Reducing Renewal Fees for ENS Domains to Increase Adoption and Sustainability

Introduction: The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has the potential to play a major role in the decentralized web and provide a user-friendly way to access blockchain resources. However, the high cost of renewing ENS domains, particularly for short, memorable domains, can act as a barrier to adoption and limit the overall appeal of the ENS.

Proposal: In order to increase adoption and ensure the long-term sustainability of the ENS, we propose reducing the renewal fees for ENS domains as follows:

  • 3 character domains: 420$ per year
  • 4 character domains: 69$ per year
  • 5 or more characters: 11$ per year (Note: This fee was originally set at 5$ per year, but was increased to 11$ in order to maintain a balanced and sustainable fee structure for the ENS.)

Rationale: Reducing the renewal fees for ENS domains will have several benefits for the ENS and its users:

  1. Increased Adoption: By reducing the cost of renewing ENS domains, we can make the service more accessible and appealing to a wider range of users, encouraging greater adoption of the ENS and the decentralized web more broadly.
  2. Improved User Experience: Lower renewal fees will reduce the carrying costs for domain owners and make it easier for them to maintain their domains over the long term. This will lead to a better overall user experience and encourage greater use of the ENS.
  3. Financial Sustainability: While it is important to ensure that the ENS is financially sustainable, the current renewal fees for some domains may be too high to be sustainable over the long term. By reducing the fees for 3 and 4 character domains, we can ensure that the ENS is still financially sustainable, even with the decreased income from those domains. The increase in the fee for 5 or more character domains to 11$ per year helps to offset this decrease and maintain a balanced and sustainable fee structure for the ENS.

Conclusion: Reducing the renewal fees for ENS domains is a crucial step towards increasing adoption and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the ENS. By reducing the costs for domain owners, we can make the ENS more accessible, improve the user experience, and ensure that the ENS has the resources it needs to continue to evolve and improve.

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What percentage of 3 and 4 character alphabetical and alphanumeric names are currently registered? What is the renewal rate on these names? These are important questions you need to be able to answer before suggesting that prices are too high or too low.

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It is generally understood that short, memorable domains are in high demand and can command higher prices compared to longer domains.
The proposal i mentioned aims to reduce the renewal fees for 3 and 4 character domains to encourage wider adoption of the ENS while increasing the 5+ character domains in order to maintain a balanced and sustainable fee structure for the ENS.
We’ve around 50k 3ch domains with a (yearly) revenue of around 30$m , around 97k 4ch 15$m, +2mil l5+ch 10.3m$.
Proposed revenue for this data should change this to: 19.3$m for 3ch, 6.5$m for 4ch, 22.9$mil for +5 ch domains.
Of course the proposed renewals fees are the subject to be discussed.

When we discussed the price back in 2019, @nick.eth initially suggested $10 , community members said $1 then we settled on $5. The reason of making the ENS name price cheaper than other DNS names was the assumption that ENS names were still too early so high price will prevent the adoption of the names. It was surprising to see that the number of registration increased even during 2020 - 2021 gas surge. I am now thinking that $5 per name is probably too cheap.

One way to measure is to see the number of names per ethereum address over time. If the names per address for the base price has significantly increased over time, maybe time to discuss about increasing the base price. I don’t see the point of decreasing the price for 3-4 chars though. Even though the initial pricing were decided at somehow ad hoc, users can always chose longer characters if they think the price is too high.

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There are only 37^3 = 50,653 valid 3-character domains, so this would mean they are all registered - and that therefore the prices are, if anything, too low.

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I think you forgot the emojis here.
There are around 47k domains with 3 ch registered (if I’m not wrong here, can’t compute to be 100% sure)

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True; what proportion of 3 character alphanumeric domains are taken, and how many emoji domains?

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Agreed , of course it’s cheap if 2% of the registered names (3 ch) making the protocols 50% of revenue. Increasing base (5+ ch) decreasing 3 & 4 not only for that reason.
Got a dm from a friend:

Friend: since you’re the only one i know that knows a lot about ens, whats your thoughts on this? ,meh?
*sends screenshot with a 3ch domain (example: o55.eth / f33.eth…)
Me: not bad. but really , dont under estimate the renewal fees. 1 year 640$.
Friend: yep its bad.

Pretty sure he might thought twice about it if the fees were a bit lower.

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As i said , im not able to compute the metrics properly to show 100% reliable numbers but 3ch domains count should be around 46.000.
Since you said there is only 50,653 valid 3-character, you can add up to 111 possible 0x(emoji) (single codepoint emojis) + possible 1326 single emojis + also some alphanumeric and mixed 3ch domains. So the possibilities are a lot.
And lets not forget about the recent hyphen combinations with numbers.
It’s important to note that the number of possible domains is constantly changing, as new domains are being registered and existing domains expiring .
The minds of people working to create a lot of these combinations can be motivated by various factors, such as personal or commercial use, speculation, or simply a desire to register a unique domain.
Changes to the fee structure could impact the cost of registering new domains, which could also affect the number of domains being registered. Overall, the state of the ENS domains is closely tied to the renewal fee structure,

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I gathered a few stats for myself:

  • The total number of unique 3-character names that have ever been registered is 49,902.
  • Only 16,353 are still registered today.
  • Of those, 8,428 use only a-z (48% of possible), and a further 3,170 (11% of possible) are alphanumeric.
  • The peak was in August 2022, when 27,933 3-character names were registered.

These figures better support the idea that the price for 3-character domains might be too high, but I’d personally like to see more evidence that a decrease in price would lead to a corresponding increased usage of the 3-character namespace.

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I think it would be hard to give “evidences” since it lies in the complexity of market behavior and the multitude of factors that influence it.
The price of these names is determined by market, including supply and demand.
A decrease in price could “potentially” lead to an increase in demand for these names.
I guess the “friend” i mentioned above is not the only one with this thought about registering a short domain (wich is obviously not highly valuable to a wide audience), we can argue that this might be a very small amount of ppl but, let’s think about the simple “nice to have” case.
“i’d like to have r33.eth, 5-1.eth, x_2.eth , today it would cost 1920$ for 3 years. Thinking twice about if the price was 1260$”
Maybe testing the impact of renewal fees on the usage of the 3ch domains, would be better to conduct a experiment and track the registrations, so not like proposed decreasing from 640$ to 420$.

Maybe something like this: 3ch 550$ , 4ch 120$ , 5+ ch 7,5$ …

Some might complain with “you want to increase the cost of 95% of ppl up to 50% ?” but we saw the massive spikes in registrations from May to August 2022.
Registering names with gas fees of around 20-50$ but complaining about a 2.5$ yearly renewal fee would not make sense here.

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I will elaborate on my view later, but for now, I have one suggestion.

Announce that from 01.01.2024. the renewal price of 3-char will be no higher than 50/y and for 4-char no higher than $20/y, but with a condition that on the 1st of December 2023 at least let’s say 15000 3L domains are registered with no expiration before 01/01/2024. Make it public on Twitter and ENS.domains above the registration field.

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3-4 characters must have renewal at a max $50/y and $20/y. Even that would be high, but could go through.

Anything above is killing ENS.

Check .cars. A great new gTLD, but dead because of the registration/renewal fee of $2,400/year.

There is no healthy domain space with unregistered 3Ls and even 3-characters.

Out of 17576 3Ls, there are about 9000 available/premium/grace. The majority of those 9000 is available to reg and the number is growing, although the real renewal season is yet to come.

My suggestion is that ENS DAO should announce that the renewal fee for 3/4 characters will be no higher than $50/y and $20/y, from 01.01.2024. That should be announced ASAP, at the ens.domains app above the registration field and all over the Crypto Twitter.

I don’t understand why ENS DAO is so greedy and blind. Let’s do some math:

Soon we will have no more than 5000 registered 3Ls (maybe even less). With the current renewal price, that is $3,200,000/year from renewal fees for ENS DAO.

Lets say there are 20000 currently registered 4Ls. That currently yields $3,200,000

So, 3Ls + 4Ls currently yield approx $6,400,000/y (or it will soon, as the number of registered 3Ls-4Ls is rapidly dropping).

If we would have 17576 registered 3Ls (I am 100% sure it would be the case with a renewal fee of a max $50/y) then ENS DAO would be getting $878,800/year.

There is about 50000 3-character domains in total (could be wrong as I don’t know how to calculate emojis etc). If the renewal would be no higher than $50/y we would have all 3Ls registered and at least 10000 other 3-characters registered, so ENS DAO would be getting at least $1,378,800/y)

Within a year we would have all 4Ls registered and many other 4-characters registered. Let’s say we have just 4Ls registered. That would be 456976. That means it would yield $9,139,520/y.

I will not count other 4-character regs now.

So, only with 3Ls and 4Ls registered (only under the condition that the renewal is lowered), ENS DAO would be getting $10,000,000/year, compared to a current approx of $6,400,00.

Again, by executing my suggestion, it would be $10,000,000/year for ENS DAO compared to $6,400,000/y.

Not just that the difference is almost $4,000,000, but it would be the best marketing move as well, and for free! There would be a lot more sales, people would get curious and start entering ENS. Mainstream media would write about it, and so on and so on. Average Joe would definitely choose .eth for his Web3 identity and crypto wallet instead of any other Web3 extension, if he would be constantly reading about high sales of .eth and would not read the same about .x or other Web3 extensions.

I am in the domain space for about 20 years. I know what I am talking about. Go check Namepros. Investors are scared of even a premium domain in a good new gTLD, if the renewal price is higher than $50/y. Check the wanted section. If someone is asking for something other than .com, it is mostly always highlighted that the renewal should not be higher than $50/year. Those demands often come from people who are ready to spend $x,xxx or $xx,xxx on a single domain, but are not ready to pay more than $50/y just for the renewal. When selling domains outbound, if you are selling a domain with a renewal fee higher than $50/y, if you mention that to your prospective buyer, no matter how good the domain is and how much is the deal worth (it could be $x,xxx or even $xx,xxx), you will likely lose that potential sale. Talking from experience. Cant even imagine how would potential end-user react if I would try to sell him a domain with a yearly renewal fee of $640. Ridiculous!

Why I am so sure that with $50/$20 renewal we would have all 3Ls and 4Ls registered? Because we already had all 3Ls registered during the May-September 2022 hype. But that was not sustainable as it was just a hype. The main reason why I am so sure they all would be registered and would STAY registered is because in any domain space one of the first choices are 3Ls and very often 4Ls.
It would be a peace of cake to have 17576 registered 3Ls if the renewal would be no higher than $50/y. Then investor and end-users would switch to 4Ls if the renewal would be no higher than an acceptable $20/y. In less than a year, all 4Ls would be registered. Then would additional investors come. With them, many new end-users would come.

With all 3Ls and 4Ls registered, we could keep building. End-user would come as they would feel this is a desirable extension. When someone sees 3Ls available, how anyone could expect that that person will believe this is the top extension and that he should not search further?

End-users could and some will come even now, but for many, ENS would be just one of the options. ENS has the potential to become the ultimate king, the .com of Web3, but currently is killing that potential with ridiculous renewal prices.

Recently .btc stood up from the dust. Their renewal is less than $1 for a 5-year period. Does anyone really think that many potential ENS users will not choose .btc and be lost forever for ENS? Some will say .eth and .btc are not easy. Think about more than 2 days further. Its is easy to be confident in ENS now, when .btc don’t have 1% of dApps that .eth could use. A few weeks ago we saw the born of BTC Ordinals. Some BTC dApps are already announced, some .btc integrations and utilities/usabilities are already announced. Imagine how many BTC dApps usable by .btc will be out there in a period of 1-3 years! Don’t ignore that!
Moreover, the .btc will become the address of BTC wallets. We know which cryptocurrency is the king and will stay the king, no matter someone’s wishful thinking. No one should be fooling himself that ETH will overtake. Yes, ETH has a lot of potentials and will do a lot of great things and raise in value, but BTC is and will stay the only true king. Many BTC users will without a doubt choose .btc when it develops itself a little bit more, unless before that .eth become a true mainstream. It will not become that with the current renewal prices.

We are fooling ourselves. Unstoppable also has a lot of registered names, and add Handshake, now .btc and future competitors so you will probably realize that ENS is not safe at all! Even OpenSea currently offers 0% fees!!! They realized that X2X and some other competitors could hurt them in a long run. ENS DAO should not be stubborn, and we all should not be quiet! Even if I would have only 1 .eth domain with 5+ characters, I would want to see that .eth are traded every day and that the volume is really high. That would not be the case in a sustainable way with the current renewal prices, I can guarantee you that. I am long enough into domains to know that both, the end-user and investors will not be convinced to enter any extension with short names unregistered.

The gas fee is also a problem. We don’t know if the gas fee will be $5 or $50 or even $100+ in the upcoming period. For the last few weeks you cant register .eth for less than $10 in total. The registration/renewal price of $5/y is great, but nobody cares what is the part of the price. All are interested only in what they are paying in total, and currently you need $15-$20 (on a good day) to register/renew .eth wtih 5+ characters. Thats the limit that is acceptable. With the ridiculously high renewal of 3/4-characters ENS is becoming to expensive and there is a competition.

No, I don’t like Unstoppable, I don’t like Handshake. I don’t like the idea of no renewal either. I just don’t like the high renewal price of .eth as it kills the extension and I am 100% sure about that.

But if you ask about .btc? Hmmmm. Currently, they are on their way to overtaking millions of potential ENS users. Imagine what would happen if .btc could be traded on OpenSea? Gamma is slow and people don’t know about it or don’t trust it yet, but it’s still early and other marketplaces will show up or Gamma will improve. If we react now, and drastically lower the renewal, we will still have time to establish .eth as an unquestionable king among the Web3 extensions before .btc gets noticed by the masses and before there will be a lot of BTC dApps. But if we don’t react now, I am sure ENS will enter into serious problems. Everything could be shiny again with a single move from ENS DAO, lowering the renewal prices. Simple as that.

I am not bothered with the carry cost as much as I am concerned about the consequences of that to the whole ENS ecosystem. As I mention, no way ENS could be healthy with unregistered short domains, and if nothing changes, in the best-case scenario we will have partly registered short domains with many 1-month regs. That is not sustainable.

Some true ENS end-users don’t like domain investors and flippers. Thats wrong. Investors and flippers are good for any domain space. They are the ones who bring confidence to end-users that they will be able to get money for their .eth when they will not need it anymore. They are who bring additional value to domains. They are who bring interest as when you hear that beer.eth or SKY.eth or DDB.eth sold for $100,000, you as a potential end-user will prefer .eth over Unstoppables .x or some other Web3 extension. When there is a lot of .eth official sales every day, for some reasonable amounts, that is proof that this extension is alive and desirable.
If we want to be honest, the whole current raise of ENS was done by investors, flippers and speculators. Real end-users are yet to come, currently there are not many of them.

If there were no digits, .eth would already be in the dust. But I know how the digits game will end. Sooner or later, all the 999club .eths (3D.eths) will end in the diamond hands and there will be not a lot of volume in that club anymore as owners will hold. Check .com 3Ns. Then 4D.eths will follow. And what then? To rely on words for the volume? With 3Ls available and a ridiculous renewal price? With no volume, there will be no additional interest. For Web3 identity and crypto wallets, sooner or later .btc would be the choice of many (if .eth doesn’t destroy the competition now when there is a chance).

So to conclude…

I don’t know if it is forbidden to question the renewal price, but can’t understand it is not the bigger issue in the community. I would not say a word if there are all 3Ls and 4Ls sustainably registered, not for a 1-month period by flippers, but we see it is not the case and the reason is obvious. Not just that all short names are not registered even for 1 month, but the number of registered 3Ls is only the half of supply and rapidly dropping! Nobody serious will have confidence in the extension which has 3Ls available, the foundation of any successful extension.

At some point last year all 3Ls were registered, but that was only the hype and was not sustainable. It would be better that we grow slower than that we skyrocket and then fall rapidly. Check the market, check premiums, check grace, and you will see this is not sustainable. Ok, almost 3 million registered domains is a good thing, but it will not continue in a good way with all the competition if we don’t lower the renewals now!

My suggestion…

If needed, raise the registration/renewal price of 5+ characters to $10 (better not, but do it if you have to).
Announce that from 01.01.2024. the registration/renewal of 3/4 characters will be no higher than a $50/y and $20/y. That is the absolute maximum that could work.
Keep the current prices until 01.01.2024. and I am sure 3Ls and 4Ls will start being registered/renewed even now with the current price as investors/users will want to be sure they will have the desired domain when the renewals go down.

That way ENS DAO will earn MUCH MORE than it would if nothing will be changed. More importantly, this will SAVE ENS and push away the competition.

DEFINITELY NO!

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY TRYING TO TAKE POOR GUY’S PENNY CASH AND THEN JUST SEND THEM TO ELON MASK.

HERE ARE THE REASONS I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOUR IRRESPONSIBLE SUGGESTIONS:

1, THERE ARE RELATIVILY-RARE AMOUNTS OF 3 OR 4-CHARACTER DOMAINS IN THE WHOLE SYSTEM.

2, THE RARER RESOURCES, THE HIGHER PRICE.

3, IF THE COST GETS DOWN FOR VERY RARE RESOURCES, IT WILL ONLY PROTECT THE EARLY BIRDS BUT HAS NO ADVANTAGES FOR NEW USERS.

4, EARLY BIRDS GET THEIR RETURNS FROM THE MARKET AND IT’S QUITE REASONABLE.

5, IF THERE IS NO NEW USER, ENS HAS NO FUTURE.

6, FOR ENS or ANY OTHER DIDs, YOU EITHER USE IT AS YOUR ID, OR YOU TRADE IT ON MARKET.

7, IF YOU HOLD IT ONLY(BECAUSE YOU HAVE A VERY LOW COST TO THE RARE IDs) THEN THE WHOLE SYSTEM WILL COLLAPSE.

8, AFTERALL, an ID is an ID, REGARDLESS WHOM TO USE IT AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN EASY RECOGNISED SYMBLE/MARK FOR SOMEBODY/SOMETHING, AND IT IS A VERY ESSENTIAL PURPOSE AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF ANY ID SYSTEM.

9, ANY ECO SYSTEM SHOULD NEVER, NEVER RISE A HIGHER ENTRY COST FOR POTENTIALLY NEW USERS IF NEW USERS ARE NECESSARY.

10, I HEARD YOU GUYS WANT TO GRANT PUBLIC GOODS APPLICATIONS RECENTLY, RIGHT?

THEREFORE I WOULD LIKE TO SUGGEST:

PLEASE DO NOT AGREE WITH SUCH SUGGESTIONS.

IT IS A SILLY BACKWARD MOVE, I MEAN SERIOUSLY.

I have no idea what you are implying here. That doesn’t make any sense. As i mentioned above, raising the renewal fees from 5$ to 7.5$ should not be the problem here. Anyone in the ETH ecosystem with an registered ENS should be able top the difference up of 2.5$ or even 5$.
We saw the massive spikes in registrations from May to August 2022 with txn fees of 20-50$.
While it’s true that there are relatively rare amounts of 3 or 4-character domains in the ENS system, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they should have significantly higher renewal fees. The proposed fee structure is designed to strike a balance between the rarity of the domain and the need for financial sustainability for the ENS.
Reducing the renewal fees for ENS domains can have advantages for both early adopters and new users. Lower fees make the ENS more accessible, which can encourage greater adoption and use of the system. This, in turn, can create a more robust market for ENS domains, benefitting both early adopters and new users. It’s not necessarily true that holding onto an ENS domain because of a low renewal fee will cause the system to collapse. In fact, lower renewal fees can encourage more people to hold onto their domains, which can make the ENS more attractive to new users.

In any ecosystem, there are costs associated with maintaining and improving the system, and it’s important to find a balance between these costs and accessibility for new users.

The fees for 3ch (50$) domains and 4ch (20$) domains are significantly lower than the current fees. It’s possible that these proposed fees are too low to support the ongoing maintenance and development of the ENS.
It may make sense to start with a more moderate reduction in fees rather than a radical reduction to avoid potential negative consequences.
A radical reductio could lead to unanticipated consequences such as overwhelming demand or a potential shortfall in funding for the ENS.
I’d propose something like that maybe:

Option A:
3ch domains → 500$
4ch domains → 100$
5+ch domains → 7.5$

Option B:
3ch domains → 420$
4ch domains → 69$
5+ch domains → 10$

Option C:
3ch domains → 350$
4ch domains → 75$
5+ch domains → 10$

That is your opinion. Fair. However, I can’t agree with you and will try to explain why.

In short, the market told us that it is not ready to pay $640/$160 per year for short names. That should be a strong enough argument.

I will remind you, we had all 3Ls registered at some point last year, and now is about half if the supply is available again, and the number of registered 3Ls rapidly dropping.

Ok, so that could mean that popular words and personal names (Crypto.eth, Bitcoin.eth, Identity.eth, Investing.eth, Jack.eth, John.eth, Marck.eth etc) should also have ridiculously high renewal. Those are rare and very valuable. Some extensions have premium domains and premium renewals, but I don’t want .eth to be like that.

When you secure the name, you price it at as much as you like. The market will tell you if your pricing is fair, just as the market now decided that the current registration/renewal level is too high. The carry cost should not be high. I have nothing against the current prices of registration but am strongly against any renewal fee above $50/y for 3-character and $20/y for 4-chars.

I am an early bird from 2017 when I couldn’t register any name below 7 characters.

I agree. But cheaper 3/4 characters could only attract new users. Especially because they will see this is a desirable Web3 extension. You can’t have a healthy domain space with more than half the supply of short names unregistered! I know what I am talking about and I am into domains for 20 years.

No, that keeps the market alive. Check .com and their 3N.coms (3D.eths translated to .eth). You have a standard renewal price of let’s say 800.com, which is a turbo premium name worth millions. The same is with any other short .com, no matter if someone is just holding it or using it. Someone who wants a short .com will pay the market price or will go to some longer .com. That’s how to market works and we should not try to change it.

I want one specific 3-character .eth as my Web3 identity. It’s no problem that I pay a premium to purchase it, but NO WAY I will be paying 640/year just to have it. That is ridiculous.

Agree. But read it again :slight_smile: You are telling that we should not have an aftermarket with a market price of registered domains and that all domains should be cheap for registration and renewal :wink:

ENS DAO would earn more by LOWERING the renewal price of short .eths, as I explained in my previous post. I would even be ready to accept a higher registration/renewal price of 5+ characters (but not higher than $10, or $15 as an absolute maximum) if that is the condition to have a $50/$20 renewal price of short names. However, if 5-chars would be $15/y, and we don’t know what the gas fee will be, it could easily end up as $50+ to register/renewl 5+ character .eth, which is also really too much.

I suggested that END DAO announce now that the renewals will be $50/$20 only AFTER 01.01.2024. That would secure some additional funds for DAO from the current pricing and would present a fair chance for everyone to get their wanted name now while thousands of short names are available for registration.

Now you can still pick some great short names that are available. Everyone still has a chance to grab their desired name.

There are not many end-users who will be ready to pay $640/y for their Web3 identity when they can have the same for a one-time cost of much less, or at the worst case for a few dollars per year. ENS is not alone in the market.

Some will say they could go for a 5+ character for just $5/y. Yes, but read my previous post. If short names are available in a domain space, this extension will not look desirable and will definitely not be considered the best choice. We need strong aftermarket with a lot of volumes and we need all short names to be taken to have a healthy and desirable domain space. Talking from my 20-year experience with domains, from .com to new gTLDs.

We can ignore .btc today, but I am telling you, it should not be ignored and now is the last chance for ENS to cornerstone its Web3 position or ENS will become just one of many Web3 identity choices.

What does an average Web3 user need? Only his Web3 identity and a domain as his crypto wallet address. All other fancy stuff is really not needed by the majority. So, does anyone really think that .btc or some other competitor will not be able to provide the only two things that an average Web3 user will need? All that for a fraction of the cost compared to ENS.

Again, a $50/$20 renewal cost of short .eths is the absolute maximum I find sustainable in a long run. Not a dollar above that.

I am sure ENS DAO will realize that and will lower the renewal price to that level within a maximum of 3 years, but it will probably be too late. We should act NOW, as competition is popping up. As I said, even a giant like OpenSea lowered their fee to 0% as they realized they are not alone in the market.

Then the solution would be to raise 5+ chars price to $10/y. Let’s say we have 2 million constantly registered 5+ chars. That means with a $10/y renewal price DAO would be getting $20 million from those regs, instead of the current $10M. It would lose less by lowering a renewal price of 3/4 chars to a $50/$20 and we see that the number of registered short names rapidly dropping.

Yes, we will have another bull run in crypto and in ENS, but it will end the same as the last one, with a lot of 1-month regs (even many 5+ chars were registered on only 1 month) and after the hype, the majority will be available again.

I would say we need an immediate and drastic reduction of fees, to a max of $50/$20 per year. It would result in a bull run on short .eth names, and it would attract the interest of mainstream media. Aftermarket would also be booming as all of the sudden we will see the power of short names and many currently unregistered 3Ls would be sold on OpenSea and other markets for 4 and 5-figure amounts, as the buyers will know they will not need to pay another $640 for it each year and $50/y should be acceptable to anyone who wants to have a short .eth. I am into ENS, but can clearly tell that I am not ready to pay more than $50 for my Web3 identity and wallet why I can have the same elsewhere for less. I will pay a premium to get the wanted name, but will not pay a premium each year to carry it.

I appreciate you started this thread and raised awareness of this issue, but I don’t agree even with that :slight_smile:

My suggestion:

3ch domains → $50/y
4ch domains → $20/y
5+ch domains → $5/y-$10/y

Not a cent above that :wink: And this should be announced NOW, not later. Again, DAO should announce it now (ASAP), and it should go live from 01.01.2024. That way DAO will profit at the current pricing from a bull run which will start for a short names after the announcement and at the same time will save ENS and attract additional interest as the aftermarket will become more active, we will not have a terrible renewal season we all are expecting now and everything will be great. Mainstream media and the general population interest would also come and ENS will get its crown for the kind of Web3 extension. At this moment, this crown is not our undeniable property.

Just to add…there is no risk at all that DAO would earn less. I added some calculations in my earlier post, and DAO can raise the price of 5+ chars to $10/y just to be sure that approx 2 million of 5+ chars will bring additional money.

But it’s not about the money, it’s about ENS. We need an interest in ENS and by executing my suggestion we will get free marketing from mainstream media as they will get interested when the ENS aftermarket start skyrocketing, which is a sure thing with many new 3/4 chars sales that will start to happen.

P.S. I just checked, and there are more than 3,000,000 registered Unstoppable domains (personally I don’t like them and I am against no renewals at all). Also, currently, more than 200,000 .btc domains are registered.

Unstoppable has no renewal at all (I don’t like it), and it looks like people prefer that (although it is not good for the extension in a long run). Although I don’t like the “no renewal idea”, an Average Jobe obviously likes it. So ENS should really act ASAP and lower the renewal price of short names to get additional interest (I explained why) while it will not be too late.

.btc are at 200,000+ registration. Dont forget it is BTC, the most recognizable and desirable name in the world of crypto. You may prefer ETH, and someone else may prefer BNB or some shitcoin as it may provide more profit, but BTC is BTC and will stay the king. By having a .btc Web3 extension, which has a registration period of 5 years at a cost less than $1 (for a 5-year period), with no high “gas fee” when registering/trading, don’t expect that ENS will win without acting to gain more interest now.

As I said, .btc will soon be able to accept BTC payments, it should be expected that it will be able to redirect other payments in cryptos. Moreover, .btc can even now serve as a Web3 identity. We saw how suddenly Ordinals came. In the same way will come many new BTC dApps. After all, Average Joe knows Bitcoin and trusts it most, so it is a no-brainer that he will choose .btc over .eth. Unless ENS DAO starts acting NOW and attracts the interest of mainstream media again. I wrote what would trigger that.

I would not like the 5chars reg price to go up from $5/y, but if DAO is scared of loss of profit (which would not happen as explained), that would be an acceptable compromise, but only to $10/y or in some extreme way temporarily to a max of $15/y (but I think anything above $10/y would be really too much having in mind the gas price that should be added).

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These numbers seem entirely made up. Do you have any foundation for them?

Any discussion about renewal or registration fees needs to step back and take a couple of things into account:

  • The goal of registration fees is to regulate the system by ensuring that names remain available for registration on primary, which increases liquidity (it’s easy to find and buy a name that’s meaningful to the user) and usability. Doing this also redirects some of the economic surplus from speculators and squatters to the DAO, but the goal is not to extract maximum profit.
  • If all names of a certain type are registered, that is a signal that the fee is too low. We should want to see some percentage of 3- and 4- character names unregistered, because if even the least appealing name is registered, that’s a sign that the fee is too low and users wanting 3- and 4- character names will have to resort entirely to the secondary market.

The only reason a user would need to be concerned about the resale value of their name is because they had to pay a high price to acquire it in the first place.

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Yes.

We also saw all 3Ls being registered, so it is not a question they would be registered again if the renewal price would be $50. The registration price could stay at $640, but it is crazy to expect that end-user will pay 640/y just for renewal when they will be able to get the same or similar utility for free or for a few bucks per year.

So the only question from my numbers is if all 4Ls will be registered. I wrote yes, but within a year.

We would have almost instantly registered all words and CVCV + VCVC. Still more than 400000 4Ls to be registered. Then it would be registered CVCV + VCVC where some will consider a “Y” as a vowel. Then we will see the registration of Western premium 4Ls and then Chinese premium 4Ls. That would happen in a few weaks or months at the latest (with the renewal price of no higher than $20/y for a 4-chars).

You can count on many registrations of domains like JJ88.eth, JL88.eth, BB55.eth and then even HG17.eth etc.

Within a year, investors will register all 4Ls and many 3/4-chars. I don’t know how to prove this, but I am into domains for 20 years and I know how domain investors react.

We all saw what happened with digits in .eth, and what happened with 3Ls, but only temporarily.

I am sure within a year all 456k of 4Ls will be registered if the renewal price will be no higher than a $20/y, and then you can take my numbers from the previous post as a sure thing.

Well, I think the market is the only legitimate regulator. It is not a problem if all 3Ls and 4Ls are registered. Just as it is not a problem with .com where that is the case. The end-user can always try to buy its desired name. Speculators are not get married with their domains, the most are looking for a quick flip. Those who will ask too much will not have sales, and will have to lower their price. Those who will be realistic with their prices will be having sales, and that will be giving liquidity to this market.

And we have the opposite situation. The number of available really good 3Ls is almost half of the supply and the number of registered 3Ls constantly dropping. DAO is maybe waiting for the next bull run, but it will be the same. Temporary registration for 1 month, and then a drop again.

Sorry, but I don’t agree. ENS is here for almost 6 years. I don’t think we should wait for the next 2 decades that each willing end-user to come and pick his name. He can always get what he wants on the aftermarket.

Moreover, I am 100% sure that an average end-user will not be ready to pay $640/y just to have their 3L or 3char. And now I go back again, if we have available the foundations of every successful domain space (short names) then we can’t expect success in the long run.

I also mentioned the impact on the whole ENS market and how that would attract the mainstream media interest, which would be free top-level marketing.

BTW, don’t forget the competition. If we don’t do something now, ENS might not be the king and will become just one of many solutions for Web3 identity. Check STX token today. It is skyrocketing. Probably some news related to Stacks, and .btc extension will benefit from that. Then check the number of .btc registrations. It is above 200000 now and growing. With new BTC dApps, I am not sure that .eth will remain the boss. Then DAO can set registration to $10,000/y or to $1/y, it would not matter anymore.