How Coinbase Plans to Make Crypto Transactions Easier

by Arthur · September 21, 2022

Coinbase has announced a partnership with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) that will enable users to claim a Web3 username.

Instead of using a daunting 42-character address to send and receive cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens, Coinbase users can now claim a free “name.cb.id” username using their wallet extensions, the exchange said in a publication on its website.

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Username key, says Coinbase

In its announcement, Coinbase said that universal access to Web3 is necessary, “to create an open financial system for the world.” To this end, it explained that “promoting the adoption of a human-readable username standard is a key part of making Web3 user-friendly for everyone.”

According to Coinbase, a username is the first component that makes up a user’s Web3 identity. Thanks to the new feature, provided by ENS, Coinbase users can now claim a free “name.cb.id” web3 username which they can later use as the basis of their Web3 identity.

What is ENS?

ENS is an open, distributed and extensible naming system that works in the same way as the Domain Name System (DNS) used in web browsers. Like DNS, ENS maps human-readable addresses such as “name.eth” to a machine-readable address.

These personalized addresses enable users to manage their cryptocurrency funds and assets by providing a human-friendly interface.

After registrations for ENS domain names reached a record number earlier this year in May, they continued to climb another 200% by July.

Earlier this month, just before the merger, ENS sales surged, placing it at the top of the daily list of non-fungible token (NFT) collections, according to DappRadar.

Problems on the horizon

Still, with any innovation comes inherent downsides. For example, the fact that ENS services are immutable means that they are effectively censorship resistant.

However, if it is used by illegal organizations, such as terrorist organizations or human traffickers, this content cannot be later removed by the authorities.

More practically, many people will likely struggle with losing their domain keys, which, like your wallet’s private keys, are irrecoverable if lost.

Meanwhile, Coinbase noted this consideration in its announcement, describing “products like social recovery or multi-party computation (MPC) technology … create more forgiving experiences that can enable wider Web3 adoption.”

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