Uni (formerly Uniregistry) becomes the first company to mint top-level domains as NFTs on the Ethereum Name Service

NFTs are all the rage. No day goes by without another headline on NFTs, also known as non-fungible tokens. Tech investors and venture capitalists are writing big checks for tech startups in the booming NFT space. Earlier today, we also wrote about London-based Argo Blockchain after its founders announced a new IPO for their new company in London exchange as a way to bring non-fungible tokens to market.

Now, Uni (formerly known as Uniregistry and now owned by Go Daddy) becomes the first company to mint top-level domains as NFTs on the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). In an announcement today, Uni said:

“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.”

Uni said that 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.

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain. Top-level domains, like ‘.eth’ and ‘.test’ are owned by smart contracts called registrars, which specify rules governing the allocation of their subdomains. Just like the DNS, ENS operates on a system of dot-separated hierarchical names called domains, with the owner of a domain having full control over subdomains.

Shayan Rostam, Chief Growth Officer of UNR, also added that “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.”

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.