Want to grab your .eth name? Check out our newly launched registry dapp — https://buyethdomains.com/. Setup your twitter, telegram, and .eth photo with our free-to-use web app that takes the fuss out of interacting with the blockchain.

We’re headed to the airport for the London ENS conference and want to share what we’ve been building to increase the utility and usability of .eth names.

Check out the new profiles you can build with your .eth name!

See this profile live on our site

Built on top of the ENS .eth name registry, these profiles are constructed using smart contracts and IPFS to store your photo and verify your twitter, telegram, and Ethereum address(es).

Usability Matters!

When new users interact with a crypto wallet the first questions they ask are “What is that funny looking 0x string thing?” quickly followed by “What happens if I send it to the wrong place by accident?” How many times did you double check your last crypto payment, verify the last digits of the address, double check the address copy pasted correctly, etc. Sending crypto currently creates unnecessary anxiety and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Naming to the Rescue

ENS is a hugely important underlying protocol for Ethereum payments. It simultaneously addresses three major impediments to user adoption:

Fear / Technophobia

Shareability

Ease of Use

Sending crypto to an address strikes fear into the hearts of new users and frankly they are right to be anxious. Copy pasting hex addresses is error-prone and no feedback is provided about the accuracy of the payment destination. It doesn’t have to be this way.

In the future no one will type in hex addresses to send you crypto. The fear of losing money by sending crypto to the wrong place can be mitigated by making the destination address easy to validate and by providing feedback prior to send. Names are easy to remember and check for accuracy. Better yet, names are extensible with additional data. By attaching a photo to your name crypto payments now feel much more social. Adding verified twitter and telegram accounts lets users “double check” before sending money- without using a blockchain explorer.

Hex addresses are not shareable. No one tells you to visit their favorite website by saying ‘go to 216.58.214.46’ because no one would ever remember it.To get to Google, they type google.com. The good news is a better future is around the corner. A future where you can say, “yeah, send the money to johnsmith.eth, and if you want to make sure it’s going to me, just check that the twitter matches my twitter handle, I have it verified on there too.”

A naming system gives crypto payments a more intuitive feel like other payment apps that users already interact with on a daily basis. Displaying a photo, twitter, and telegram prior to sending crypto significantly reduces anxiety. Names can be shared by word of mouth. And the user — not a payment corporation, social network, or bank — owns their name and data.

See? Much easier.

Go ahead, get your name today and help make crypto payments better!