Uni Naming & Registry, the company founded by Frank Schilling upon the sale of Uniregistry to GoDaddy, announced an update to its upcoming auction of TLDs in April.
UNR will be providing technology that will allow for the use of NFTs that control their namespaces in the Ethereum Name Service on the Ethereum blockchain. In other words, the new owners of the 25 ICANN-accredited domain extensions up for sale will be able to provide signed ownership of domains, recorded on the ETH blockchain.
This is clearly the first time we’re seeing such an implementation of the blockchain technology, to issue and verify domain ownership at Registry level.
Here’s the complete press release from UNR – a DomainGang sponsor – titled “NFTs of 25 UNR Top Level Domains Minted on the Ethereum Name Service.”
GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, March 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Uni Naming & Registry (“UNR”) is the world’s largest owner of Non-Fungible Tokens representing Top Level Domains. As the exclusive operator of 25 ICANN-accredited domain extensions, including .LINK and .GAME, UNR holds the NFTs that control their namespaces in the Ethereum Name Service (“ENS”) on the Ethereum blockchain. UNR’s Top Level Domains are the first to be turned into ERC-721 NFTs on Ethereum.
23 of these Top Level Domains and their corresponding NFTs will be sold together in no-reserve public auctions on April 28, 2021. The deadline to sign up has been extended to April 9 via UNR’s portal https://auction.link.
The auction winners of these rare internet assets not only collect subscription revenue by selling their domain names through ICANN-accredited registrars, but could also sell domains on ENS directly to Ethereum owners.
“UNR is opening the scarce asset class of Top Level Domains to the public, which brings existing cash flow and numerous new monetization models to future owners, including control of the NFTs on the blockchain,” said Shayan Rostam, Chief Growth Officer of UNR. “We are on the cutting edge; it’s unlikely that these assets will ever take part in an event of this magnitude again.”
UNR worked closely with Innovative Auctions and Ethereum Name Service to bring this breakthrough utility to the Top Level Domain auction winners.
“Innovative Auctions is committed to helping TLD owners maximize the value of their assets. We are giving successful bidders in UNR’s landmark TLD auction a head start into a future where TLD ownership is recorded on the blockchain,” said Ulrich Gall, Founder of Innovative Auctions.
“ENS complements and expands the capabilities of the Domain Name System,” said Brantly Millegan, Director of Operations at Ethereum Name Service. “We’re happy to work with UNR in leading the way to increasingly bring these two worlds together.”
To bid in UNR’s historic auction for its Top Level Domains and corresponding NFTs, sign up by April 9 on auction.link.
