ETHDenver Community Wrap-up
ETHDenver took place in Denver, Colorado from the 11-20th. Although we did not have official ENS representation present, we had at least five stewards and one core team member, alisha.eth, present.
The Recap
- Community Stewards Spencecoin.eth and Coltron.eth were in attendance. Additionally, slobo.eth, ginge.eth, and simona.eth were there! If any more stewards were there and we missed you, let us know!
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A POAP was available to anyone who had a meaningful interaction with an ENS DAO Steward. This POAP focused on high-quality engagement rather than giving the POAP away wildly. We shared ~57 of these POAPS over three days. The founder of POAP, Patricio Worthalter, was among the recipients. Some recipients still need to be added due to an error with the POAP.
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The Community Stewards feel that we would benefit from more ENS presence at future IRL ENS events. As we exit the COVID-19 pandemic, these events will help drive engagement, education, and awareness of the ENS protocol.
An event booth would increase our touchpoints and enable us to answer questions about ENS in a personable way, especially to those who only have a surface-level understanding of the capabilities of ENS.
To this point, the Web3 and Developer communities are large. We should be mindful of maintaining an awareness that our Discord, Twitter, and governance forum generally captures engagement with people already inside our community and educated on the protocol.
Some of the common remarks heard, or questions received, were:
- “I have had an ENS name forever, but I don’t know what to do with it?”
- “When is Layer 2 support happening?”
- “Will ENS ever support Polygon?”
- “Gas fees are prohibitive for mainstream adoption.”
Common talking points that were discussed.
- You can mint sub-domains on ENS.
- This was either unknown, or its use-cases weren’t fully understood.
- Sample use case: Subdomains for users of communities or DAOs to build an on-chain identity and increase a sense of community through ownership of subdomains. e.g. username.communityname.eth.
- Sample use case: Subdomains issued to employees to increase on-chain visibility of app or project and provide resistance to impersonation. e.g. username.appname.eth.
- Sample use case: Numerous personal uses. e.g. name.surname.eth. or wallet.name.eth
- This was either unknown, or its use-cases weren’t fully understood.
- The upcoming name wrapper will make sub-domain management easier.
- EIP-3667 (CCIP Read), authored by our own Nick Johnson, will help with some L2 Support.
- An ENS front-end redesign is forthcoming.
Surprisingly, only a handful of people asked about the recent events surrounding Brantly.eth, and
some had no idea it even happened.
Conclusion
Overall, every interaction was a net positive. People were extremely excited to talk about ENS. Over half (63%) of those who received our POAP had an ENS Name.
Mainnet gas fees seemed to be a primary concern with ENS. For example, developers would like to mint subdomains for their users and onboard them via ENS, but costs are not currently feasible. Polygon support was requested a few times.
We should consider increasing presence at IRL events as we exit the Covid-19 pandemic. Personal interactions are irreplaceable, and it’s important not to get too focused on what is only happening in our own blogosphere or the Crypto Twitter bubble. The Community Stewards will discuss upcoming opportunities to increase IRL involvement in our upcoming meetings.
