it is, at least the topic is starting to work its way to millions of people, with obviously a significant amount of confusion and, as you said, they're confused. They don't understand it yet. So, therefore, the opportunity is there. What are you seeing here? These new regulations, like the banks just got the green light for certain things, like the office of the comptroller of the currency to do crypto transactions, or banks can issue stable coins or things like that. All of this is coming. You can see what's happening with this final thing still pending about the Ripple SEC case. Once that happens, do you see the need for people to possibly have their first ever crypto wallet? And then, of course, I would explain it. Like you know, no one ever remembers the VIN number on a car their car but they would remember when 123 is as a vanity plate, and that seems to be the conversation that at least makes them understand. Okay, it's much easier to remember a much shorter name. That's the association that the average person can wrap his or her head around. But from our standpoint, what are you seeing? That's going to be intelligent.

Speaker 3: 36:18

Should these stablecoin bills and the average bank on every street corner in America start to offer some form of crypto or digital assets, what are you thinking would be the smart way to go about that?

Speaker 3: 36:31

To educate people, add value and, of course, have them either come into our TLDs specifically or at least grow the space. I'm open to anything you're thinking in terms of, because I was looking at everything from people having to pay their property taxes and then, therefore, they would have a digital identity that would be like, let's say, san Antonio dot Bexar County, all the way, with the address on the SLD side, right, and I know that has some trouble with if you sell a house who gets the private keys. Totally understand that. So I'm just thinking of different things that could be done, that the counties might buy a bunch of these names so people could pay their property taxes in a digital asset all the way to something to help with just normal everyday banking transactions all the way. I just want to buy coffee at starbucks but I want to pay for it in xrp or something like that. So, completely open to your thoughts on all of this, thank you yeah, yeah, absolutely so, and we kind of talked about this.

Speaker 2: 37:25

I think it was the way that I think that it will potentially be integrated, which now goes to answering your question. I think stable coins are a very useful form of crypto and so I think, like the progression of this right as, like you said, as people become more aware that there is this technology layer that makes transferring, holding and receiving money safer, I think that's the narrative that people will have to go with. It's not gambling, it's not you can hold this and make 10 million dollars. It's a new form of payment that is more transparent, faster, safer your keys, your crypto, etc. And it's still backed one-to-one to a dollar, so it's a stable coin.

Speaker 2: 38:27

I think that'll be a very usable and introducible form of crypto because they're they're not much direct right and, if I'm not mistaken, and and this is kind of the direction we're already going so signals, right, you, you can kind of look at stuff that's happening with world liberty financial to figure out the temperature of what's going on here, at least, like with the way our government is looking at through the currency. So then, the number one which we talked about a while ago was, you know, them acquiring their own domain, which I thought was a very big signal because they, at least you know, are confirming that this makes the space at least more usable and more personable and more brandable the whole point of these things. So that's signal number one. But, if I'm not mistaken, I thought I just saw an announcement that they are launching a stable coin. So this financial arm, or whatever that the president has interest in, is now launching a stable coin because, again, stable coins, I think, are a very usable and introducible form of cryptocurrency.

Speaker 2: 39:29

With that being said, when we start getting to the point where people are able to now use these stable coins, these dollars that are just digital, maybe even with their own bank, instead of, you know, having checking savings, it has checking savings and then you know USDC or whatever, yeah, now the natural way to interact with people and send and receive money to people. Again, it just becomes easier with having a personalized name, a universal name. Sure, your bank is probably going to give you a username that you can do that with due, but the universal name that you can still route to that will be better as well. So, again, all roads lead back to meeting a Web3 domain name at some point if you're sending and receiving crypto. All roads for ownership, for convenience, is having an interoperable web3 domain name thank you there, and that's.

Speaker 3: 40:20

I was just jotting some notes down. The other thing I was going to ask you I forgot to mention earlier um, just yesterday I was on a space with one of the more long veterans almost two decades in virtual worlds, metaverses, things like that, like we've discussed before. But they have part of their revenue model the need to sell internal domains, because they're actually building their own browser that would then support it, and then they're going to basically become a gateway where people would then build their own little sub virtual worlds around it. So let's say, you know names con for for, for domaining, as an example, that could have its own virtual world, its own virtual trade show that would be built on their ecosystem, and they said they were going to be selling domains on it. But at least from the login aspect, they would be open to the topic of allowing those with existing Web3 domains to at least participate as a normal login, knowing that they then could have to purchase their own domain to have more advanced functionality within this multi-virtual world ecosystem. So I'm going to map it out a little bit. I'll reach out to you separately.

Speaker 3: 41:26

The takeaway, though, is, if we see any typical Web3 platform, it could be everything. What's the knowledge with the quizzes, mighty Study, right All the way to some of the other ones that we've discussed before, but anything else? That's a Web3 platform that typically requires an email and a password to log in. Is that and assuming they have enough of a customer base is that something ever worth discussing that basically wait a minute you're a Web3 platform, but I'm using a Web2 email and a password to log in. Should I then at least consider that that should be an open candidate for digital identity integration, even if it is simply just to handle the login process? Is that the right way to think about these things in terms of opportunities, or is that just going too far?

Speaker 2: 42:14

No, that's exactly the way that you should take it for opportunities. So, going back to again, we all, over the course of these years, have done the best jobs we can at explaining what digital identity is like. We all, over the course of these years, have done, you know, are the best jobs we can at explaining like what digital identity is or can be, but like just looking at a domain in general, right. So even when we talk about, like the general resolution, most people think domain name, wild address. I need to share a wild address. I share domain instead. You know just kind of like and so, just like I said with the website thing, thecom thing, how you know great branding, but now that's the only reason people want to use it. I'm really hoping that that's not how this works here, right, because the difference is not only does this resolve for your website, but this also resolves to whatever you put on your records, which is essentially your identity. You can put an avatar you put on your records, which is essentially your identity. You can put an avatar, you can put social accounts, you can put multiple other naming services, you can connect everything about your Web3 and digital life to this thing, and then that enables the evolution of this, which will one day be sign in with rename, right, and don't quote me on that. I don't know if that'll be what it's called or what form this will take. I'm just making this up, but there are some versions of this that already exist. So there's already sign in with Ethereum, which allows you to sign in apps and D apps using your Ethereum wallet. It acts. It acts. I don't think it acts the way Well, they call it sign in with Ethereum, and I haven't really played with it that much. Actually, I don't want to give that as an example. I'll give the better example, the Warcast one.

Speaker 2: 43:50

So, as I mentioned during one of the workshops about Warcast, when you create a Warcast account, you get an identity per se. You're able to either you know and you can connect your digital identity, your E N S Wall or E N S Name, but in any event, whatever you build on work, your profile, your connections, your followers, your everything that kind of stays with you in a social graph and then you're able to take that social graph and log in the other with it and it brings all that with you that your identity is universal, like everywhere. So you're able to to basically same as like a gmail, right, you log in with your gmail account to somewhere and that knows I'm marcus and blah blah, but it's not really bringing much with it, right, it's not bringing, like, all my nfts and verifications and stuff like that with it. But in the case of web, three logins that's how you know the evolution of how they may and currently can work. So, to answer your question, I see a future where, yes, these are used as a universal login, where, instead of logging in with your email and password, you go to a website like Footlocker and it says you know, log in with FreeName or log in with your wallet.

Speaker 2: 45:06

You log in and then it's able to depending on what permissions you set, it's able to query any relevant information or NFTs that are sitting in your wallet. Maybe you have a coupon code or something sitting in there that's an NFT that you want or something that you're able to redeem for a real shoe to get shipped, and it's sitting as an NFT in your wallet. Like you'll be able to do things like that. Hopefully that answers your question.

Speaker 3: 45:32

Well, that was terrific. No, thank you, I'm going to send. No, really, I'm done. Thanks. By the way, tomorrow morning, when I have to go to run some errands instead of making phone calls, I'm going to be listening to the archive of this again. It's just getting in my head. I've got some other things. I'll send you separately. I just wanted to make sure I was up to speed. I know there's other spaces where there's some more advanced or nuanced topics, but this back to basics. But the bird's eye view is fantastic. So thank you for keeping me back on track. I was starting to go down the wrong rabbit hole on a few things, so I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 46:05

No, I'm glad to have you on. I love having these conversations, um, yeah, hopefully again these discussions, you know, for those that are listening back um are able to provide value and and you know, give context to, to where this space, in my opinion, I think is is truly going and and will have the greatest impact. Opinion I think is truly going and will have the greatest impact. So, kind of wrapping up now and just a reminder to everybody in 45 minutes we have our Web3 domain. Well, talk directly on the free name platform that is going to be hosted by me and Paige Howe, who is a 30-year Web2 domainer and also a veteran Web3 domainer. So spaces, you definitely don't want to miss A lot of alpha drop by him on there. So that's going to start in 45 minutes. Uh, I'm going to go ahead and bring this home and and kind of wrap this up. So kind of in conclusion, which has the better utility web 2 or web 3 domains? Um, again, it really depends on who you are and what your needs are. If you're 76 years old and you just watch YouTube and go to the grocery store every now and then, then you probably don't need to listen to any of this, and if all you're needing to do is build websites, if you're a website developer, web2 domains are going to feel familiar for now. But again, if we're talking about the ownership, we're talking about digital identity, talking about the future of payments, branding and long-term utility that will continue to grow and develop every single day. Web3 wins hands down.

Speaker 2: 47:38

The Web2 domain space isn't developing. Again, they do what they do. They have their own market, they have their own ecosystem, they have their own cabal. Technologically, it's not improving. As a matter of fact, the improvements that they're adding to Web 2 are actually Web 3 related. So, again, if you're looking for what's going to be potentially a better investment long-term, especially into the future that we are building into again Web3, it seems like the better investment has more utility, especially with the offer of real ownership, different layers of functionality, the ability to build real on-chain communities and then, of course, the ease of entry and the ability to generate income, especially with TLDs.

Speaker 2: 48:37

Web3 domains aren't just a better utility. It seems like they may be a bit. Again, platforms like Freename are making it extremely easy for people to enter the Web3 digital identity space, whether you're looking for the name that you want to go by and have money sent to, or whether you want to create your own ecosystem and explore DLD ownership in building your own protocol or platform. But, that being said, this is the end. Thank you, guys for attending our tech talk. This is about Web 2 versus Web 3 in the domain space. Which has better? Utilities.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Hope this sparked some questions or ideas and, if it did so, feel free to either check out freenameio Again you can register either your TLDs or SLDs there or feel free to join the iHeart Domains community, where we do this every single week. We help educate you and guide you on the basics and principles of Web3 Digital Identity, so that we make it make sense. And yeah, with that being said, see you guys in a little bit. Hopefully you guys can make it to the Web3 Domain. We Well Talk Again. Focus on your mission, not your condition. Happy, demanding. We'll chat soon, In a couple days. This will be available as all episodes are on our podcast, so for those of you who are waiting to listen back, I'll share that as well in the next few days. Thank you guys for attending the Tech Talk. We'll talk soon.