[imiric]

Blockchain technology only became popular in the last decade and, as much as it has become a meme at this point, DNS is actually one of the best use cases for it. The current DNS is distributed, but highly centralized, and paying renewal fees for keeping a record in a file and a server running feels like extortion. An immutable, consistent and decentralized storage system solves those issues, and I can pay once and technically own that record for life. (Though Unstoppable Domains' prices seem arbitrarily high...)

So I'm hopeful that some of this new tech can disrupt the current system, which we know is inherently flawed.[1]

While I'm not going to use Opera anytime soon, we should celebrate this news and push for other browsers to do the same.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pp72gUYx00

[ziml77]

How does the name get reclaimed when you lose the key or die? Do we just accept that it's possible for domain names to be forever unusable?

[imiric]

That's a fair point, and I don't have an answer. Presumably there would be enough TLDs to ensure a unique name is not as important, as it's just a short label anyway. Maybe there could be an expiration or some kind of override mechanism built into the protocol, though I'm not familiar with NFTs to know if this is feasible.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be challenges with this approach, but it seems worth a try if it means replacing an outdated and vulnerable system.

[intotheabyss]

The ENS (Ethereum Name Service) technically loans out the domain names and they are put up again on the market if the owner of the domain doesn't renew it before expiry.

[ziml77]

That sounds like a reasonable way to handle it.