Onboarding 8 billion to web3 with ENS: Interview Recap

A few weeks ago, NameStone Founder Alex Slobodnik joined Tim Cox on the PoolTogether Community Podcast. Alex and Tim discussed what NameStone is, how web2 and web3 communities can use ENS (Ethereum Name Service) names, and how removing entry barriers for crypto-curious people is key to onboarding the entire world to web3.

NameStone would like to thank PoolTogether, the number one no-loss prize savings account, for having Alex on their podcast.

In the podcast, Alex (aka Slobo) recounts how he founded NameStone through nftychat, a web3 discord alternative he also founded. While giving away gasless subdomains, nftychat saw a rise of 500 new users in 24 hours. Slobo knew then he'd found a product the market needed.

“This is why I founded NameStone. It allows anyone, from small brands like Wassies and PoolTogether to wallets, to issue gasless subdomains from their ENS name or any imported DNS domain.”

Owning an ENS name is no cheap endeavor, they both admit, with Tim even sharing his own experiences of paying gas to fix a mistake:

“I didn’t understand how to put my Twitter name into my ENS profile. It redirects you to a bad link because I put it in wrong. So I had to go pay, you know, like 20 bucks to fix that.”

Their conversation flows into NameStone’s other products, including 1) the community page, where all claimed names are listed, allowing supporters of a project to connect, and 2) the admin page, where brands can revoke bad names.

Later, Tim and Slobo dive into possible use cases of gasless ENS names, from gaming to payroll to web2 companies. Slobo acknowledges the interest of web2 companies in not missing out on opportunities in web3: “Through our product, brands are able to onboard the crypto-curious without it costing them any money [gas fees].”

Toward the end, Tim questions his guest about the on-chain versus off-chain debate, with Slobo proposing hybrid solutions as a positive driver of adoption—the key being for people to “just experience web3”.

For the full conversation, listen to the original interview here.