Here's How You Can Buy a Personalized Domain on the Ethereum Blockchain

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS 2.55%) allows users to identify themselves on the blockchain, and is also finding utility as a way to collect money or tips for doing analytics. In this Motley Fool Live segment from "The Crypto Show," recorded on June 1, Fool.com contributors Jon Quast and Travis Hoium take a look at this interesting new development. 

Jon Quast: This is one of the things that is getting done more and more on Ethereum and that's Ethereum Name Service.

Travis Hoium: This is an interesting development this week, I think Jon brought this up. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Ethereum name service, but you can basically go out and get what effectively is a domain on the Ethereum blockchain. I have Hoium.eth is the NFT that I have you actually, you're actually buying NFT, and you will see people on Twitter have their ENS name as part of their name in their Twitter profile. It just like a indicator of, hey, I'm involved in cryptocurrency and NFTs specifically. It has also been something that people will use to collect money or tips like on doing analytics, which I referenced here. Some of the developers there will have a tips.something.eth so that somebody can go, hey, I really value what you're doing, here's half an Ethereum or half an Ether for the work that you do, just as a tip for them. In May 2022, the data from a couple of different sources here, but according to Dune analytics there are almost 366,000 EMS NFTs registered in the month of May, that is out of 1.4 million all-time. A huge jump in the number of NFTs that were created, that lead to revenue of over $2.2 million. The data that we saw was a little bit delayed, there was a few days left in the month of May when we got that revenue figure so it was probably even higher than that. Then this money is involved in running the ENS Dow that is related to the ENS token, there was air dropped to people, I believe it was late in 2021 and so there is a Dow involved in that and that helps govern the Ethereum name service in general and what they're doing and what they're developing. Do you guys know what was hot in May in the ENS space?

Jon Quast: As far as which name?

Travis Hoium: Yes, there's a reason that there's got really hot in May. Four digit ENS names, we're flying so like 1234.eth and Literally every number combination possible, I believe was acquired in the month of May, and then they were trading for iSOFT prices in excess of three Eth, just to buy any number of combination. There are people who are known for their numbers like a lot of the punks, like you might know, Punk6529 is a very well-known anonymous Punk holder who does long Twitter threads there's a big following. I believe that he has 6529.eth. Some people are known by these numbers. But I think the run on the numbers was really just a speculation that, hey, these are going to be valuable someday. We're going to want to get in them, I believe that has fallen off in the last couple of weeks is not something that I got into trading, but people that were into trading things, need something to trade and ENS names got really hard in the month of May. That was what happened but there is a real utility behind it. As we talk about the announced DAO a little bit later, I'll show you how this shows up in reality because it actually shows up on the blockchain. If you make a transaction with a wallet that has a ENS NFT in it, it will not show up as 123456Jay8, whatever, it will show up as Hoium.eth, so there is some utility behind it too, but just an interesting dynamic.