Domain name registration "rolls" into emojis? New impetus for ENS's counter-trend rise

Over the past week, many Ethereum users have been betting big on Ethmoji (Emoji ENS domain name), with ❤?.eth being sold for 100 ETH, or about $160,000, setting the seventh-highest USD transaction record in Ethereum domain name service history (tied for the fifth-highest transaction record in history when denominated in ETH).

Since April this year, the style of ENS popular domain names has gradually become "outrageous".

At first, users would screen some keywords, names, and crypto-related words for registration. Later, people began to register 3- and 4-digit numbers in large numbers. These ENS domain names with fewer letters are easier to read, spell, and search. When all the "auspicious numbers" were registered, everyone began to compete to register language domain names in different countries and 24-hour domain names based on xxhxx.eth. When market sentiment was low and blue-chip NFTs fell one after another, ENS remained popular. In the end, everyone jumped out of the framework of text and numbers and moved towards Ethmoji (Emoji ENS domain name), which is more intuitive and naturally has meme factors in its communication mode.

From the perspective of the ENS trading market, Ethmoji has a total of 6 categories, namely single emoji, double emoji, triple emoji, and domain names composed of two, three, and four emojis. Among them, according to ens.vision statistics on July 26, triple emoji sales temporarily ranked first, with 24-hour sales of 41 ETH and a total transaction volume of 433 ETH. The domain name composed of two emojis has the highest floor price of 17 ETH. In contrast, the domain name composed of four emojis is much cheaper, with a floor price of 0.0039 ETH.

Ethmoji = ETH native PFP + utility DID NFT

Why is Ethmoji so popular? We try to analyze the following reasons.

From the overall market situation, the recent market turmoil has exceeded historical levels. Major projects and institutions have suffered a lot in the liquidity crisis in the past few months, and panic has spread to this day. DeFis that once relied on the high returns brought by incentive plans to survive the "lying down and making money" era have gradually become silent. Compared with old projects, many new projects with high financing and strong backgrounds have appeared in the market recently, but they are still in the early stages and cannot allow investors to get high returns in the short term. As the NFT that led the last round of bull market, although many projects with blue-chip potential or strong creativity have been born during this period, their gameplay cannot escape the trilogy of Free mint, synthesis and coin issuance, and most NFTs can only gain temporary popularity. Therefore, in a market with low sentiment and aesthetic fatigue, the emergence of Ethmoj is like giving people a shot of stimulant.

Ethmoj carries Emoj expressions, which were born in the traditional Internet era and have some collective memories and give people a sense of intimacy. At the same time, these expressions eliminate the seriousness and tediousness of language communication, and can express negative emotions such as negativity, dissatisfaction, and perfunctory in a more relaxed and lively way. Its entertainment attributes also play the role of a "lubricant" for online communication. Secondly, the professional image in Emoj is very close to real life. You can register an Ethmoj with the same profession as your own. For example, ??.eth can intuitively represent your profession. This expression of cultural identity is similar to PFP NFT. In addition, the ENS domain name is part of our decentralized identity. It can be used as a potential universal login method for all Web3 things, and its personal characteristics are strong.

Just like Bayc, CryptoPunk, etc. represent an individual’s identity in the metaverse, Ethmoj can also quickly gain momentum as a vehicle for self-disclosure and showing off, just like PFP NFT.

Unique rarity classification

How is the rarity of an Ethmoji determined?

Each Emoji consists of 1-5 code points, but is displayed as one character. Since the minimum number of digits in an ENS domain name is 3, for those emojis that consist of at least 3 code points, they can create a single-character ENS domain, and on this basis, double, triple, and random Ethmojis can be derived. In terms of rarity classification, the rarity of the same type of expressions can be judged by the different characteristics of the same type of expressions. For example, how many cat head expressions are there in all Emojis, and what unique features do these cat head expressions have? The rarer the characteristics, the higher the rarity. For the classification of Ethmoji rarity, you can refer to @TheZombieth's post.

The current supply of Emoji is 1326 single expressions, 1325 triple combinations, and 865 double combinations, which makes its total supply 3516. Compared with the PFP NFT, which has a supply of around 8000, the limited quantity can easily cause FOMO.

Strong exposure and spreadability set off a wave of popularity

Since Shegetaka Kurita created Emoji in 1999, Emoji has been continuously enriched and developed. It has now become the main form of daily communication to replace non-verbal clues such as body movements and facial expressions, and has become a widely used communication tool in the world. The universality of Emoji is also easy for all cultures to understand. It is this universality that quickly allowed the consensus of the Ethmoji community to be formed.

Ethmoji holders spontaneously formed the EthmojiClub and derived digital Emoji domain names, namely Ethmoji99 and Ethmoji999. In addition, we saw Twitter @address_eth and @TheZombieth publish popular science content on Ethmoji classification, rarity, use cases, and future prospects. As long as you search for Twitter content with Ethmoji or ENS tags, you will most likely see them. This also makes these contents have a certain influence on Twitter, further increasing the attention of Ethmoji and setting off a craze in a short period of time.

Summarize

What are the numbers like after a week of Ethmoji hype?

According to ens.vision data, we found that the 24H transaction volume of the triple emoji, which ranked first in the Ethmoji daily sales list 2 days ago, has dropped from 41 ETH to 1.57 ETH, and the total transaction volume is 437 ETH. Compared with the data 2 days ago, it has only increased by 4 ETH. At this time, the number of tweets related to it on Twitter is also decreasing. It can be seen that after the hype has subsided, its sales have also plummeted.

In addition, Ethmoji chips are relatively concentrated. Someone bought 7 Ethmoji 99 domain names for a total of 101.35 ETH within 6 hours, accounting for 7% of the supply (there are 100 Ethmoji 99 domain names in total), which also brought its floor price from 7 ETH to 18.5 ETH.

Therefore, we can also see that the essence of Ethmoji's popularity is actually the product of community promotion. At the peak of FOMO sentiment, a few high-value transactions increased the overall transaction volume. Therefore, if you do not have actual use needs (or really like it) and have missed the best time to enter the market, it is recommended that you do not become a contributor to the bubble.