Most of the top Indian companies that would like to grab a .eth domain will have to shell out a fortune because domain squatters have beaten them to it.
A .eth domain is to the Web3 and crypto world what a .com domain is to the current internet. And if we are to go by the optimism shared by Web3 proponents, these domains are likely to be in huge demand in the coming years. Given this, many early adopters of crypto are buying as many prime addresses as possible, hoping to resell them later at a significant premium.
Similar to how the Domain Name Service (DNS) converts domains names like medianama.com to machine-readable addresses like 178.71.89.189, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) resolves .eth domains. These domains are primarily used to represent crypto wallet addresses. It’s way more easier to send money to sarveshmathi.eth than an address like 0x00a2ce7816cb8cbd6267bf4d48c59f6e06916a59. But that’s not their only use case as these domains can also be used as a universal username across multiple distributed applications (ĐApps) among other things.
While ENS is against the practice of domain squatting, they don’t have any concrete measures in place to prevent it.
“We are explicitly anti-squatting, and we have been for years. It’s just extortion — it’s just pure extortion.” – Brantly Millegan, the director of operations for ENS domains, told NYMag
Fun facts on who owns the .eth domains of top Indian companies
- Tata: The domain tata.eth is owned by someone who owns 16 other domains including dow.eth, nakedbrands.eth, and lego.eth. Meanwhile, tataconsultancy.eth is owned by someone who owns over 850 other .eth domains and tataconsultancyservices.eth is owned by someone who also owns tatanft.eth, tatagroup.eth, tataneu.eth, tatadigital.eth, tatasons.eth, ratantata.eth, and tataipl.eth. The same person also owns reservebankofindia.eth and digitalindianrupee.eth.
- Razorpay: The domain razorpay.eth is owned by someone who also owns gpay.eth, zerodha.eth, freshworks.eth, and bharatpe.eth.
- Reliance: The domain reliance.eth is owned by someone who owns no other .eth domain, whereas the domain jio.eth is owned by someone who owns over 170 other .eth domains. Three-character .eth domain names are highly popular and cost around $640 per year for the registrant.
- Byjus: The domain byjus.eth is owned by someone who owns over 120 other domains including unacademcy.eth, curefit.eth, cleartax.eth, pharmeasy.eth, practo.eth, meesho.eth, and ixigo.eth.
- HDFC Bank: The domain hdfc.eth is owned by someone who owns eight other domains including jiomoney.eth. Meanwhile, hdfcbank.eth is owned by someone who owns 500 other domains including fifaworldcup2030.eth.
- ICICI Bank: The domain icici.eth is owned by someone who owns 25 other domains including reliancejio.eth, nasdaq.eth, ernstandyoung.eth. Meanwhile, icicibank.eth is owned by someone who also owns domains like playing.eth, listings.eth, and summary.eth.
- SBI: The domain sbi.eth is owned by someone who also owns sbicrypto.eth and no other domains. Could this actually be the bank and not some squatter?
- Paytm: The domain paytm.eth is owned by someone who owns nearly 50 other domains including zomato.eth, rediff.eth, and myntra.eth, quikr.eth, redbus.eth, and kotak.eth.
- Ola: The domain ola.eth is owned by someone who owns nearly 100 other domains including samsungelectronics.eth and tailorswift.eth.
- Uber: The domain uber.eth is owned by someone who own over 70 other domains including amex.eth and twitch.eth.
- Dunzo: The domain dunzo.eth is owned by someone who also owns mygate.eth and khatabook.eth.
- CRED: The domain cred.eth is owned by someone who owns no other domain. Did Kunal Shah manage to bag it before anyone else?
- Infosys: The domain infosys.eth is owned by someone who owns over 850 other domains.
- Airtel: The domain airtel.eth is owned by someone who also owns nissay.eth and poloniex.eth.
- Flipkart: The domain flipkart.eth is owned by someone who owns 50 other domains.
- Nykaa: The domain nykaa.eth is owned by someone who owns one other domain, tanishq.eth.
- Indian Premier League: The domain indianpremierlague.eth is owned by the same person who owns a bunch of domains connected to Tata including tataconsultancyservices.eth. The same person also owns the .eth domains of Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
You can check the owner of a particular .eth domain here.
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