Unstoppable Domains Taps Polygon to Cut Gas Fees for Ethereum NFT Domains

By Kate Irwin

Blockchain domain name company Unstoppable Domains will no longer charge customers gas fees to mint an NFT domain name as of today, the company announced. Unstoppable has completed the first phase of its move to Polygon, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum which is able to speed up transactions and mitigate fees.

Initially, Unstoppable Domains made use of the Zilliqa blockchain before moving to Ethereum and now Polygon, which touts itself as “the eco-friendly blockchain scaling Ethereum.” 

“Gas” on Ethereum refers to the variable cost of making any sort of transaction on the network and can often get quite expensive. For example, gas fees to mint a single domain name on Unstoppable Domains via Ethereum were as high as $100. While Ethereum is currently in the process of upgrading its network to reduce such fees, it’s unclear when the upgrade will be complete, which may help explain why Unstoppable Domains chose to move to Polygon now.

Unlike many other NFTs, which are often associated with visual art such as images, gifs, or short videos, NFT domain names are simply web domain names that exist on a blockchain. NFTs are tokens that can be used to represent ownership over various types of digital items, including “uncensorable” web domains. These domains also serve the dual purpose of providing short, easy-to-remember crypto wallet addresses, much like the “.eth” names provided by the Ethereum Name Service.

Unstoppable Domains claims that more than 1.5 million NFT domain names have been set up through its service since 2018. The company allows users to purchase domain names ending in .crypto, .nft, .bitcoin, .dao and .blockchain, to name a few.

Now that Unstoppable Domains is moving to Polygon, the company plans to offer support for domain management as well as transfer solutions for those with older Zilliqa and Ethereum-minted domains. At the end of the month, users will be able to set up domains on Polygon with their cryptocurrency addresses as well as add other features like NFT galleries and social media links. If users wish to move their domains from Polygon to Ethereum, they’ll be able to do so sometime in early 2022, but Ethereum gas fees will apply. 

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