Decentralized Domain Registry Raises $4 Million From Draper, Boost VC (#GotBitcoin?)

A blockchain startup is bringing the fight for free speech to the domain level. Decentralized Domain Registry Raises $4 Million From Draper, Boost VC (#GotBitcoin?)

Unstoppable Domains announced Thursday a $4 million Series A led by venture capital firm Draper Associates. Boost VC, which led the startup’s seed round, was the only other participant in the Series A.

“For global free speech to work, you need to be able to say what you want and you need to be able to operate a business as you want,” Unstoppable Domains co-founder Brad Kam told CoinDesk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV_OW7YsQkg&list=PLU1KxUVqGmaOjw-tms7ljZqugG40jU1Y3

By operating a decentralized domain registry, Unstoppable Domains claims to offer websites that can’t be taken down by government authorities or traditional domain providers. The issue of domain registrars booting objectionable platforms surged into public view after GoDaddy removed social network Gab following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting last October.

“In the old world, GoDaddy is the custodian,” Kam said. “In this world, you control the domain yourself and no one can take it from you.”

When asked if censorship-resistant websites may offer a safe haven for toxic content or illegal use cases, Kam said:

“Similar comments were made about bitcoin early on as well. The reality is the nefarious purposes are not the main purposes.”

Users of the service control their own .zil domains, which are stored in a wallet, just like a cryptocurrency. The service is built on the Zilliqa blockchain and the website content itself is stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) or other decentralized storage networks, according to the company.

Importantly, Unstoppable’s .zil domains can also serve as human-readable addresses for accepting a variety of cryptocurrency payments.

“Unstoppable in the short term is solving the largest crypto UI problem, creating human-readable addresses, and, long-term, providing the toolset for creating and maintaining uncensorable websites,” Boost VC partner Brayton Williams told CoinDesk. “The way all companies have traditional website domains today, all individuals will have unique blockchain domains in the future for all info and payments.”

The San Francisco-based company was previously funded by the Boost-led $730,000 seed round in December 2018, as well as grants from the Ethereum Foundation (as BrowsEth) and the Zilliqa Foundation. The partnership with Zilliqa led to the creation of the .zil domain extension, which is set to go live after a domain auction in June.

“By decentralizing domain names, Unstoppable Domains has the potential to spread free speech around the world,” Tim Draper, managing partner of Draper Associates, said in a statement.

Kam said the company could potentially offer more domain extensions in the future, though currently .zil is the only one available. The company’s website offers regular .zil domains for $10 and premium domains for $250. Kam declined to share current user numbers.

Added Boost’s Williams:

“The Unstoppable team has proven their ability to ship quality product that has closed contracts with partners and generated significant revenue.”

$250K Bitcoin Price Prediction Is Now ‘Conservative,’ Says Tim Draper

Major Bitcoin (BTC) bull Tim Draper now thinks that his own prediction that BTC price will hit $250,000 by 2022 may be understating the power of Bitcoin.

BTC Price To Grow With Adoption

In an interview with crypto news network Blocktv on Sept. 13, the famous American venture capital investor has once again expressed his bullish stance to Bitcoin, forecasting the soon-to-come mass global adoption that will push the price of Bitcoin higher and higher.

Draper Stated In The Interview:

“$250,000 means that Bitcoin would then have about a 5% market share of the currency world and I think that maybe understating the power of Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin still too complex

According to Draper, people are still preferring fiat money over Bitcoin so far because fiat money seems to be an easier option to pay for services. The VC billionaire argued that Bitcoin’s lack of ease of use is the main impediment of the cryptocurrency to the mass adoption to date, claiming that “engineers have not made it that easy enough for everyone to use Bitcoin.”

However, in the longer term, people will have Bitcoin as the currency of choice because fiat currencies are subject to political influence due to its centralized nature and they will depreciate in value due to a natural inflation rate, Draper said.

He also reiterated his stance that Argentina will be a great market for Bitcoin as a number of local entrepreneurs tend to lose their fortune in local fiat currency due to currency manipulation and devaluation.

Still, even in countries such as the United States, people will generally want a currency that is trusted and decentralized over a currency controlled by entities like the Federal Reserve, which can be very political, Draper concluded.

Draper’s new claims follow his recent forecast that there might be a slight delay in Bitcoin’s path to a $250,000 price.

On Aug. 9, the investor predicted that Bitcoin price will hit the threshold by Q1 2023. On Sept. 9, Draper joined the board of directors of EOS-based decentralized application (DApp) firm MakeSense Labs.

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