When you use an Ethereum wallet, you’ll receive an arbitrary 42 character set of characters (starting with 0x) that corresponds to your Ethereum address, or PUBLIC key.
(note: this is different from your private key.)
For example, this is what a sample 42 character Ethereum address might look like:
0xb9c2C22et19Q8307cb9255e1Cu9CbDE883A267o1
Many apps and browsers already support ENS names.
some ENS supported applications. via ens.domains
Your .eth address is your web3 identity
Ultimately, this many characters is difficult to remember… and, it would be easy to make a type-o or mistake if you had to type it in every time you make a transaction.
To solve this problem, the Ethereum Name Service (or ENS) was created to build a sort of “address book” for the decentralized internet.
The ENS name allows people to associate their 42 character address with a short word or set of characters that is easy to remember, followed by “.eth” at the end.
Similarly to how you type in Google.com (rather than their server’s IP address) and it takes you to Google’s home page, an ENS address does this for web3.
Google DOES, by the way, have a public IP address, but isn’t it way easier to simply type in Google.com?
Your ENS address is tied to your Ethereum wallet
Your ENS name corresponds to your wallet and you can pick whatever name you want, as long as it is not already registered.
In many ways, your ENS is your username for web3 — ENS really is your Web3 identity.
Every ENS domain name is one of a kind… thus, non-fungible.
ENS addresses are NFTs
Each ENS name you register is an NFT that you own, and can be purchased / sold on secondary via Opensea, or X2Y2.
ENS names use the ERC-721 token standard on Ethereum. Read more about ENS as NFTs here.
ENS offers decentralized naming for wallets, websites, & more.
You can signup for an ENS name at ENS.DOMAINS, and connect to the app using your Metamask wallet.
via ens.domains
Registering an address shorter than 5 characters will incur an additional fee.
ENS names can only be registered by 1 wallet at a time, this has created a sort of competition or marketplace for some of the most sought after names.
For certain special and rare ENS names, some people pay BIG money.
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) addresses serve as usernames for web3, allowing people to associate their 42 character address with a shorter, easier to remember string of characters ending in .eth.
ENS addresses are owned by individuals, as NFTs.
Given that OpenSea data proves shorter ENS names can sell for more money, some of the most expensive ENS sales of all time have actually been frequently used English words.
Within that market, 3-digit names end up making up a large portion of those top sales, 555.eth being the highest, which sole for $162,975.20 based on the price of ETH at the time of sale.
Why are 3-digit ENS names valuable?
While popular words have a very easy to understand marketing appeal, the allure of 3-digit ENS names is a bit more intangible.
A few of the hypotheses include area codes – every jurisdiction in the United States has a specific 3-digit area code. Perhaps in the future, blockchain could bring some sort of architecture that enables people of these jurisdictions to associate their on-chain activities with their area code. Perhaps for tax implications? We can only speculate.
The other hypothesis is simple the scarcity of the 3-digit ENS names. Starting with 000, there are only 1000 combinations of 3 digits.
Having realized these factors, communities have organized around these ENS names, creating owners-only clubs.
The 999 club in ENS
The 999 club represents one of the most exclusive NFT clubs in the space today – numbered ENS names between 000.eth and 999.eth.
In contrast to the status-quo of 10,000 NFT collections, there will only ever be at most 1000 members of this NFT group.
However, a secondary numbers-only NFT club has emerged, with an order-of-magnitude more members – the 10k club – which represents 4-digit ENS names.
Below is the highest 3-digit ENS sales of all time, as of May 15, 2022.
Most Expensive 3 Digit .eth Addresses Sold
Sale Price (eth)
ENS name
55.5
555.eth
50
005.eth
35.5
035.eth
32.55
888.eth
32
006.eth
28.3
083.eth
25
025.eth 095.eth
23.8
038.eth
20
008.eth 105.eth 079.eth
19
123.eth 052.eth
18.88
661.eth
18.68
861.eth
18.3
268.eth 636.eth 767.eth
18.2
882.eth
18
868.eth 163.eth
17.5
027.eth
17
363.eth 170.eth
16.95
179.eth
16.9
980.eth 354.eth
16.85
850.eth
16.8
550.eth
16.78
978.eth
16.66
468.eth
16.3
063.eth
16.2
357.eth 704.eth
16
080.eth 970.eth 667.eth
15.8
048.eth
15.533
533.eth
15.3
530.eth
15.2
085.eth
15
728.eth 839.eth 114.eth
Have you claimed your ENS name yet?
Setup a crypto wallet and get a .eth address – your username for web3.
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) provides decentralized naming for wallets, websites, & more.
Ethereum names add “.eth” to the end of any set of characters, which can then resolve to a specific wallet address.
Why are ENS names important?
Individuals and businesses register ENS name to serve as usernames for web3.
ENS names enable users to associate their 42 character official address with a shorter name that’s easier to remember.
Budweiser / Anheuser Busch, for example, chose to register Beer.eth, making it easier for users to interact with their on web3 wallet.
Instead of 0x39dbfdd63fd491a228a5b601e0662a4014540347, users simply type Beer.eth.
ENS is the easiest system for direct wallet payments as well as user authentication to sign into dapps in the web3 space.
Which ENS addresses are the most valuable?
While ENS: Ethereum Name Service sales data on OpenSea suggests that shorter names tend to sell for more money, the highest dollar ENS names are those that represent actual commonly used words.
Because these words are used often in the public vernacular, marketing and PR professionals value these types of .eth addresses higher because they are more easily recognized and understood by the largest number of people.
Most Expensive .eth Addresses Sold
Each ENS address is a special type of NFT. Because of this, they can be sold and traded on secondary markets.
Below are the highest ENS sales of all time, as of May 15, 2022.
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) addresses are the usernames of web3. They enable users to associate their 42 character official address with a shorter name that’s easier to remember.
ENS addresses are owned by individuals, as NFTs. The length of characters has proven to be important for many users – people tend to prefer shorter names.
The shorter an ENS name, the more valuable it is
According to OpenSea data, shorter ENS names tend to sell for more money.
The market for 3-Letter ENS names specifically has become super popular recently.
There are 17,576 unique three-letter possible combinations for .eth addresses.
Below is the highest 3-Letter ENS sales of all time, as of May 13, 2022.
One of the hottest trending topics on the internet over the last few months has been NFTs.
not investment / not financial advice. do ur own research.
NFTs are digital collectibles that usually give the owner some sort of exclusive access – whether to artwork, discord groups, or even in-person events. Anyone can create and launch an NFT, in the same way that anyone can start a business and sell a product or service, but with NFTs, the underlying value of the asset is based on rarity, utility, and social hype. Those who want to be a part of a niche community are able to prove their ownership by having the NFT.
While any industry experiencing exponential growth will attract questionable (i.e. scam) projects, those of us who are long-term bullish on NFTs and crypto focus on the fundamentals and maintain ownership in NFT projects with competent teams and strong communities.
But market optimism may fade in the future; as the hype-cycle predicts, the peaking highs are often followed by steep cliffs.
My involvement with NFTs over the last few months has been complicated. I’ve been largely focused on my day job and, when the waves are good, sneaking out to surf while trying not to forget about my responsibilities. Investing has always been a long-term play and something I don’t feel the need to make changes to very often. Besides, everyone in the Ethereum community is patiently waiting for the Merge.
My NFT Plays:
As always, NONE of this is advice, guidance, or suggestions. Please don’t take anything here as investment advice and always do your own research.
The seven NFTs cost me $5,766.92 – and, according to estimates based on floor price, I’ve lost about $505.98 on paper when you include transaction fees.
Despite losing money in some areas, the projects below are the ones I’ve chosen to hold for the long term. Whether that means during a bear market or bull, I believe in these projects for the reasons I’ll share below.
That being said, its time to shill some NFTs:
1. Surf Punks NFT
After hearing about an NFT that gives holders access to surf sessions at wave pools around the world, I was interested. Seeing Koa Smith post something about it on Instagram as well as involvement from YouTubers like Nathan Florence made me realize there was a significant amount of hype behind the project.
Given that this would be my first NFT and mint was happening the following day, figuring out how to move funds to Metamask was a challenge of its own.
My initiation to the NFT game became hard-won when the exchange wouldn’t let me move funds. Familiarizing myself with the intricacies of web3 wallets via trial and error, I finally secured the 0.15 ETH for mint plus extra for transactions fees.
After minting surf punk 246 for 0.15 eth pre-reveal, I later purchased my second Surf Punk, number 273, for 0.69 ETH. The advantage of owning two Surf Punks is that you can bring a friend to events.
Months later and @TheSurfPunks community has been growing at a pace that feels organic. I’ve met and surfed with other holders in Hawaii, hosted Twitter spaces and spoken with the founder Andre, and the Surf Punks treasury has reserved the entire Waco, Texas wave pool for a private holder-only event in March.
2. Ranchy Rednecks
Twitter Spaces definitely become a source of edu-tainment about NFTs for hundreds of people every day including myself. One evening in December, during the Late Night Degens Twitter space, 3LAU, Steve Aoki, and like 500 other people helped 13 year old Nick sell out his NFT project in 2 hours.
The excitement that everyone had during that Twitter space was too much to not want to be part of it. So I decided to get in at mint price. Unlike my Surf Punks mint, I elected to mint two of these from the beginning.
I believe that purchasing two or three of an NFT in which you have conviction is a better move than buying just one because if it pops, you’re going to want to sell one to take profits and still be a part of the community. Owning more than one allows you to do that.
3. Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Names
After I learned that the .eth extensions would serve as your web3 username and wallet address, I immediately needed one.
As someone who builds websites and is a proponent of owning your own domain name / internet identity, the vision of ENS really makes sense, similar to the .com top level domain names of the traditional internet.
I purchased two ENS:
Epigenome.eth – after doing cancer research in college and majoring in chem, I believe in epigenetics as one of the key industries to help cure diseases and even extend human life one day.
LNR.eth – means love n respect; 3-letter ENS names are quite rare. With only 17,576 combinations, there’s a good chance that the 3-letter ENS names become more valuable as more people are onboarded to web3.
The way it works is that users pay to register and extend registration of the ENS name. Prices are currently set at $5/year for names 5 characters or longer, $160/year for names 4 characters in length, and $640/year for names 3 characters in length.
I do believe that ENS names will become much more valuable as web3 gains traction and becomes more ubiquitous – like many areas of web3, we’re still so early.
Additionally, ENS Domains were launched April 2017 – before Curio Cards and even CryptoPunks. Historical NFTs – that is, those first few NFT projects between 2015 and 2019 – are more valuable to some people because they were first and are thus are more original, more authentic, and more rare.
ENS is undoubtedly an OG NFT and depending which one you own, may become super valuable some day.
The floor price of various ENS names on OpenSea is around 0.006 eth as of 3/13/22, with sales in the last day of as much as 1 ETH.
Purposefully under-estimating the floor price as 0 in my Spending History Table at the bottom provides a realistic viewpoint and helps ensure I don’t over-inflate my own expectations of the portfolio.
4. Kooks NFT (number 69)
This NFT is unique in that it was a whitelist gift, and there was no cost or transaction fees associated with acquiring it. Additionally, it is the only NFT on the Polygon Network that I own
@KooksNft is a smaller project right now, but I was able to meet the founder during a Twitter Spaces event that I hosted and he growth of the NFT space means Kooks could serve a valuable position as helping educate people on surf etiquette and respecting the ocean.
5. Full Send Metacard
The Nelk Boys prank videos have been going viral across social media for years. Kyle’s candidness and ability to go off-script is a skill that few creators have.
Boasting 7.27M subscribers on YouTube, watching the Nelk Boys brand grow, improve the quality of the content, form partnerships with the UFC, and finally launch an NFT has been truly incredible. After bringing UFC owner Dana White onto the podcast, Dana is now a Metacard holder which is honestly so sick.
I’ve been following these guys on Instagram and YouTube but once I heard about their NFT launching, I knew that I had to jump on board.
Since I was not on the white list, my initial plan was to purchase one on secondary between the time of whitelist and the time of public sale.
I needed to think strategically.
With over 200,000 Discord members, the project was bound to sell out immediately and so the chances were almost zero that I would be able to get a Metacard during public sale.
During the Metacard minting event, with so much hype and website traffic, OpenSea CRASHED which made it impossible to purchase on secondary there.
At this point, the only way to get a Metacard was to venture into the web3 alternative exchanges – basically the real wild wild west of the internet, where you really have to watch out to protect yourself from getting scammed or having your assets stolen.
The risk of doing this is that you could easily end up buying a fraudulent NFT if you don’t verify that the smart contract and addresses are legit. After digging into Etherscan block explorers, downloading CSV files, and matching addresses, I made sure that I wasn’t about to pay for something fake.
I found a legit Metacard on secondary BEFORE the public sale started and successfully paid for and transferred it to my wallet.
With Full Send gyms on the horizon and new hilarious videos dropping every week, I couldn’t be more stoked for the future of Metacard community.
If you haven’t seen @KyleForgeard and the Nelk Boys’ YouTube videos, look them up immediately. Pranks and comedy is valuable for everyone, because we all need to laugh.
I’m still diamond-handing all of these to the moon.
Did I spend too much money on NFTs, or is this simply a healthy diversification of funds into a risky yet potentially exponential asset class?
You can analyze my spending history table below for yourself.
I’d also be curious to hear how you think NFTs will play a role in peoples’ lives over the next 3-5 years. Share a comment at the bottom and let me know what you thought.
Espresso Insight 