.Kred launches as dual DNS and ENS domain

Kred takes a different approach to integrating DNS with blockchain.

.Kred is the latest domain name to integrate with blockchain technology, and it’s taking an approach that’s different from other domain names.

The domain name is a closed top level domain name under ICANN’s new top level domain name program. Kred, a company that assigns social media scores to influencers, applied for the domain name as a dot-brand.

Dot-brand domains come with restrictions, but Kred is using this to its advantage in its blockchain implementation.

Users who register a .Kred domain name will be able to use them for websites on traditional DNS and on Ethereum Name Service (ENS), making it easier for people to send payments to them. They can send cryptocurrency based on the easy-to-remember .Kred domain rather than a long string of characters. It’s a similar concept to using domain names in place of IP addresses.

Here’s where the restriction of dot-brand domains plays to Kred’s advantage. Dot-brand domains can’t be sold through traditional registrars, so Kred can more tightly control the experience. Because nameservers can’t be changed at the registrar, Kred will be able to ensure than DNS and ENS records are synchronized. (Registrars will be able to offer .Kred registrations through a reseller API.)

Kred explains the benefits of this approach:

When a Kred Domain is registered, an ENS Kred Domain Token is generated and deposited into the user’s wallet, granting its holder access to control the name on both ENS and DNS. The Kred Top Level Domain Registry maintains a daemon that monitors the Ethereum blockchain and looks for updates to the DNS information stored against .Kred ENS tokens.These changes are validated, and then automatically propagated through to the .Kred DNS server infrastructure with no further input needed from the token holder, within a minute of the transaction being written to the blockchain. The .Kred DNS servers effectively act as a cache of the EthDNS information.

MMX, another domain registry, offers an ENS integration with .luxe. But .luxe is a traditional top level domain, so it involves more work to connect it to a wallet than .Kred. It also means that the wallet address could become out of sync with the domain owner if the .luxe domain is ever sold.

Compared to ENS’ .eth domains, both .luxe and .Kred can resolve to websites in any normal web browser.

“Kred is doing really innovative work combining DNS and ENS,” Brantly Millegan, Director of Operations for ENS, told Domain Name Wire. “This is a great step toward our goal of leveraging the Ethereum blockchain to complement and expand the usefulness of DNS.”

Another interesting aspect of .Kred is that the original registrant of a domain can receive a royalty when the domain is sold in the future. This twist could provide more liquidity in the aftermarket, should one develop.

Over 300,000 people have registered for a Kred score since its launch in 2011. About 6,000 of those people paid for a premium account, and each of them has already been granted a .Kred domain name.

Brands can pre-register .Kred domain names at Domains.Kred through March 20. Starting March 20, about 2,500-3,500 premium domains will be auctioned on digital asset trading platform OpenSea. General availability at Domains.Kred begins April 20.