Skip to content

NFT Domains, what the heck are they? An introduction to Quik.com & ENS Domains

Let us now talk about two important NFT domain projects that aim to revolutionize the web domain name industry. ENS and Quik.

Before getting to the main question of what exactly are NFT domains, let me give you a short introduction to NFTs. So basically, NFTs are digital assets in the form of data, they are Ethereum blockchains, and these blockchains are unique (1). Unique as in they can’t be replaced by others, therefore non-fungible.

NFTs is an abbreviation of the non-fungible token. Now let’s break the term down, shall we? Non-fungible,  because they are one of a kind, they are the property of their owner, who holds the authority to sell and trade them. So, these NFTs could be digital creations like pictures, videos, art, etc, and the person who purchases these NFTs becomes the owner of these original data (2).

So, in simple terms NFTs function like physical assets, except they are not physical but digital. We can buy and sell them in the NFT market. Mind you these things are not cheap, people are willing to pay a lot of money to get sole ownership of many famous and iconic pictures and videos. One well-known example is that of Grimes (3) and Beeple selling NFTs and earning an absurd amount of money.

Alright, since we understand the basic idea of what in the bizarre world are NFTs, let’s try to understand what are NFT domains (4). So, domain names are addresses that we can utilize to access websites. The NFT domain is part of the Ethereum blockchain, which allows you to own all the rights to your digital property.

You should be aware of how the default address of your crypto wallet is only machine-readable and quite long, therefore it could leave scope for mistakes. So, what would happen when you replace it with an NFT domain name? Now, you get to have a simple and short wallet address, this would for sure make transactions quite hassle-free, don’t you agree?

NFT domains are completely changing how we view the internet, now, we get a decentralized view of the internet, where the power is now in your hand and not the traditional domains. Now, you get to be the controller of your own digital data, the power long held by the traditional domain is now transferred back to your hands.

Let us now talk about two important NFT domain projects that aim to revolutionize the web domain name industry. These projects are ENS and Quik.com.

Umm…so what are NFT Domains?

Confused? No worries!

Quik.com is an advanced generation digital marketplace, they use NFTs for commercial purposes by selling and minting them. Quik (5) is a part of the Web3 domain name market, where you get to buy the ownership of the NFT domain name, and you remain the owner until you decide to transfer them or sell them.

ENS (6) are made from the Ethereum blockchain, hence ENS is an abbreviation of Ethereum Name Service. You can sell these blockchains on most markets, these are utilized by their owner to indicate how the organization should be molded in the near future.

Both ENS and Quick provide you with domain names. So, which are these domains? Well, Quik can give you domain extensions like .vr, .metaverse, and .blockchain, on the other hand, ENS provides us with secondary domain zones like .eth and .luke.

Quik is conventional because it facilitates the buyers with lifetime ownership until they decide to sell it themselves. So, if you buy NFT domain names at Quik.com, you won’t be required to renew them at regular intervals. ENS on the other hand the ownership could expire and then you’ll have to renew them at regular intervals (7).

Explaining ENS

So, ENS as we know it as Ethereum Name Service is a domain naming system. This system is part of the Ethereum blockchain which we have known earlier, it is an extended naming system. Allow me to elaborate on the primary purpose of ENS, which is to convert the NFTs that can be read by humans to those identifiers that can be read by the computers (8).

Let’s take an example of an ENS domain name, say athena.eth. Now what ENS would do is take this domain name and then convert it to an identifier that can be easily read by computers. What it can also do is turn this process on its head by changing it from a machine-readable identifier to a human-readable form.

ENS proclaims to share a similar goal with DNS, which is Domain Name Service (9). DNSs are centralized whereas ENS facilitates decentralized services. Both function as a registry for domain names, it is just that you will find DNS to be more restrictive in comparison to ENS. Why is it so? Simply because DNS does not allow users complete control but ENS does to a large extent.

Did you know that ENS was the first service that transferred DNS to decentralized Web3, and therefore it holds a unique value proposition? ENS, as we know, simplifies the complicated computer-readable codes to the human-readable blockchain, hence it makes our experience much more convenient and less technical.

Explaining Quik.com

As we know Quik is a marketplace that accommodates the buying, selling, trading, and minting of NFTs. It is a digital marketplace for Web3 domain names, so if you are interested in trading or minting NFTs Quik.com is a good option for you. You can go to the NFT marketplace, to mint NFT domains if they haven’t been minted (10).

What would happen if the NFT is already minted by someone else? The answer is to simply buy them. If by chance the NFT that you want to mint has already been minted, then you have the option to contact the owner and buy it from them.

Do you know Quik gives you 10 different TLDs? You might wonder what the heck are TLDs  (11)? Well, TLD is the abbreviation of Top Level Domain, as you can guess from the name, these domains are the ones with the highest level in the hierarchy of DNS. So, which are these TLDs that Quik provides? These are:

  • .chain,
  • .i,
  • .doge,
  • .vr,
  • .metaverse
  • .bored
  • .shib
  • .btc
  • .web3
  • .address

These do not belong to the DNS domain names, these extensions are offered by Quik.com.

Through Quik.com, you can replace the wallet address of a decentralized Web3 website that you are hosting with NFT domain names. It helps you in replacing the complicated alphanumeric domain name with a quick-to-remember, memorable name, Quik.com also allows you to extend these functions to games, virtual world, etc.

One good news for us is that Quik.com plans to release a chrome extension (12). And what is this extension used for? To make it simple this extension shall allow the users in hosting decentralized websites, unlike the previous traditional domain names that were centralized. Exactly how would this happen? By using your NFT domain name in the IPFS.

All of this and much more would be made possible in the ecosystem of Quik.com.

Which one should you pick?

Quik.com as we are already aware provides complete control over the NFT domain name minted by the user. So, you can have complete ownership and control of your NFT domain name. You can host a decentralized Web3 website, with the help of Quik using your own unique NFT domain name (13).

ENS as we have gotten familiar with throughout this article is a domain naming service, which is based on the Ethereum blockchain. It aims to function similarly to the traditional Domain Name Service, but with more freedom in a decentralized form. ENS gives you complete control over the subsets of the domain name, making it much more attractive than the big ole DNS system.

One wonders which one is better among these two? Well do not fret, we are just going to do that. The long-awaited comparison (14) of these two is just about to happen. Both Quik.com and ENS are domain names providing services.

Popular belief is that Quik.com might be better. Now you may ask why so? Because Quik.com has a very user-friendly ecosystem. You may observe that Quik.com functions in simple processes. It provides you with a great search tool, if you wish to locate or check the availability of NFTs, Quik also helps you with extension support.

Quik’s ecosystem is very accommodating to its users. If you are interested, all you have to do is go to the website Quik.com. There you can easily view all the options, you have to connect your wallet, and search for your desired NFT domain name. All that is left after this is to mint the NFT and it is all yours for a lifetime. There is no need for renewal whatsoever.

ENS gives good support but they don’t have TLDs. TLDs are used by Quik.com, and you get a variety of them. The naming system of ENS is based on .eth in comparison Quik offers you multiple options of TLDs built on the Ethereum blockchain (15) to choose for your domain name.

What are the similarities, though?

One of the most common things among both Quik.com and ENS, and one of the most obvious is that both facilitate decentralized domain naming services.

Both of them are based on smart contracts. And what exactly is a smart contract? Smart contract (16) is a way of minting the NFTs to ensure the sale agreement, as well as management of domain, the assigning of ownership, and transfer of ownership. This agreement is made between the seller and the buyer.

The NFT domains generated from Quik and ENS can help you in logging into DApps. These DApps run on the P2P blockchain. You can also get access to Web3 websites using these domain names. Both function as a registry for domain names, Quik.com offers many TLDs whereas ENS supports .eth and .luke as secondary zones.

Both Quik and ENS allow for the users to sell, manage or transfer the NFT domain names using markets and wallets. Once bought, you get all rights and control over the blockchain domain you purchased. The method to purchase a domain name is to link your crypto wallet and mint NFTs. These are some of the similarities (17) between ENS and Quik.

So, is Quik a Great Alternative to ENS Domains?

As you might have anticipated, more comparison of Quik and ENS is coming your way.

Quik is much more efficient and effortless when it comes to functioning in comparison to ENS. From the plethora of information we have gone through, it is safe to say that Quik in terms of the period of ownership over the domain name is far better than ENS (18). For ENS you have to regularly renew your ownership, or you might lose it, but in the case of Quik, it’s a one-time purchase for the lifetime of ownership.

Minting and trading the NFT blockchains at Quik is quite simplified. All you have to do to make this possible is to log in with your crypto wallet and you can easily start minting NFT. If the NFT has been already minted you have the option to always buy it from the owner. The variety of TLDs is already something we are aware of that poses an advantage over ENS.

Quik offers its users the ability to create decentralized websites, it also allows them to create NFT galleries, both are a great advantage over the ENS domain. The domain names by Quik can function as universal identifiers among Web3 websites, unique only to their owner.

You can now use these NFT domain names as portable digital assets that are stored in your Metamask wallet.

So is Quik a better alternative to ENS, well we can’t say for sure, because it has its own advantages (19). It allows its users to control and influence how future policies and other development should be shaped.

ENS is the first NFT domain in the world. Being the founder has its own advantages, but we can never deny the ease that Quik.com provides to its users. ENS is handled by a non-profit organization. These organizations are held and provided by the Ethereum Foundation. Therefore the users have much sway over the future and development of the services over there (20).

Quik is managed by a private company, therefore it strives to attract the users with its user-friendly approach and its simple yet sophisticated processing. In the end, we can safely assume that both have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it largely depends on the user preference, we can only compare.

Latest