Bitcoin Exchange Blockchain.com Allowing NFT Usernames for Its 82 Million Wallets

What’s in a name? If you have a Blockchain.com wallet, hopefully not a lot of random letters and numbers. 

The wallet-cum-exchange will allow all 82 million of its wallet users to connect their alphanumeric addresses to human-friendly NFT domain names, according to an announcement today by Web3 domain name provider Unstoppable Domains.

It means that people can purchase Unstoppable Domains domain names with one of 10 extensions—.bitcoin, .coin, .crypto, .dao, .nft, .wallet, .x, .zil, .888, or the soon-to-be-released .blockchain—and use them with their Blockchain.com wallets.

That makes it easier for people to see who they’re transacting with. Instead of sending ETH to the address starting in 0x631d, you can send it to Joe.crypto. In this regard, Unstoppable Domains is similar to Ethereum Name Service, which allows people to use .eth domain names and connect them to their wallets. 

“Replacing complicated addresses with human readable domains on Blockchain.com allows users to send and receive crypto as easily as sending an email,” said Blockchain.com senior product manager Amadeo Pellicce in a press release.

NFTs (short for non-fungible tokens) are digital records of ownership on a blockchain. Though often linked to digital art and collectibles, in this case the domain name itself is an NFT—meaning you own it and can transfer it. 

If this sounds like deja vu, you’re not all wrong. Last year, Blockchain.com integrated support for sending coins and tokens to .crypto domains. Now, its users can send crypto to any Unstoppable Domains address. 

Blockchain.com is slowly upping its NFT game. The crypto exchange also announced the Blockchain.com NFT marketplace late last year. The marketplace, which is still in beta, will allow people “to browse, buy, sell, and securely store NFTs without ever leaving your Blockchain.com Wallet.”

Blockchain.com was founded in 2011 as a Bitcoin block explorer before adding a wallet service so that people could store their BTC. It now reports 82 million wallets holding a variety of crypto assets, including Ethereum—the blockchain network Unstoppable Domains uses for minting NFTs.

For Unstoppable Domains, this is just another in a series of integrations. Its .crypto domain names began working with MyEtherWallet back in January 2020, then with Coinbase Wallet in August of that year. But it believes this full integration—beyond just .crypto—could help move the needle past $2.1 million registered domains.

Said Senior Vice President Sandy Carter: “With millions of people using Blockchain.com Wallet in more than 200 countries every day, it’s partners like these who help make NFT domains and simple crypto payments more accessible to the next influx of users.”

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