The Web3 arm of Nike, named ‘RTFKT’, has purchased a new Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain for ETH 19.72 (roughly Rs. 29 lakh). This brings the total tally of RTFKT’s ENS holdings has risen to ten. The ENS is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain. It is capable of mapping human-readable names like ‘xyz.eth’ to machine-readable identifiers. For its fresh purchase, Nike has chosen a dotswoosh.eth domain.
In addition to dotswoosh.eth, RTFKT also has possession of artifacts.eth, rtfkt.eth, skinvial.eth, drmos.eth, mintvial.eth, dreamos.eth, spacedrip.eth, dripcoin.eth, and m2tekno.eth as ENS domains, said a report by Decrypt.
While Nike has not given a reason to its new ENS addition, speculations are reportedly pointing towards a possibility for the footwear giant to use it for issuing ENS subdomains, that are monitored and controlled by the holder of the main domain.
With Nike getting active in the NFT space, it could be planning to allow its NFT holders to register for ENS subdomains under the dotswoosh.eth main domain.
Any individual or company that owns an ENS becomes able to receive cryptocurrency, token, and blockchain-based assets. Nike’s ENS domain purchases could also be hinting at a potential plan to enable crypto payments for its high-end sports shoes.
“Our findings suggest that ENS is showing gradually popularity during its four years’ evolution, mainly due to its distributed and open nature that ENS domain names can be set to any kinds of records, even censored and malicious contents. We have identified several security issues and misbehaviors including traditional DNS security issues and new issues introduced by ENS smart contracts,” a report by Cornell University claims.
Well, for now it’s only a matter of time before Nike finally gives a clarification on its ENS purchases with future announcements.
Meanwhile, Nike is not the only footwear mammoth that is exploring the ENS sector.
Back in February, Puma had purchased a decentralised domain and changed its name to ‘Puma.eth’ on Twitter.