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The ENS Boom 💥

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The ENS Boom 💥

Ethereum Name Service is seeing big growth!

William M. Peaster
May 24, 2022
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Share this post

The ENS Boom 💥

metaversal.banklesshq.com

Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles


Dear Bankless Nation,

Created by w3b.eth, the graphic below illustrates some of the biggest milestones in the history of NFTs. Just shy of the 3PM mark, note the arrival of the Ethereum Name Service as among the first NFT projects on Ethereum:

Twitter avatar for @w3b_eth
w3b.eth│.bit @w3b_eth
13 last years of W3B and NFTs converted in a 24-hour clock
Image
5:00 PM ∙ May 23, 2022
56Likes22Retweets

Today ENS remains one of the Ethereum ecosystem’s most important NFT efforts, yet it’s also one of its hottest right now too. 

Going off the graphic above, at the stroke of midnight you could put “ENS Boom” because activity around the decentralized domain names protocol is currently surging in all directions.

Accordingly, let’s get you up to speed on key ENS stats and some useful tools you can use to get a bird’s-eye view of this boom for today’s Metaversal. 

-WMP


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ENS enters uncharted territory 📈

April 2022 was one of ENS’s best activity periods yet as registrations, fees, secondary sales, and beyond were way up on the month:

Twitter avatar for @ensdomains
ens.eth @ensdomains
april 2022 ENS stats: - 163k new .eth registrations (total ~990k names) - 2,660 ETH in fees (up 900 ETH from prev best month, Nov21) - ~$7.8m in protocol revenue (all goes to the DAO) - 38k new eth accounts w/ at least 1 ENS name (total 387k) - >4,000 ETH in secondary on OpenSea
ENS April 2022 registrations
ENS volume on Open Sea in April 2022
12:17 AM ∙ May 2, 2022
711Likes174Retweets

However, that was just a taste of things to come. Nick Johnson, founder and lead dev of ENS, noted over this past weekend how — with time to spare — May 2022 was already handily the protocol’s new best month for income, new users, returning users, registrations, renewals, and revenues. 

Twitter avatar for @nicksdjohnson
nick.eth @nicksdjohnson
May is now an All Time High for every single ENS metric we track - registrations, renewals, revenue (ETH & USD) and income (ETH & USD). And there's still a week of May left. 🤯
Image
11:21 PM ∙ May 22, 2022
551Likes185Retweets

So while cryptocurrency and NFT markets have generally been facing headwinds in recent weeks, the ENS project has been undergoing staggering growth. To put this ongoing .eth surge into perspective, consider how +300k of the +1.12M ENS registrations to date have occurred since the start of May 2022. 

Twitter avatar for @address_eth
065.eth @address_eth
About 25% of all the ENS names that exist have been minted this month
3:18 PM ∙ May 23, 2022
357Likes44Retweets

New phenomenon: ENS communities

One contributing factor to ENS’s recent growth has been an explosion of interest around ENS communities, some examples of which are listed below by the upstart ENS License Plates project:

Twitter avatar for @EnsPlates
ENS License Plates @EnsPlates
ENS Communities: @10kClubOfficial: Social club for #4digitENS holders 000-9999 @100kENSofficial: Social club for #5DigitENS holders 00000-99999 @prepunkclub: Vintage ENS domains @EthmojiClub: ENS #Ethmoji holders @ENSletters: holders of 3-letter ENS domains
5:51 PM ∙ May 24, 2022
9Likes1Retweet

Will these social clubs go on to thrive? Or will they fall by the wayside as speculative attention wanes? Likely we’ll see cases of both over time. In any case, these newfound communities are driving lots of interest toward ENS in the here and now. 

Trading ENS NFTs? Check these resources

The previous ENS License Plates tweet is part of a wider thread that lists out a ton of great info and resources for people who are interested in diving deeper into ENS domains, so I recommend flicking through the whole thing. Another insightful, trader-centric thread I’ve seen was this one from player1.eth:

Twitter avatar for @player1_eth
player1.eth / 325.eth / 4000.eth @player1_eth
Okay, so you just got into #ens and you feel like all the good domains are taken and you've missed the boat Well, so did I before I registered my first ens-domain less than five months ago Here's a thread about my journey and what I'd do if I would start over today 1/X
5:06 PM ∙ May 24, 2022
69Likes10Retweets

A common denominator of these threads were mentions of ENS Vision and ENS.Tools, two separate projects that really are must-see platforms for anyone who’s interested in more seriously managing their ENS activities. 

What makes ENS Vision useful is that it offers Bulk Search and Bulk Registration features. The site’s team has noted that the latter functionality can save users up to ~30% on their gas costs compared to registrations via the ENS dapp proper. ENS Vision also makes it easy to track trading activity and floor prices across specific ENS categories, e.g. three-digit domains. 

As for ENS.Tools, the platform provides a one-stop dashboard for searching through ENS domains via “Expiring,” “Expired,” “For Sale,” and “Available” filters. 

What to keep an eye on

In a Mirror post published earlier this month, the ENS team said it’s next setting its sights on achieving +1k project integrations and +1M owners, up from the 502 integrations and 406k owners the domain protocol boasts today. At the rate things are going now, these milestones will be achievable in the not so distant future. Moreover, another interesting thing for us NFTers to track will be ENS DAO’s avatar PFP plans, which are currently taking the shape. 

Twitter avatar for @ENS_DAO
ensdao.eth @ENS_DAO
The ENS DAO is looking for an NFT Artist! We’re commissioning a generative art series that we can use for an alternate set of ENS avatar images. We’re looking for creativity and we’ve got a good bounty on the table for whoever delivers! Check it out:
discuss.ens.domains{pRFP} ENS Avatar PFPOverview The ENS DAO is launching a project to include a generative PFP builder into the platform. The project’s goal will be to provide ENS users with a unique PFP with randomized traits, conceptually similar to modern NFT collections. Users will have the ability to select this PFP generator as an…
3:30 PM ∙ May 24, 2022
117Likes39Retweets

Action steps

  • 🔭 Check out ENS Vision and ENS.Tools

  • 🧐 Read my previous write-up OpenSea Seaport nears if you’re still playing catch up on last week’s NFT news


Author Bio

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal—a Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. He’s also recently been contributing content to Bankless, JPG, and beyond!


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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.


Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.

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