DecentraWeb AMA Summary
Question 1.
As we can see on your website DecentraWeb allows anyone to register their own top-level-domain (TLD). Can you explain what TLD is for fresh people in crypto?
Answer:
Adam Barlam
TLD stands for Top Level Domain. A top level domain is .com, .net, .org, etc.
There are other top level domains ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has created as well like .info, .photography, .blog, and others
You can actually see a full list of ICANN approved TLDs here — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
Michael Calce
The core idea is to innovate and disrupt the domain name space. As it stands right now ICANN has control over the approval of TLDs and just to submit an application it cost over 250k+
Adam Barlam
But TLDs are very centralized. Not anyone can create one. Currently on the centralized internet, ICANN is the only one who can approve this and it costs 250K USD non-refundable just for an application to get them to review a new one (which they typically deny). Then it is an additional 200–250K a year just for ICANN to maintain the TLD through them.
Yes, like Michael said it is very centralized. We intend to change that by allowing anyone to register their own TLD not currently in use on the centralized internet. (We want to maintain backwards compatibility)
Michael Calce
Yeah a big issue today also is censorship and centralization. We are creating a fully decentralized solution to remedy that
We will also allow users the ability to create subdomains of the TLD’s they own ;)
Adam Barlam
What’s great is that all these TLDs and subdomains you can create off the TLDs through DecentraWeb are actually NFTs (ERC721) so they can be freely transferred across ethereum wallets, or even bought/sold/traded on any NFT marketplace such as OpenSea
Michael Calce
Yeah what Adam said, in our roadmap we have plans to make our own after marketplace as well which we anticipate will be really cool for people to trade and sell their TLD’s. Ofc people can use opensea or any other site for the time being :)
Question 2
Why have you chosen the Ethereum Blockchain as a native network of DecentraWeb?
Answer:
Adam Barlam
We regulary get asked why you chose to have this project run on Ethereum, and not Cardano, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Algorand (insert X chain here).
Reason: DNS is a critical base layer of the internet and requires the MOST decentralized and SECURE network and smart contract-enabled blockchain. This is currently Ethereum.
We cannot risk having DNS go down (for instance like Solana’s 20 hour downtime), or being centralized (like BSC, where Binance and many Chinese entities run the nodes) and censored.
Michael Calce
We looked at all the options and we feel like with such a critical layer of the internet we wanted to be on the most stable network. Ethereum of course offers that. We can see even from recent events (Solana) downtime, we are confident we made the right choice. It’s critical that we never go down.
Adam Barlam
For these reasons it is imperative to run on Ethereum
Mauvis Ledford
To chime in, this focus on “decentralizing the DNS layer of the internet” is what attracted me very early as a technology advisor on the project — and to do it on Ethereum specifically as the oldest and most dependable “smart layer” I agree was critical.
Mauvis Ledford
There may be faster and cheaper chains in the future but none are yet as proven. And because this is code, the possibility of 2nd layers or bridges is possible if done safely.
Adam Barlam
Domain registrations go live on October 10th, once we launch on Uniswap
We anticipate it’s going to be a MASSIVE land grab to get the best TLDs!
Michael Calce
Yep October 10th is going to be very exciting
Adam Barlam
We are also supporting emoji domains as well, so you can literally register
Michael Calce
it’s a first come first serve basis so be sure to get what you want
Question 3
What kind of benefits have you prepared for $DWEB token holders?
Answer:
Adam Barlam
The $DWEB token is an ERC-20 utility token on the Ethereum blockchain.
$DWEB can be used for payment of products and services, rewards, staking, loyalty and more on the DecentraWeb network!
Users who pay with $DWEB to initially register domains through DecentraWeb will receive a 50% discount per year on their order!
Each TLD bought through DecentraWeb will be $50 in $DWEB or $100 in $ETH per year (plus $ETH gas fees), offering a 50% discount to $DWEB users to incentivize use.
The max term of registration will be 5 years. Users will have the opportunity to renew/extend the registration at any point in time.
For each TLD bought through DecentraWeb using DWEB, the following will be sent off as rewards to our staking pool:
• 45% — Sent to Liquidity Provider stakers
• 35% — Sent to DWEB token stakers
• 10% — Sent to DecentraWeb Treasury
• 5% — Sent to DAO Treasury
• 5% — Burned
Michael Calce
We will also have a great reward system
Adam Barlam
Yes we really want to maximize the utility of the token, as well as reward holders/stakers of the token.
Michael Calce
This was designed to be a very rewarding project for the community :)
Adam Barlam
We plan on offering Decentralized Web Hosting and Mail Hosting in Q2 2022 so people can register and then directly host on a decentralized platform as well.
The same benefits will apply to that as well for $DWEB holders
We basically want to be a one stop shop. A decentralized GoDaddy if you will 🙂
ProtonMail is user end-to-end encrypted mail, but the mail is still held on centralized servers and uses ICANN domains.
We will offer end-to-end encrypted mail, but the mail will be on decentralized filestores like IPFS, and can use DecentraWeb (DecentraName) domains. So you could have piotr@synapsenetwork as your email address.
Michael Calce
We are looking to create a full ecosystem completely decentralized. As Adam mentioned, a decentralized godaddy.
Adam Barlam
And have the entire hosting setup be decentralized and going through us. This is for users who aren’t as advanced, and wouldn’t want to set it up themselves.
Michael Calce
It is a big project and that’s why we wanted a very strong team to support it.
Question 4
Can you tell us something more about your marketing strategy, what’s your vision of $DWEB in the next few years?
Answer:
Mauvis Ledford
I brought on a good old friend of mine Paul Sebastian to help on the marketing side of the project. He has worked in C-level and CMO positions in big tech companies from Microsoft to Disney to T-Mobile and currently CMO at Offensive Security — a well known cybersecurity company
We feel it’s important to get traditional big tech involved
Tangentially related to marketing but definitely related to our long term perspective is the 5-years registration. DWEB would love to offer “unlimited lifetime ownership” but this ultimately leads to dead networks as people don’t put the domains to good use and forget about them as there is no cost to maintain them.
We feel in order to truly foster an ecosystem that will last the network needed to maintain the ability to free up domains if people didn’t want to maintain them, but keep the cost low enough where a person who is still interested can still have the domain for generations.
There was a lot of considerations just like this in the building of this protocol. It limits certain aspects early at the expense of building something truly great.
Michael Calce
Our goal is to market within the crypto community but we will transition into the more traditional market as well. We have a lot of influencers lined up for the crypto market and part of our marketing strategy for the traditional market is to reserve a percentage of the top domains on alexa and offer it to the businesses to join our ecosystem. This is part of the reason why we put together a strong team and brought Paul on board. We want to leverage relationships. To Mauvis’ point this is a long term play with huge upside.
Adam Barlam
Current top domain names (like apple.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, etc) will be restricted from registration unless users can prove they own the ICANN version. If you try to register .facebook for instance, the smart contract will verify you own the domain by asking you to add a TXT record to facebook.com DNS with a random string we provide you. If you can’t update the existing DNS record, registration won’t continue.
This way we can avoid people squatting on top domains, and it also gives us a way to work with top brands/companies etc and get them into our ecosystem!
Question 5.
Could you please tell us more about the DecentraWeb Team and investors/partners that are backing up the project?
Answer:
Michael Calce
Yes of course! Our team is composed of high level individuals in both the crypto and traditional space. I personally serve as chairman of the security advisory board for HP. We also have a former godaddy architect, former CTO and CIO of Godaddy, former CTO of CMC and some people from dow jones and deloitte. Our team casts a very large net in both the crypto and traditional market. Our backers and investors include AU21, SMO Capital, Fairum Ventures, Magnus Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, New Tribe Capital , Dext Force Ventures, CSPDAO, Synapse Ventures, BlackDragon, Gains Associates, and few others.
Adam Barlam
We were very excited to get the former CTO/CIO of GoDaddy onboard Arne Josefsberg. It really validates what we are doing when you can lure in a former top executive from the largest domain registrar in the world with > 82M+ domains under management
Mauvis Ledford
Fun fact: Adam was also a Senior Engineer at Godaddy a long time ago. Domains and DNS is in this teams blood
Adam Barlam
Sr. Architect at GoDaddy for almost 3 years
Fun fact: Our DNS servers at GoDaddy were responsible for almost 18% of total internet traffic
Adam Barlam
Since GoDaddy hosts so many domains and so many use their DNS servers, a large percentage of internet traffic would traverse the network
We have taken this vast knowledge we have obtained in the traditional sector and applying it to DecentraWeb invaluable experience
Mauvis Ledford
Not to be outdone, DWEB CEO Michael took down much of the internet in 2000 when he was 15 years old: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/02/07/384567322/meet-mafiaboy-the-bratty-kid-who-took-down-the-internet
I think the whole team is super fascinating
He now sits on the security board of many high profile companies including HP.
Adam Barlam
Side note, i’ve known Michael since he was 12 lol
Michael Calce
good ole days Adam
Question 6:
What is the main role and meaning of NFT in your project? Please explain for us what connects TLD and NFT in simple words.
Answer:
Adam Barlam
All TLDs and subdomains will be an NFT. NFTs have a LOT MORE use cases than just digital images or music. They PROVE ownership.
The ip addresses for hosts associated with your domain(s) will be stored in the NFT metadata
All domains need to resolve to an ip address somehow
Michael Calce
It also makes it easy to transfer/trade/sell
Adam Barlam
Currently you have dns servers with godaddy, google, etc that resolve these records for www.google.com -> to an ip address
we will store all of this data instead in NFT metadata
And like Michael said by having it as an NFT we can easily transfer/trade/sell them
It opens up the ability to permissionessly create and transfer domains (which hold immense value) INSTANTLY over the ETH blockchain
If you have ever tried to transfer a domain from say godaddy to namecheap or another registrar the process is ridiculous. It can take up to 7 business days.
That’s just insane in my opinion. We shouldn’t be held captive by these gatekeepers of the internet.
Furthermore godaddy, namecheap, etc can shut you down if they want in a heartbeat. With NFTs, the user holds control since you have the private key associated with it.
Once that NFT is minted, we can’t do anything about it to censor, remove, shut it down, etc
Winners questions
Question 1 from Andrzej:
What brought you to this concept particularly? Apart from nowadays censorship of course:D
Answer:
Mauvis Ledford
For me it was this: https://twitter.com/krunkosaurus/status/1404870201552691212
I pick your question. Congrats!
Question 2 from FuckBoy:
Tell us a little bit about #DecentraWeb security? Have you done an audit of the platform? Are the smart contracts error-free? What are the test results?
Answer:
Adam Barlam
Our contracts are currently being audited by one of the top firms in the crypto auditing space, Hacken. Hacken has done audits for many other top tier projects and exchanges, and we are very confident with their abilities to perform sucessful audits. You can view them at https://hacken.io
Question 3
Coi Tru’ng Tao
For most people, the main focus of any crypto community is on the price of the token. When prices go up, people are happy, when they go down, people start to leave.
Q.)What is the $DWEB team’s plan to strengthen and grow a loyal community, and how do you trust it as an investor?
Answer:
Michael Calce
I think this is a very good question because a lot of people are focused on price. We of course want to make everyone happy and watch the price go up, However our goal is to create a sound project with a strong foundation. We always see a lot of focus on the price and if we look at AAVE as an example I think some people realized a technically sound project or good business model will always prevail. I use AAVE as an example because people we’re complaining about the price early on in the discord and the team told them to be patient. Now if you look at AAVE it’s ranked #45 for market cap (4 billion). I think this is similar to our project fundamentally, with that being said I am by no means a financial advisor so DYOR. I just think that fundamentally sound projects will win out long term, we have a similar philosophy.
About Synapse Network
Synapse Network is developing a cross-chain investment and start-up acceleration ecosystem based on blockchain technology to give everybody an equal chance to contribute to great upcoming projects and to do so early on. We are bridging the gap between the traditional & crypto market. The idea of the Synapse Network technology goes beyond the standard offer of launchpads available on the market, becoming a true technological brand providing tech solutions.
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