Crypto is back in a bull market, meaning the price of nearly every asset is up, and developers are shipping new protocols for gain-seeking traders to interact with on a near-daily basis.
While it took nearly two years to reach this point, it almost seems overdue, and even though the “up only” ethos of a euphoric market feels good, rising prices are not a definite sight of mass adoption. Demand for goods and services is necessary for the market and its assets to have longevity, and the long-sought-after connection between tangible goods and the intangible offerings of crypto is again necessary to sustain the current bull market.
Web3 domains tick a few of those boxes, and they can have very practical use cases for traditional businesses, depending on how they choose to use them.
On episode 27 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung speak with Unstoppable Domains chief operating officer Sandy Carter to explore how Web3 domain names might be an unassuming catalyst for crypto mainstreaming.
“Not your keys, not your coins” personified
Everyone has heard at least one story of someone who lost ownership of their naming rights or some critical component of their business’s intellectual property rights, and what a catastrophic or traumatic experience it was.
As simple as it sounds, Carter believes that Web3 domain names solve this problem, as the domain name’s owner actually owns the name. “We just spoke to small businesses yesterday who said they had a website going and that was driving their whole business, and for some reason, it was removed,” she told Salmond and DeYoung. “They never understood why, but it was gone for a month and then reinstated. Or even people creating their own Facebook pages to sell or do e-commerce. All of a sudden, their shop gets shut down for a couple of months, and again, no knowledge, no understanding.”
“Why does that happen? Well, you don’t own that data. You don’t own that digital identity that is owned by a platform company. It’s centralized. And so the power of a Web3 digital identity or a domain is the fact that now you own it.”
Crypto products and solutions lack “utility”
A common criticism launched against crypto advocates is that blockchain solutions and products lack utility. These critiques are especially frequent when discussing nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and pretty much anything related to Web3.
Carter suggested that Web3 domains have a type of insta-utility, depending on how the owner/creator chooses to use them. “You can do a lot of really cool things as a creator,” she said. “We were working with one company who was doing an art show, [...] and what they did is they sold a piece of art as an NFT, or as a digital collectible. And if you had that, that meant you got in free to their show in Miami at Art Basel, you got in free to their show in New York at NFT.NYC, and you got in free to the Outer Edge in Los Angeles.”
“They kind of use that as a loyalty card, if you would. And that enabled people to get into other shows, which really spurred more people to buy it because they wanted to go see the in-person shows.”
Carter shared another example of a famous artist who dropped a token, and holders who had it as part of their digital identity received unique perks. “You had to listen to one of his broadcasts, but if you did, and you had that digital collectible or token in your digital identity, you got in first in line for a selfie with him. And that was a pretty big deal.”
An additional way to use a Web3 domain to connect with others in a more tangible, conventional way could be to use it as the base for a loyalty program for fans and patrons.
“We’ve also had artists do, you know, if you’ve got three of my NFTs, then you get a free T-shirt, or you get a VIP seat at something. There are all kinds of loyalty things you can do by using and leveraging what people have in their digital identity. And I think this is really part of a bigger point.”
When asked about how building at Unstoppable Domains differs from her experience as a c-suite executive at Amazon Web Services, Carter said that there wasn’t a huge difference, as both embody startup culture. “[Amazon CEO] Andy Jassy often says that Amazon is the world’s largest startup because of the way he runs the company. You’re single-threaded; you’re given a mission. You really are empowered to do the mission. You’re almost like your own little CEO of a startup.”
However, Carter did identify one particular distinction:
“If you think about salmon swimming upstream versus trying to swim downstream with Web3, I think right now we’re swimming upstream because of all the Big Tech companies. I mean, if you really think about the disruption that could occur if we had widespread adoption of Web3, where each of us owned our own data, how much that changes the game for basically every tech company out there.”
To hear more from Carter’s conversation with The Agenda, listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!
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This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.