A Week in the Life of Namefi Team | Namefi SOP4 with Victor and Sam
life inside a Web3 startup founding team: are startups all that glamorous as they appear to be?
In the latest edition of Namefi’s weekly SOP4 (Standard Operating Procedure) Twitter space, co-hosts Victor Zhou and Sam Yilmaz gathered to discuss the latest challenges and opportunities in building a decentralized domain name ecosystem. Walking through the streets of San Francisco, the duo navigated technical glitches to provide an in-depth update on their startup's progress. Here's a quick breakdown of the main topics they covered:
Email Mishaps During Domain Transfers: Sam shared his personal horror story of losing access to his emails while migrating domains. The Namefi team jumped into action, troubleshooting name server issues, highlighting the fragile nature of domain infrastructure. Lesson learned? Migrating critical domains can lead to unforeseen disruptions, but Namefi aims to make the process more seamless.
The Registrar Dilemma: One of the main issues discussed was how the losing registrar (the one a domain is being transferred from) often doesn't make the transfer process easy. There's a lack of incentive for registrars to pass on all necessary DNS information, leading to downtime and security risks. Victor floated the idea of creating a new standard to ensure smoother transfers between registrars.
Blockchain and Domain Trust: The Namefi team emphasized the importance of security in domain transfers, especially for businesses that rely heavily on domains for email, app hosting, and more. They touched on the vulnerability of domain name systems (DNS), which could lead to massive security breaches if a registrar is compromised. The ultimate solution? Bringing these processes on-chain to remove trust from third parties.
Subdomains as the Future of Digital Identity: Victor introduced a compelling use case for subdomains. Beyond their technical utility, they could serve as badges of belonging, whether in political groups, fan clubs, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Namefi is launching a subdomain issuance feature for domains like trump.club and harris.club, tapping into the U.S. election fervor to test this concept.
On-chain Domains and NFTs: The conversation also touched on the long-term vision of tokenizing domain names and subdomains on-chain. This approach would allow domains to be sold as NFTs, with ownership tracked transparently via blockchain. They even speculated on the potential to create revenue-sharing models for domain traffic—where domain and subdomain owners could earn from ads or apps hosted on the domain.
Building the "Second Floor" of the Internet: Sam and Victor used a real estate metaphor to describe their approach: first, Namefi needs to establish a solid foundation, by offering smoother domain registration and management. Only then can they build the “penthouse”—features like fractional ownership and revenue distribution among subdomain holders.
Credit Card Payments Coming Soon: A more immediate update? Namefi is preparing to launch credit card payments for domain purchases, significantly reducing friction for users. (Launched already!)
Despite technical difficulties, the discussion highlighted Namefi’s mission to modernize the internet’s most fundamental asset—domain names—through blockchain, ultimately decentralizing ownership and making the process more transparent and secure.
Next week’s episode promises more insights, especially as Namefi inches closer to launching its credit card integration.
Stay Tuned and Check out Namefi.io!
Introducing Namefi SOP
Namefi SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) is a weekly series hosted by Victor Zhou, founder and CEO of Namefi, alongside Sam Yilmaz, interim COO. In these sessions, they discuss the latest developments at Namefi, explore industry trends, and debate the future of Web 3.
Get weekly live SOP updates! Follow us on Lu.ma and Twitter to stay connected.