Behind ENS domain names and boring apes, Web3 users need a sense of identity

There are two things that have attracted attention in the NFT circle recently. One is the rapid increase in the number of ENS domain name registrations, especially short digital domain names. The other is that brands such as Greenland and Li Ning have begun to purchase the Boring Ape NFT. The famous investor Zhu Xiaohu has begun to pay attention to the Boring Ape. NFT has been all over the screen again. Many people are lamenting that the NFT circle is progressing so fast, and people with strong hands-on skills may already be on the road to buying.

Behind the popularity of domain names and Bored Ape

The popularity of Bored Ape has made it a symbol of the status of high-end wealthy people, which is the current view of most people on Bored Ape. There is not much problem with this view. For now, Bored Ape does symbolize the wealth of holders in the web3 or blockchain industry, just like the brand-name clothing, luxury cars, watches, and precious jewelry of ancient dignitaries. When people's wealth reaches a certain level, many people hope to be able to distinguish themselves from most ordinary people in order to show their uniqueness. Therefore, these matters that reflect status appear in different eras and have the characteristics of the times.

But we know that ordinary luxury cars, famous watches, and expensive jewelry will have an increase in issuance, unless you collect cultural relics, calligraphy and paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci's oil paintings, which are difficult to continue to produce. In the Internet age, the way people show their wealth will also change.

So how can you show off your wealth? In the past few decades of the Internet, it has been difficult to find such a platform to distinguish the rich from ordinary people. The few potential ones in China, such as QQ, were once relatively successful, but due to the adjustment of Tencent's strategy, WeChat, as the main product, has declined in the number of QQ users.

Another is the V label on Weibo, which represents KOL and the symbol of authority, but these are also replicable. In theory, as long as people continue to improve, they will gain a large number of fans and gain recognition on the Internet.

There is actually a problem with all of these, which is that when individuals want to demonstrate their personal class identity on the Internet, they are still subject to centralized Internet organizations. Your QQ account can become worthless because of WeChat, and similarly, a Weibo KOL may be blocked for some inappropriate remarks.

At this time, NFT emerged as a decentralized and scarce product in the web3 era. Bored Ape also took this express train and became a symbol of wealth in the web3 era. Similarly, the holders of Bored Ape will also establish common topics and build their own community groups, which is the same function as luxury cars and watches.

Unlike Bored Ape, the hype of short ENS domain names is different. ENS domain names themselves have certain publicity and branding functions. Of course, short domain names are actually similar to the Q numbers we mentioned earlier. Unlike Bored Ape, which is a symbol of identity, domain names need to be managed as brands. When people get a good domain name, they may not really use it or build their own brand. Instead, they expect potential entrepreneurs who want to build brands to buy their domain names and operate the brands.

For example, ENS domain names named Tencent or Alibaba are now being sold at very high prices. The reason is not that the domain names are so good, but because the brands of Tencent or Alibaba are more valuable. In fact, short domain names represent the potential advantage of short brands that can be easily remembered by people, which is an important reason why they are expensive.

Discussion on the Integration of Web2 into Web3

After all, whether it is a short domain name or a boring ape, they actually represent a scarce resource. Once a resource is scarce, it means that most people cannot enjoy it, and only a few people can obtain it. This is also an important way to distinguish the minority from the majority. ENS domain names and boring apes are both of this model.

However, if web3 only distinguishes classes based on scarcity, it will obviously be difficult to gain social recognition, because many people in the encryption circle generally believe that web3 is an open Internet and should not set barriers for web2 users.

On the one hand, the wealthy class represented by Bored Ape will obviously increase their demand for NFTs. Therefore, more other products that demonstrate wealth will continue to appear in the crypto circle in the later stage to show their differences from ordinary people. On the other hand, for ordinary users, web3's NFTs and domain names will inevitably be low-threshold products in the future. They should not have barriers, but should be easily accessible to more ordinary people, at least in terms of price.

This is particularly evident in the metaverse. We see that Baidu's Xirang and Facebook's Meta are actually products of the public's free participation in metaverse social networking. As for wealthy crypto participants, they will be more inclined to choose decentralized products such as sandbox or decentland in the future, thus establishing different product ecosystems for different user groups.

In this way, we can predict that centralized web3 will continue to exist in the future, and decentralized web3 will not disappear. They will have their own development paths for a period of time, unless you make the decentralized web3 page have no threshold and no hype, so as to attract users. But will there really be a project party who will do this? Or is it good for everyone? Is there anyone to maintain the product? These are all a series of problems.

Summarize

The author has always believed in the idea that existence is reasonable. As for the fact that Boring Ape and short digital ENS can gain market recognition, it is mainly because of the social group's demand for such things. In the long run, its appearance is inevitable. Even if NFTs such as Boring Ape do not appear, they will be replaced by other high-priced NFTs. For ordinary people, price is currently the biggest problem of blockchain. Although wealth is preserved by this, it is also a threshold that limits the participation of most poor people. Therefore, for web3, the road ahead is still difficult and long.