Tokenise domain names towards a more decentralized social and web browsing
Web-wide Socialising browser re-imagined by onchain domain names
In a recent conversation between the founders of Arc, Nothing, and Spotify, the discussion revolved around the future of next-generation browsers, specifically focusing on how artificial intelligence (AI), particularly bots powered by large language models (LLMs), will reshape the web experience. They envision a browser interface that seamlessly integrates AI into user interactions, with features such as LLM-powered search and bots embedded within websites, adding layers of intelligence to the user interface (UI).
While this conversation explored innovative ideas for UI evolution, it overlooked a critical aspect—the role of crypto and Web3 technologies in shaping the future of browsers. In my view, a more fitting title for this vision should be "UI for an Open Digital Society," not just "UI for AGI." Why? Because AI is merely a means to an end, while Web3 technologies—powered by crypto—have the potential to empower individual self-custody and decentralize control, which are essential to an open, democratic digital ecosystem.
With the crypto user base growing rapidly, it's critical that we factor Web3 technologies into the next generation of browsers. This article aims to explore how tokenized domains can help bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 browsers, addressing adoption challenges and supporting new players like Brave and HVR in building an ecosystem for decentralized social browsing.
Current Browser Landscape
Before diving into tokenized domains and their potential, let’s briefly review the current browser landscape and the next-generation browsers that are already pushing boundaries.
Google Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge are the top three browsers in terms of user base. Chrome alone holds a significant 65.52% share of the global browser market, with Safari capturing 19.79%, and Edge at 4.16%. These browsers are highly optimized for speed, usability, and integrated features, but they maintain the traditional Web2 structure, where data is controlled by centralized entities, and user privacy is often compromised for advertising revenue.
Arc: A newer browser gaining attention, Arc focuses on workspace-based browsing, allowing users to organize their tabs and workflows more efficiently. It also plans to incorporate AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) into its web interface, further blending AI with web navigation.
Brave: Known as the go-to browser for crypto-native users, Brave distinguishes itself with features like Basic Attention Token (BAT), which rewards users for viewing privacy-respecting ads. It also integrates IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) for decentralized content and includes a native wallet for interacting with crypto and Web3 applications.
HVR: Positioned as a social browser, HVR is focusing on enabling decentralized social interactions across the web. It seeks to overcome the historical failures of previous social browsing attempts by integrating Web3 technologies such as tokenized domains to empower users and create a decentralized ecosystem.
These browsers are signaling the direction of next-gen browsing—a blend of AI, self-custody, and decentralized social experiences. This article will explore how tokenized domains can play a crucial role in powering decentralized social browsing, addressing past failures, and driving adoption in Web3.
The Shift from Blogs to Walled Social Media Gardens
Historically, personal blogs hosted on domains were a primary means for individuals to share ideas and publish information. As of 2024, platforms like WordPress still power an estimated 43% of all websites, with millions of individuals using personal domains to publish content. However, the dominance of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter—often referred to as walled gardens—has led to the centralization of online publishing and social interactions. Facebook alone boasts nearly 3 billion active users, dwarfing the number of personal domain owners.
This centralization offers users a seamless experience, particularly through federated IDs (like Google Sign-In), but it also brings significant risks in terms of privacy, censorship, and monopolistic control over content. As outlined in this article from 1kx Network on the Web3 Identity Stack, the convergence toward social walled gardens threatens individual control over data and online identities. The rise of federated ID systems gives tech giants even more control over users' identities, further consolidating the social web.
I'm not advocating for a complete abandonment of centralized platforms, but promoting diversity is essential. By tokenizing domains, we can create decentralized alternatives that allow users to interact socially across the web while maintaining control over their data. This diversity ensures a more resilient and open digital society.
How Tokenized Domains Can Enable Decentralized Social Browsing?
The idea of social browsing—where users can comment, interact, and share content across different websites in a seamless, decentralized manner—has been attempted before but has largely failed. Previous efforts were stymied by adoption challenges and the ad-driven internet economy, which prioritized monetization over user experience and privacy.
Tokenized domains could change that by providing a blockchain-based infrastructure that solves several key problems:
Decentralized ownership: Tokenized domains, whether they are traditional domains or Web3-native like ENS (Ethereum Name Service), enable users to have verifiable, decentralized ownership of their domains. This shifts power away from centralized domain registrars, ensuring that users maintain full control over their online presence.
Cross-platform social interactions: Tokenized domains can serve as digital identities, allowing users to comment, review, and engage with content across the web in a decentralized manner. This could address one of the major hurdles that social browsing attempts have faced—walled platforms that silo interactions. By tokenizing domains, users' identities and social interactions become interoperable across websites.
Monetization through tokens: Integrating token economies, like BAT, could create a more sustainable monetization model that rewards both users and content creators for social interactions. Instead of relying on invasive ads, tokenized domains could enable peer-to-peer payments, microtransactions, and token-gated communities, where users pay for premium content using tokens, fostering direct value exchange without middlemen.
Why Social Browsing Failed in the Past?
Social browsing has failed previously due to several factors:
Lack of incentives for users: Social browsing didn’t provide sufficient incentives for users to leave existing social platforms like Facebook or Twitter.
Monetization models: Early social browsers struggled to implement sustainable monetization models. In a web dominated by ad-driven revenue, these browsers couldn’t compete with established platforms offering free services.
No decentralized infrastructure: Previous attempts didn’t have access to decentralized technologies like blockchain, IPFS, or tokenized domains, which could provide more resilient ownership and interaction mechanisms.
Countering the Critique: How Tokenized Domains Overcome Adoption Barriers?
Tokenized domains address the primary barriers that earlier social browsing attempts faced:
Incentivizing adoption: By integrating BAT-like reward systems, tokenized domains can incentivize users to engage with content. For example, users can earn tokens for commenting or participating in discussions on decentralized websites, making social browsing economically rewarding.
Direct monetization models: Creators and website owners could monetize through token-gated content or NFTs, allowing them to generate income directly from their audiences without relying on traditional ads. This fosters a healthier, user-centric economy and reduces the need for data-hungry advertising systems.
In this way, tokenized domains create a sustainable model for decentralized social browsing, enabling interoperable social interactions, incentivizing users, and overcoming the reliance on ad-driven revenue.
Conclusion
As we move towards a future where AI, self-custody, and decentralized social interactions redefine the browser experience, tokenized domains offer a bridge between Web2 and Web3 browsing. By enabling decentralized ownership and monetization models, tokenized domains can solve the adoption challenges that previously plagued social browsing attempts.
Through Brave's integration of BAT and HVR's vision of social browsing, tokenized domains could empower users to engage across the web in a decentralized, open, and privacy-respecting manner, ensuring that the internet evolves towards an open digital society rather than being controlled by monopolistic platforms. The future of browsing isn’t just about AI—it’s about giving users ownership of their online experiences, and tokenized domains are a key piece of that puzzle.
Reference:
Conversation between the founders of Arc, Nothing, and Spotify on next-gen browsers
YouTube video: "Arc, Nothing, and Spotify founders on the future of next-gen browsers"Global browser market share statistics
"Browser Market Share Worldwide," StatCounter.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-shareBrave Browser and BAT Integration
Brave. "The Brave Browser – Secure, Fast & Private Web Browser with BAT."
https://brave.comHVR's focus on social browsing and Web3
HVR Website (under development).
Project information provided internally.1kx Network article on Web3 identity
Medium. "Towards Digital Self-Sovereignty: The Web3 Identity Stack."
https://medium.com/1kxnetwork/towards-digital-self-sovereignty-the-web3-identity-stack-874d5e015baeWordPress statistics on personal blog hosting
W3Techs. "Usage statistics of WordPress for websites."
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpressInterPlanetary File System (IPFS)
"IPFS Documentation," IPFS Official.
https://ipfs.ioENS (Ethereum Name Service) and tokenized domains
Ethereum Name Service (ENS).
https://ens.domainsBasic Attention Token (BAT) whitepaper
BAT Project Documentation.
https://basicattentiontoken.org/Decentralized identity and reputation systems
"Web3 Identity Standards," Ethereum.org.
https://ethereum.org/en/decentralized-identity/
Simply brilliant summation of privacy with incentives versus traditional imprisonment of users and their privacy being stripped away along with their 1st Amendment rights of freedom of speech. Or worse, narrowed search results favoring a narrative that only produces content that builds upon false data propaganda and cripples real dialogue between people with opposing viewpoints. Robs people of using critical thinking skills to enhance the topic and look for meaningful solutions as a true Republic based on Democratic principles is to suppose to function especially here in the USA, where we are the only nation with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that are being marginalized by a Deep State hell bent on removing those freedoms with their devaluation of the nuclear family and watering down of the real sex identities by allowing 17 Gender choices and men competing on a women's team simply by checking a box and adopting a pronoun. What complete bull shit and if you raise your voice you run the risk of assets being frozen or removed from platforms or criminally charged with some draconian crime.
To hell with that. Decentralization is the future if we want to avoid being forced into a dystopian society of mindless drones.
Give me liberty or death. To the soundbyte clueless KoolAid drinkers out there just remember we outnumber you and in a battle to preserve our rights you will get beat up like an ugly step child if you continue your feckless march of a cliff of madness.