Winklevoss’ Gemini to Offer Custody of .Crypto Blockchain Domains

Unstoppable Domains, a major blockchain domain provider, is hitting another milestone as Winklevoss brothers' Gemini exchange now offers custody for its ".crypto" domains.

Starting from July 23, users can store their ".crypto" addresses obtained through Unstoppable Domains with Gemini Custody — a tool that is designed to store crypto assets in a regulated, secure and compliant manner.

Domain registrars 101domain and EnCirca are among the first users

Registrars of traditional DNS domains are being targeted as top customers of the new service. Providers like 101domain and EnCirca will be the first resellers of the new product, Unstoppable Domains’ co-founder Brad Kam told Cointelegraph. 

By using Gemini’s custody services, the registrars will purportedly be able to protect their blockchain assets. “They have traditional companies that don’t want to store their own domains,” Kam added.

Introduced by Unstoppable Domains in October 2019, a ".crypto" domain is a domain registry based on the Ethereum blockchain. The registry allows users to connect any crypto address to their domain, enabling domain payments and uncensorable websites. Blockchain domains represent non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, built on Ethereum and stored on a user’s wallet.

According to Kam, Gemini is the first exchange to provide this storage to NFTs in general. “This is great for companies that don’t want to store their own keys,” the executive noted. Kam elaborated that, alongside Gemini’s custody opportunity, .crypto domains can deploy hardware wallets like Ledger for secure storage. “Lots of people use Ledgers for this currently,” the exec said.

Crypto exchanges are also looking at using .crypto domains

Backed by major blockchain investor Tim Draper, Unstoppable Domains has registered over 200,000 domains to date, including domains like Kyber.crypto, Switcheo.crypto, myetherwallet.crypto, and meltemdemirors.crypto. 

The domain name industry is actively deploying blockchain technology to develop the decentralized web. On July 21, major domain registry Verisign acquired a blockchain patent that is designed to turn traditional domains into a “blockchain user address,” allowing them to interact with other participants on the network. Previously, popular browser Opera became the first major browser to integrate the .crypto domain extension.