Big boost for Ethereum Name Service (ENS) as Budweiser buys beer.eth

Budweiser, the self-proclaimed “King of Beers,” looks to Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) in a bid to go crypto. The firm behind the biggest selling beer in the U.S has just bought the beer.eth domain name, via Opensea, for 30 ETH (about $100,000).

Budweiser’s official Twitter account has also changed its profile picture to a Budweiser rocket. NFT artist Tom Sachs designed the rocket in question as part of his Rocket Factory Collection.

Source: @budweiserusa on Twitter.com

According to OpenSea, it was purchased on Tuesday for 8 ETH (about $24,000), having been minted just 12 days ago.

Twitter user @dGenNetwork commented on the “symbolism” behind the move. However, of greater certainty is Budweiser’s nod of approval to Ethereum ( $0.00 ) , the Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) Name Service (ENS), and NFTs.

Budweiser paid 30 ETH for Beer.eth. That’s almost $100,000. There’s some symbolism to them flexing a rocket from @tsrocketfactory. It’s happening, everyone. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/LecJdLfz2L

— dGEN Network (@dGenNetwork) August 25, 2021

Taking this into account, speculators have suddenly turned their attention to the ENS in the hopes of scoring a gem for a big profit.

What is the Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) Name Service (ENS)?

The Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) Name Service (ENS) is a distributed, open naming system running on the Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) blockchain.

Its purpose is to map readable names to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata.

It also enables “reverse resolution,” so that it’s possible to associate metadata such as people’s names or interface descriptions with Ethereum ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) ( $0.00 ) addresses.

ENS operates much like Domain Name Service (DNS) on the standard World Wide Web.

The right domain name can sell for a tidy sum, which has led to speculators snapping up domain names in hopes of a big payout.

Godaddy.com has compiled a list of the top 25 most expensive domain names (publicly reported). In first place is carinsurance.com, which sold for $49.7 million. The second is insurance.com, selling for $35.6 million. And vacationrentals.com takes the third spot, at the cost of $35 million.

According to this Reddit post, recently, artist.eth sold for 10 ETH, while artcollector.eth also sold for 10 ETH. The OP claims ENS is still a relatively untapped sector, but things are changing.

OpenSea data for the last 90 days on ENS sales show an average selling price of 0.6085 ETH ($1.820) and 632.8817 ETH ($1.9 million) in volume.

Gas prices back on the rise

As a side note, despite (inaccurate) expectations of the London hard fork bringing about cheaper gas fees on Ethereum ( $0.00 ) , average fees are on the rise once more.

Analysis on ycharts.com shows yesterday’s average gas fee came in at 86.80 gwei. That’s a 450% increase from July’s low of 15.8 gwei.

Source: ycharts.com

For those wanting better value and perhaps a better selection of available names, it’s also worth bearing in mind that other chains offer a name service. For example, Zilliqa uses .zil, and Brave incorporates .crypto.