My Experience With Unstoppable Domains
Are blockchain domains ready for consumer use? What is involved with setting up a blockchain domain? What kind of skills or knowledge do you need and how long does it take?
We will answer all this and more but keep this in mind…
No short-fused, technology beginner, website developer neophyte should even attempt to launch their own blockchain domain. It’s not worth the hassle.
There are still some reasons to buy that might have your interest.
I made this much harder than it needed to be
Part of the delay in getting setup correctly was 100% on me due to me wanting to be safe and take precaution.
This is where you will gain most value and learn from my mistakes because you can avoid the methods I took which set me back.
Getting setup
After I purchased my .crypto domain, I begin following the steps to connect my Ethereum wallet.
There are a couple choices, i didn’t know how to use any of them so i just started clicking around.
The only one that responded and prompted for me to take action was MEW wallet. This is a mobile wallet that syncs with Unstoppable Domains and was pretty straight forward in setting up.
The only problem is, with the MEW wallet, I was responsible for paying fees for every transaction and change I wanted to make on my website.
While attempting to edit my website and add payment methods, I was charged multiple times without realizing it.
Sometimes I would make errors and have to go back and fix them and still paid a fee.
Once i designed my site the way i wanted and added the features i wanted, I was charged around $15 altogether.
I started realizing that i better ask for assistance and confirm that what I am doing is correct before i proceed further.
I started a support chat in the bottom right corner and quickly found out MEW is not the best option and MetaMask or Ledger should be chosen.
Apparently using MEW was my first mistake and was not necessary and ended up costing me more.
On top of that, all my design and added features were removed when I decided to transfer the domain and use my ledger wallet instead.
I reluctantly downloaded MetaMask and hooked up the ledger to Unstoppable and attempted to transfer the domain. I was charged for it but transaction was unsuccessful.
I had both wallets hooked up and I was at this point unfamiliar with the back office and how to manage my dot crypto domain with my ledger.
There is a little bit of a learning curve and just like everything else, the more you do it, the easier it gets. I feel comfortable and confident now making changes and managing the account but it was overwhelming at first.
Still completely stuck. Before I fully grasped what i was doing, I started a second live customer support chat and wasted hours going in circles.
As I’m writing, I’m currently in the middle of a two-hour chat with the live customer support and I don’t know what’s coming first, my hair falling out or an aneurysm but this has been one of the most horrific, time consuming chats I’ve ever had with any customer support.
I won’t harp on the customer support experience any longer but my aggression is being fueled by me having to repeat the same question six different ways and then getting copy and paste answers from the faq section I’ve already visited several times.
I consider myself to be tech savvy, well versed on how to move cryptocurrency, and have been building websites for 25 plus years, so I thought this would be a quick and painless process as it was sold to me on multiple videos I watched.
After hours of painstakingly trying to explain my situation and get some kind of resolve, I begged for this to be escalated to someone that can assist at a higher level.
Five minutes later an email comes in and after two replies the rep solved my issue for me.
Apparently Ledger also charges fees and only way to get around paying fees is by using MetaMask directly.
I begun to unsync the MEW wallet and transfer the domain from my Ledger wallet to MetaMask ETH wallet and within minutes i had full control of everything again.
I was able to make changes and there are zero fees.
I wish there was more clear in the beginning but this is a fairly new company and I’m sure in time the instructions will be easier to follow with a more friendlier interface.
As of this moment, i finally have my site live and everything is working but last night i was almost ready to give up.
Now that the site is working and i can confidently recommend it, let’s look at some of the features you get.
One-time domain purchase
I think the idea of paying for a domain one time and having it for life on a technology like the blockchain is brilliant and Unstoppable Domains are just pioneers in a space that will likely be crowded in a decade.
Having a permanent domain stored on the blockchain by itself is pretty rad but it’s the additional features Unstoppable offers that really sold me.
Anyone who can easily, or at least doesn’t mind overcoming tech challenges should consider this, especially if you are interested in the crypto space overall.
Crypto payments simplified
Anyone that has ever sent or received cryptocurrency knows it takes brain power and concentration with a little bit of luck to send successfully.
Don’t forget the double and triple checking to make sure you got the alphanumeric address correct.
You don’t want to accidentally send your coins to a stranger and lose them forever. They are rarely gracious enough to send them back.
With Unstoppable Domains, your domain is also your payment ID, connected to multiple cryptocurrency coins, currently working on a half dozen and growing cryptocurrency wallets.
This means people can pay you just by using your .crypto domain. Similar to how someone can send you money through PayPal or another payment app using your email.
Website templates
Right now there are a couple options for website templates and it looks like you can submit your own and even create a custom site.
Building a website was fairly easy and straightforward, something like you would expect from Squarespace but with less overall functionality.
You can use the templates provided to you or you could upload your own HTML website.
Accessing the domains through your normal browser is not so cut and dry. There are special extensions needed, available for Chrome, Brave and Firefox that allow you to visit any dot crypto site.
Down the road i imagine all the browsers will natively support dot crypto domains but for now this is the work around.
It’s more of a novelty than used for utility at this point.
Most people buying a .crypto domain right now probably already own a .com domain and/or they happen to be into crypto and appreciate the innovation of a blockchain domain.
Besides that, it really comes back to the most attractive feature being able to send money instantly using an ID recorded on the blockchain.
You can store multiple cryptocurrency wallet addresses under your dot crypto domain and participating wallets can type in your domain and pay with currency of choice.
Instead of typing some long alphanumeric code to send me money, all you need to do is type PatrickMoore.crypto, choose the asset you want to send and as long as i store a wallet address for that coin i can accept it.
It’s as simple as sending an email to send money.
Chat and group conference
Immediately available to upload on your domain is a peer to peer chat platform where you control the conversation. you create the groups and topics and invite who you want and can chat on your decentralized blockchain domain.
What’s next?
I personally think this industry is going to explode. Once it becomes more user-friendly and we can provide tools to make adoption seamless, there is no reason not to own your domain on the blockchain.
It’s not just a website. It’s how you will get paid in the future. Unstoppable Domains is leading this space and launching remarkable innovations on top of the blockchain that provide an incredible ability for the world to connect and transact without getting banks involved.