We’re thrilled to announce the upcoming rollout of NFD V3! The changes in V3 help the NFD protocol become more decentralized, sustainable, and interoperable. Our mission remains the same: to build the most robust and reliable naming service on any chain.

Key Changes in V3

1. Yearly Renewals
2. Direct and Permissionless Minting
3. Flexible Royalties on Secondary Sales
4. Max Registration Time
5. Segment Fees (Subdomains)
6. Inflation Schedule

Renewal Model

The most significant change for users is the shift from one-time purchases to a renewal model:

• All existing NFDs (V1 or V2) are grandfathered into lifetime ownership
• V3 NFDs will have fixed yearly pricing — see table below
• Once the protocol switches to V3, all newly minted NFDs, including segments, will be V3
• V2 NFDs can be upgraded to V3 NFDs, but this will never be required
• V2 NFDs will retain all of their current features, but any new features will require an upgrade to V3
• Curated and Premium tier pricing goes away

These changes ensure NFDomains can operate as a self-sustaining protocol indefinitely, independent of alternative revenue sources, while maintaining a high level of user experience. It also addresses name squatting in a credibly neutral way, preventing the namespace from being overrun with speculatively registered NFDs.

Permissionless Minting

When NFDomains launched over two years ago, AVM constraints required us to sign certain transactions in the minting process. NFD V3 removes this limitation, allowing direct, permissionless minting from the registry contract.

Royalties

We’ve decided not to enforce royalties in the contracts, making NFDs more neutral and interoperable. This allows marketplaces to set their own fees for secondary trading. NFDomains will continue to enforce a 5% commission on app.nf.domains, but only through the front-end.

Max Registration Time

For the time being there will be a max registration of 20 years. It’s important to us that we provide the services offered to users for the entire time they have paid for. We never want to discontinue a feature because it costs too much, but we’re cognizant that things can change over a 10–20 year timeframe. This is a parameter that could theoretically be adjusted by a DAO in the future, if costs became more predictable.

Segment Fees

We have removed the greater of $4 or 25% price model as it was overly confusing, and is no longer needed with a renewal model. Instead, segments will have a simple $5 platform fee + a root owner fee.

Inflation Parameter

Over the past 10 years the average inflation rate was 2.6%. To ensure all of the costs associated with NFDs are covered indefinitely we’re adding an inflation parameter of 2% per year. This parameter allows a possible future DAO to respond to dramatic changes in inflation or deflation (if that were to ever occur) without needing to adjust the base price.

Final Thoughts

We are expecting to release NFD V3 in the next few weeks — prior to the Coinbase Quest starting. If you would like to help us test, please go to the TestNet channel in our Discord.

We recognize that these changes may not be universally popular, but they are essential for building a sustainable protocol. After announcing our initial plans in January, we carefully considered all feedback and adjusted our approach, ensuring existing users didn’t need to do anything to maintain their lifetime status. We genuinely appreciate every comment — whether supportive or critical — and believe our final direction has been significantly improved as a result of this community input. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all who contributed their thoughts.

We will have more information coming on V3 in the next few weeks. If you have any questions please go to our Discord to receive the fastest response.

Overview

NFDomains has been included in the upcoming Coinbase Quest program for Algorand! The quest program is meant to teach Coinbase users about Algorand while rewarding them for completing certain on-chain actions.

The quest for Algorand will consist of:

• Funding a wallet
• Making a swap
• Lending USDC
• Registering an NFD
• Minting an NFT

After each step the user is rewarded with a small amount of ALGO. More details on the quest will come from the Algorand Foundation when the program goes live.

Post-Quest Quest

We thought it’d be fun to do a post-quest quest that would ideally:

1. get the user more engaged in the ecosystem
2. expose the user to the Algorand Twitter-sphere
3. create a sticky user that stays around and possibly buys ALGO

Once the user has completed our Coinbase quest step (registering an NFD), they will be prompted with a post-quest opportunity to receive an on-chain airdrop. This will not be a mandatory step of the Coinbase quest, but an additional opportunity for the users to receive rewards. The airdrop will consist of community coins which get donated to try.algo.

• The Tinyman team has donated ~30k ALGO worth of $TINY
• The Akita community has donated ~15k ALGO worth of $AKITA
• The NFDomains team has donated ~8500 ALGO worth of $JAWS
• The Jim Coin community has donated ~7250 ALGO worth of $JIMMY
• The BASED community has donated ~2000 ALGO worth of $BASED
• The COOP community has donated ~1250 ALGO worth of $COOP
• The Peperium community has donated ~750 ALGO worth of $PEPS
• The Gully community has donated ~700 ALGO worth of $THICC
• The Kitsune Inu community has donated ~150 ALGO worth of $KITSU
• The CAT community has donated ~120 ALGO worth of $CAT
• The High Community has donated ~110 ALGO worth of $THC

Post-Quest Steps

To complete the quest users will need to:

1. link and verify an address to their NFD
2. link and verify a Twitter account to their NFD
3. follow the projects that donated on Twitter

1–30 days after completing the quest steps, the user will receive an airdrop to their NFD’s Vault. Hopefully, this uncertain timeframe will make the user check back more often than if they just received it immediately after completion. This also simplifies conducting the airdrop for us to potentially tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users.

Final Thoughts

We hope this additional questing, beyond the main quest, will expose users to more of the Algorand ecosystem, increasing the likelihood of retaining them and even turning some into power users. Whether they’re drawn to staking memecoins with high APYs or becoming active members of the Algorand Twitter community, this ensures they’re exposed to more than just the initial five quest steps.

If you would like to be a part of this, please send tokens to try.algo and DM us (NFDomains) on Twitter. We will do our best to include any community which wants to participate.

If your token has a very small amount of liquidity it may not make sense to include it in the airdrop as each airdrop will cost us .1 ALGO. We hold the right to not distribute tokens we’re sent. If for any reason your tokens are not distributed as part of the quest we will promptly return them to you.

Thank you all!

Edit: The article has been updated to reflect our revised plan for renewals in response to community feedback (6:01pm ET 1/11/24)

We are committed to making the NFD protocol sustainable, interoperable, and decentralized. In pursuit of this vision for 2024 and beyond we’re planning some significant changes.

Direct and Permissionless Minting: Minting directly from the registry contract will be possible without TxnLab needing to be involved.

Flexible Royalties on Secondary Sales: We will not enforce royalties in the contracts for secondary sales, leaving the fee decision to clients.

Yearly Renewals: Transitioning from a one-time purchase to yearly renewals to establish a sustainable economic model. Current owners will be grandfathered into the lifetime ownership model with the option to upgrade to Renewals.

Direct Messaging, Group Chat & Push Notifications: A communication network and notification system based around NFDs.

Authentication & Onboarding: A new authentication and onboarding flow to allow more cross-chain users to benefit from NFDs.

Decentralized Governance System: Developing a governance system where voting power is derived from NFD ownership, not tokens.

Permissionless Minting

When NFDomains was launched nearly two years ago, we had to design around certain constraints of the AVM. One such constraint was the requirement for TxnLab to sign some of the transactions in the minting process, effectively limiting access to minting. We are now able to remove this constraint, allowing anyone to mint NFDs directly from the registry contract without needing permission.

Royalties

The topic of enforced royalties has been widely debated in recent years. We have decided not to enforce secondary royalties in the contracts, aiming to make NFDs more neutral and interoperable. This will allow marketplaces to set their own fees for secondary trading. NFDomains will continue enforcing a 5% royalty, but only through the front-end. This approach also allows the clean transfer of NFDs between accounts, eliminating the need to sell an NFD to transfer it.

Renewal Model

The most significant change for users is the shift from a one-time purchase to a yearly renewal model. NFDs will move to fixed pricing per year with a minimum of 1-year purchase or renewal.

• All existing NFDs will be considered “Legacy” NFDs (no renewal fees).
• Once the protocol is switched to Renewals, all newly minted NFDs, including segments, will be Renewals, even if you are minting from a Legacy root.
• Legacy NFDs can be upgraded into Renewals but it will never be forced.
• Renewals can not be downgraded to Legacy.
• Renewals will receive new advanced features while Legacy NFDs will receive only core features & security updates going forward.

This change helps ensure that NFDomains can operate as a self-sustaining protocol indefinitely, independent of alternative revenue sources, while maintaining a robust level of user experience. This model also helps address the issue of name squatting in a credibly neutral way.

Direct Messaging, Group Chats & Push Notifications

DMs, group chats, and notifications will finally be arriving. While we wanted to implement these features using Nostr, in our minds, it’s not yet a viable platform. We will continue evaluating decentralized messaging networks, but currently a web2 infrastructure allows us to provide the best possible user experience, while fully utilizing NFDs. Each root will have its own unique group chat, and owning a segment connected to that root will provide the owner with access. We’re excited to see how communities use these flexible spaces. With the new renewal model, segments could be used as a subscription or membership to a project.

Authentication and Onboarding

We’ll be adding an authentication flow that allows users to connect with Algorand accounts, accounts from other chains, or even email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This new flow will make it easier for a non-Algorand user to utilize NFDs.

Governance

We aim to design a governance system that empowers NFD owners to make decisions for the protocol in a decentralized manner, without relying on a token. We are proceeding cautiously, exploring every possible implementation detail. Governance changes, once implemented, are difficult to reverse, hence our deliberate pace. But the important thing is: no token!

Final Thoughts

NFDomains is one of the best naming services on any chain. We’re excited to work on these changes that make the NFD protocol stronger and more useful to more people. Features are important, but to be competitive and grow, they must be built on a sound economic and governance structure, and be inclusive to more than just Algorand users. We want NFDs to be around forever as a free-standing decentralized protocol, and this is just the first step in making that possible. Thank you all so much for the unwavering support you’ve shown us. We would not be here without you!

What’s an Opt-In?

Before an Algorand account can receive a specific asset it must opt-in to receive it. While this is a nice feature to prevent unwanted assets from entering your wallet, it adds friction when trying to transact new assets. This is a major issue for airdrops and giveaways, but also for regular users sending each other NFTs which all have unique ASA IDs.

Solutions

ARC-12 is soon to be introduced and will function much like a temporary escrow account for asset transfers. While ARC-12 allows for a one-time sending of an asset that the recipient can either claim or reject, NFD Vaults offer much more flexibility and control for users. Vaults function as completely independent Algorand accounts that can hold ALGO and any other asset or NFT all controlled by the NFD owner.

NFD Vault Features

Newly minted NFDs will have Vault functionality. Existing NFDs will need to be upgraded to the latest contract version to enable Vaults.

Auto opt-in / opt-out

Vaults will auto opt-in to any asset they are sent, and they will also auto opt-out when you send an asset resulting in a zero balance which helps manage the minimum balance requirement (MBR) of the account. The sender pays the .1 ALGO MBR and does not get it back, preventing the spamming of unwanted assets by adding a cost. To further protect users from unwanted airdrops, these Vaults default to being locked, and when locked only the owner can send assets to it. The Vault can be unlocked or locked at will, offering a high degree of control to the user. Don’t want random tokens showing up? Keep your Vault locked!

Asset Management

NFD Vaults offer seamless asset management, allowing users to transfer assets between their account and Vault, or to any other NFD account or its Vault. The Vault is essentially the NFD, meaning that all assets travel with it. This feature enables users to sell or transfer their NFD along with all of its vaulted assets, facilitating easy trading of large NFT collections. The Gallery aggregates NFTs across all your accounts (owner account, linked accounts, and vault). If your NFTs are in your Vault you’ll see a ‘Vaulted’ icon in your Gallery.

https://app.nf.domains/
https://twitter.com/NFDomains

NFDomains are packed with useful features — but why should you care? Here are the top 10 reasons you should own an NFD:

1. Simplify crypto transactions

Want to send crypto to someone? Just ask for their NFD! Using a human readable name like “silvio.algo”, instead of a long, complicated wallet address, makes sending crypto easy and fun.

2. Portable, self-sovereign identity

Your avatar, social links and NFT collections… They’re all in one profile that can be used anywhere and kept securely in your wallet.

3. Permanent ownership

If you own your keys, why rent your identity? When you buy an NFD, it’s yours forever. No renewal fees.

4. User-owned data

We’re not big tech. We won’t harvest your data or sell you out to marketers. The information you associate with your NFD is stored transparently on-chain and controlled by you.

5. Optional on-chain / off-chain verifications

You can optionally verify your Discord, Twitter and other accounts enabling you to establish credibility and trust in the ecosystem as a crypto startup, NFT artist, or influencer. Carry your off-chain reputation on-chain & vice versa.

6. Your own custom .algo.xyz redirect

If you own “app.algo”, you get app.algo.xyz too! Each NFD receives it’s own custom URL that takes visitors to your profile by default, and can be set to to any other website or IPFS CID.

7. Empowering creators and collectors

Multiple wallets can be linked to a single NFD enabling creators to connect all of their works under a single profile. Collectors can show off their favorite NFTs or advertise their listings.

8. Suite of integrations

NFDs are built into the Algorand ecosystem with 49 unique integrations, including Pera, MyAlgo and Defly.

9. Multi-chain compatible

We’ve shipped cross-chain compatibility to our platform, enabling wallets to support transactions with your NFD on Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and more!

10. Built on Algorand

Your NFD is future-proof! NFDs are powered by a fast, efficient and climate friendly blockchain. Your on-chain interactions, like changing avatars or adding new addresses, will always complete in seconds and cost fractions of a penny.

What’s your favorite benefit of owning an NFD? Did we miss any? Let us know!

NFDomains | Twitter | Discord

TxnLab, Inc., is pleased to announce the closing of a $1.25 million private round of financing led by Borderless Capital and GoldenTree Asset Management. Our team is grateful for the overwhelming interest and support for NFDomains, our Algorand name service for .algo names. This round of financing provides us with resources to build and scale a robust name and identity solution to benefit the Algorand community.

We are excited to join NFDomains and support their vision of simplifying on-chain naming and identity. This core building block for on-chain transactional activity will reduce the users’ friction to participate in the ecosystem and will provide unique features, making the Algorand blockchain a much better social and friendly network.

– David Garcia, CEO and Managing Partner of Borderless Capital

Non-Fungible Domains

NFDomains will provide a service and marketplace for Non-Fungible Domains (NFDs), unique, readable identities for the Algorand blockchain. NFDs allow users to send and receive cryptocurrency using a readable name like “silvio.algo” instead of the 58-character long hashes of traditional wallet addresses.

In addition to allowing users to transact using a name that is easy to type and remember, NFDs leverage Algorand’s financial primitives known as Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs) to provide a powerful suite of features for the ecosystem and its users.

Like NFTs and other financial assets, NFDs can be traded on secondary markets or showcased in a gallery. Most importantly, NFDs live in a user’s wallet and are protected by smart contracts, giving them full control and ownership of their digital identity.

NFDs also provide metadata and identity tools, enabling users to attach their avatar, social media links, and other data. In turn, applications and services on the blockchain can query this data and surface it, breaking down walled gardens in the ecosystem.

For example, blockchain explorers can display readable names of services and other organizations in their tables of transactions, DAOs can provide more transparency by showing information about individual participants in governance votes, and NFT artists can display their name, profile, and portfolio in marketplaces that integrate with NFDs.

Native Integrations

NFDomains is built on Algorand for the Algorand community, and our team is committed to providing a first-class experience for its users. Our tooling and APIs will be custom-built for Algorand developers, enabling them to integrate seamlessly, easily surface data, and build new features on top of the platform.

Our team is actively working to integrate natively with the Algorand ecosystem, and to date has secured the following partnerships:

Wallets:

• Algorand Official Wallet
• AlgoSigner
• MyAlgo Wallet

Services:

• Algodesk
• AlgoExplorer
• AlgoScan
• Dartroom
• Defly
• Fundstack
• GoalSeeker
• HumbleSwap
• KinnDAO
• NFT Explorer
• Zestbloom

We will be announcing many more integrations in the coming weeks; follow us on Twitter and join our Discord for the latest news and updates.

NFdomains plans to launch on mainnet in Q2, 2022.

The Algorand Foundation today announces TxnLab Inc as the latest recipient of an Algorand Foundation grant award. The Algorand Foundation is excited to support TxnLab Inc in developing NFDomains through our grant program. NFDomains is a name service and platform that will enable Algorand users to send and receive Algo and Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs) using a readable domain name, like “silvio.algo”, that is easy to type and remember.

NFDomains will provide identity tokens, called Non-Fungible Domains (NFDs), that enable a host of metadata and identity features, allowing users to attach their avatar, social media links, and other metadata to their NFD.

The metadata features of NFDs enable applications and services on the blockchain to query this data and surface it, breaking down walled gardens in the ecosystem. For example, blockchain explorers can display readable names of services and other organizations in their tables of transactions, DAOs can provide more transparency by showing information about individual participants in governance votes, and NFT artists can display their name, profile, and portfolio in marketplaces that integrate with NFDs.

“The Algorand Foundation’s support will enable us to tackle a major pain point for Algorand users by abstracting away the 58-character long wallet addresses in favor of readable domain names, in addition to opening up new possibilities for identity, authentication, and verification in the blockchain space,” — Patrick Bennett, CEO of TxnLab, Inc.

NFDomains is built on Algorand for Algorand users and the Algorand community. By building on Algorand, NFDomains will provide fast transaction speeds and low fees. This will enable NFDomains to provide users with a flexible, robust and fast service, something which is not possible on other chains which are slow, unreliable, and have expensive fees.

“NFDomains will solve a major user experience issue for Crypto wallet holders. Wallet addresses are not user friendly, they are long, very hard to type and even more difficult to memorize which creates a challenging user experience. The ability to send and receive Crypto using a name you choose through NFDomains will provide Algorand users with a much improved user experience. We’re delighted to welcome NFDomains to the Algorand Ecosystem and look forward to seeing the team at TxnLab open up new opportunities for Algorand users and the Algorand community”. — Addie Wagenkneckt, Algorand Foundation Head of Global Ecosystems and Technical Operations

TxnLab plans to launch NFDomains by Q2 of 2022 with native support for the Algorand Wallet and MyAlgo Wallet in addition to integrations with third-party services and dApps.

Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter and join our Discord for the latest news and updates.

This announcement is republished from the Algorand Foundation website.

Have you ever copy-and-pasted your wallet address into a self-addressed email, just to make a transaction on a different device?

Annoying, right?

Wallet addresses are hard to type and even harder to memorize, causing friction that irritates seasoned crypto users and perplexes newcomers. In our view, this creates a significant barrier to adoption. This is crypto’s biggest User Experience (UX) problem.

Attempts to fix this have been made by services that associate wallet addresses with short, readable names. But these services are hampered by the same shortcomings of the blockchains they are built on — slow, unreliable processing, extended outages, and eye-popping gas fees.

What if there was a better way?

What if you could send and receive cryptocurrency using a name of your choosing — like, “silvio.algo” — with a service that is fast, affordable and backed by a robust and reliable blockchain network?

This would solve the UX problem once and for all.

But what if it was more than just a name? What if it was like a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) that you own and hold in your wallet?

What if this NFT could store data about you or your brand, empowering you to carry your profile, avatar, and social clout with you as you traverse the ecosystem? What if this data could be optionally verified using a trustless system?

We believe all this and more is possible.

Our team at TxnLab is working to open new frontiers in identity, user experience, authentication and verification with a service called NFDomains, a platform and marketplace to buy, trade, showcase, and manage Non-Fungible Domains (NFDs).

NFDomains will be built on Algorand, for Algorand, and is launching with the “.algo” suffix.

Stick around. We’d love to tell you more.

What is an NFD?

An NFD is a Non-Fungible Domain — a token that contains a unique, readable identity for your wallet.

NFDs allow you to send and receive cryptocurrency using a name like “silvio.algo” instead of the long, random series of letters and numbers in a traditional wallet address.

As the name implies, NFDs leverage Algorand’s financial primitives known as Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs) to enable similar features provided by NFTs and other financial assets on the blockchain.

NFDs can be traded on secondary markets or showcased in a gallery. Most importantly, NFDs live in your wallet alongside your other assets and NFTs, giving you full control and ownership of your digital identity.

Furthermore, every NFD is guaranteed to be unique. They are wrapped and protected by smart contracts that ensure there are no conflicting domain names associated with any addresses.

Every NFD you own is 100% uniquely yours. We will never charge any renewal fees.

Carry Your Identity in Your Wallet

NFDs are identity tokens that you carry in your wallet as you travel through the ecosystem. You can attach metadata to your NFD like your profile, social media links, a collection of NFTs, almost anything you want… Get creative and surprise us!

The metadata features of NFDs enable applications and services on the blockchain to query this data and surface it, breaking down walled gardens in the ecosystem. This has the added benefit of decentralization, as applications do not need to rely on their own databases to provide basic profile and social features.

Imagine an NFT artist who has diligently cultivated a social following through their work. They could store their logo, portfolio and social credentials in an NFD that travels with them as they build their brand on a range of marketplaces.

Furthermore, metadata can be optionally verified using an automated and decentralized system. This provides trust and reassurance that collectors are buying from real NFT projects, donations are going to legitimate non-profits, and so on.

While these features provide powerful means for discoverability and presence, we recognize that in crypto, anonymity is a virtue. It is advisable, for example, to shield your cold storage address from prying eyes. For that reason, all metadata fields are optional, and we will provide a comprehensive set of privacy tools that give you full control over your identity and visibility.

Forward and Reverse Name Resolution

Thanks to the innovative smart contract architecture that wraps NFDs (we’ll talk more about that in a future post), they support both forward and reverse lookups. In other words, “silvio.algo” can be used to find a wallet address, and a wallet address can be used to find “silvio.algo”.

That might not seem like a big deal. But it unlocks exciting features and usability improvements across a wide range of services.

Using reverse lookups, blockchain explorers can display readable names of exchanges and other services in their tables of transactions. DAOs can provide more transparency by showing information about individual participants in governance votes. NFT artists can display their name, profile and information about their project in any marketplace that integrates with NFDs.

Those are just some of the possibilities. Using our public APIs and smart contracts, we expect developers to discover new and exciting ways to use this powerful combination of bidirectional lookups, unique identity, and user-driven metadata.

Algorand Native with First-Class Integration

NFDomains is built on the Algorand blockchain, for the Algorand community. The ASA primitives, fast transaction speeds, and near-zero fees of Algorand are what empowers us to provide a robust, flexible, and speedy service for our users.

Our team will be laser-focused on providing a first-class experience for Algorand users. That entails native integrations with official and third party wallets, blockchain explorers, and other dApps. Our tooling and APIs will be custom-built for Algorand developers, enabling them to integrate easily and seamlessly.

That is why we are launching with “.algo” NFD names first and aim to be the premiere name service for Algorand.

As we grow and expand our use cases, NFDs will provide identity primitives for more cryptocurrencies, bringing the speed and flexibility enjoyed by Algorand users to other blockchains.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and happy new year!

Follow us on Twitter and join our Discord for the latest news and updates.