TL;DR After being funded for 2ETH by Prop House 7 months ago, we have built an entire, functioning naming service called Nouns Name Service (NNS, built on the .⌐◨-◨ domain.) We are now asking the DAO to fund us to bring Nouns Name Service to the next level.
The Nouns Name Service (nns.xyz) is a naming system that aims to empower communities and spread the nounish culture.
The main Top Level Domain of the Nouns Name Service is the .⌐◨-◨ .
Just as a .eth is resolved in yourname.eth, having a .⌐◨-◨ will allow you to attach the Nouns DAO noggles to your on-chain identity and be resolved as yourname.⌐◨-◨ .
Background
The Nouns Name Service (NNS) received 2 ETH in Prop House – Round 2 (April 2022) as trial funding to prove out the concept and build our reputation as trustworthy builders in the ecosystem.
After 4 months of work we delivered the first version of the NNS (nns.xyz) and in the first month post-launch, we have already created a powerful ecosystem of partners which allowed the NNS to be natively resolved across the Nouns ecosystem.
Summary
This proposal will allow the NNS to build the infrastructure required to start phase 2 of our strategy: Expansion.
In particular, these are the main goals of this phase, which will be completed over a 5 months period:
- Integrate the NNS into new DAOs, apps and marketplaces outside the Nouniverse.
- Integration of an additional .nouns TLD that will help overcome .⌐◨-◨ copy-paste problems on external apps making its applications more flexible and effective.
- Create a DAO powered by Nouns Builder to empower the NNS Squad, our community of people who got their .⌐◨-◨, with an experimental treasury to reward members and finance new initiatives.
- Build new utility tools around the NNS. The first in the pipeline is a nounish NNS version of EtherScan.
- Launch the Nounish Club project to push proliferation in and outside the Nouniverse through a new experiment of community reward and participation.
- Create a full documentation for end-users and developers expanding the ways in which they can integrate the NNS in their projects.
- Start the first experiments and collaborations for Phase 3.
Requesting funding of 195 ETH to execute our Expansion Phase.
Funds will be immediately converted in USDC to avoid volatility exposure of any kind.
How the NNS started
The idea of the NNS originated from a question:
“Is there a way to transform a meme icon into a fully functional domain, where its utility grows proportionally to the meme adoption?”
During the first months of work, this idea evolved from its very first draft on Prop House, letting the NNS become a possible solution to several interesting scenarios:
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In an ecosystem based on CC0 like the Nouniverse, with a lot of new communities and sub-DAOs, the .⌐◨-◨ could become a universal tool for companies and creators to interact with the entire ecosystem at once. How so? The power of a CC0 ecosystem is the proliferation of a main idea in many sub-projects and communities. In the Nouniverse, that idea is represented by the ⌐◨-◨ meme. The noggles appear in every nounish community, but at the same time they are part of different NFTs and collections. At the moment, there isn’t a token that can unify the Nouns ecosystem at an infrastructural level. The .⌐◨-◨ can fill this gap, allowing companies and creators to reach the whole ecosystem by simply integrating the NNS into their token-gated experiences and initiatives.
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The more the NNS is integrated on new apps and marketplaces across the world, the more the .⌐◨-◨ will help spread the nounish culture at an exponential level. How so? The NNS serves as an on-chain identity badge for all the people who share the nounish culture. Having your .⌐◨-◨ attached to your web3 identity makes it clear that you belong to the “nounish internet society”. The more the NNS will expand, the more the Nouns proliferation will reach places that wouldn’t even have been considered before.
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In a market dominated by 2 titan projects and few TLDs, the NNS could become the first experiment of a collaborative naming system on ETH. This would allow other communities to join the NNS and create their own TLD on top of the NNS, making the whole protocol stronger and more widely adopted, and offering the new communities the advantage of having their TLD natively resolved across the NNS network from day 1. How so? Once the Nouns Name Service is globally recognised by important apps in the space, it could open its network to other communities as well. This way, communities will not only get their customized TLD (that’s nothing new), but this will be able to be natively resolved everywhere from the very beginning. This will literally onboard in the Nouniverse and in Nouns DAO whole communities made by end-users and talented builders, constantly bringing new ideas and improving engagement thanks to a proven system of funding based on Prop House, Small Grants and all the other nounish DAOs.
In a nutshell, for a community joining the NNS would mean not only having a naming infrastructure, but also being able to build and nurture important relationships in the Nouniverse that will push new ideas and collaborations with the entire ecosystem.
These applications, which at the moment represent our focus, will offer Nouns and the Nouniverse an important value in terms of proliferation, new users in existing nounish platforms and the attraction of new builders.
And we are confident this is just the beginning of many other applications for the NNS.
Roadmap (The 3 Phases)
Building this kind of Naming System is a big task. Which is why we split our development in 3 Phases. After the first one is completed, the NNS will be able to move to the next one, and so on.
PHASE 1: Core Ecosystem and Community
The power of any protocol lies in its network. That’s why our top priority since launch has always been to build a strong core ecosystem from which we can expand.
While new naming systems often rely on external plugins to resolve their names, the NNS aims to create a network where every NNS name is natively resolved without any additional action by the users.
At the time of writing, the NNS has been supported by all the major nounish projects, officially connecting the Nouniverse.
ENS reservation period and stats:
During the first 60 days after launch NNS names could only be claimed by their correspondent .eth.
While this impacted the NNS growth in the very short term, it also allowed the early adopters to have full control of their identities, thus focusing more on identity than speculation.
The ENS reservation ended on 19 October 2022 with the following results:
- 355 names claimed
- 252 unique owners
As you’re reading this, after 4 months of development and 2 months of Reservation Period, Phase 1 is officially completed.
At this time, 2 weeks after the end of the Reservation Period, a total of 526 .⌐◨-◨ names have been registered from 311 unique owners.
PHASE 2: Expansion and Nounish Club
Phase 2 will start the real proliferation of the NNS.
As mentioned in the TL;DR, the Expansion phase will have several goals, starting from the integration of the NNS in new DAOs, apps and marketplaces outside the Nouns ecosystem, also solving the .⌐◨-◨ current copy-paste issue.
Part of the Expansion will also be the building of an NNS Scan, which you can picture like an NNS version of EtherScan. We will also create a new and more complete website, where end-users and developers will be able to access a full documentation so that they can find new ways to integrate the NNS in their projects.
The NNS Squad will also have access to an experimental Treasury which will be used to reward active members and finance new missions.
Finally, and what we believe is the most exciting part of this Phase, we will launch the Nounish Club project to push proliferation through an experimental form of community reward and participation.
At the end of these developments, we will start the first experiments and collaborations for Phase 3.
The Nounish Club
The Nounish Club is an experiment made to reward nouners, nounish projects and communities outside the Nouniverse through new forms of community participation.
The idea is to allocate to this initiative all the numbers from 0 to 9999.⌐◨-◨, making them a new coveted asset to stimulate NNS proliferation and inspire new community ideas.
However, these numbers won't be available to be bought from the NNS.
They will only be earnable by taking active part in .⌐◨-◨ proliferation and in special initiatives, and they will be entirely distributed for free through what we like to call a “Proof of Proliferation” process.
The Nounish Club will be an exclusive group inside the NNS, completely in the hands of the Nouniverse.
Every nounish project will be able to add a special benefit to the club, such as discounts, NFTs, voting power, early accesses and more. They will also be able to ask the NNS to get a specific allocation of numbers to be shared among their communities or to be used as assets to keep in their treasury.
The more benefits will be added, the more the access to the Nounish Club will be valued.
Here are some key points of how this would work:
- The NNS will allocate an initial amount of numbers to the NNS Squad DAO created through Nouns Builder. This will add an additional asset to the treasury that will be managed according to DAO voting.
- For the first 6 months, the numbers from 0 to 669 will be reserved for Nouners. Every existing nouner, as well as new ones, can request their specific numbers offering their help to proliferate the Nouns Name Service or to add benefits to make the Nounish Club more valuable.
- Specific numbers would be used to invite new strategic users into the Nouns ecosystem.
- Nounish DAOs and projects would be able to request a certain allocation of numbers for proliferation initiatives. This will make the distribution of the Nounish Club more and more decentralized.
- If the experimental allocation to the NNS Squad DAO is successful, the NNS will gradually allocate a bigger amount of numbers to the DAO over time.
The Nounish Club benefits will be grouped on a url like nounishclub.wtf and new proposals about ideas, benefits and allocations can be managed through the NNS Squad DAO and discussed on the NNS Discord.
The Nounish Club will also use Prophouse as another important tool to generate and reward new ideas.
Why the Nounish Club?
We are exploring what the NNS can become through a continuous loop of never-tried before experiments and feedback. The Nounish Club is one of them.
The reason we are excited about the Nounish Club is that we believe it can be an interesting experiment which, if successful, will be able to create a massive value for every community in the Nouns ecosystem.
This value can be seen as:
- Building value: It will be a further incentive for nounish communities to build cool things for the NNS and the Nounish Club.
- Proliferation value: It will generate a further proliferation of the .⌐◨-◨ and can be used to onboard strategic users into the Nouns ecosystem.
- Economic value: The more the NNS and the Nounish Club will grow, the more every name of the Club will be valuable (incentivizing more building around it).
PHASE 3: Protocol
Once the NNS is supported by the major platforms in the space and successfully completes all the other tasks, it will be ready to open the protocol to other communities.
This upgrade will allow other great projects to build their TLD on top of the Nouns Name Service.
This will strengthen the relationship between the Nouniverse and worldwide communities working together for the proliferation of the Nouns Name Service.
Dwelling on the developments of Phase 3 is not the focus of this proposal, which aims to focus on the Expansion and Phase 2. However, our ultimate mission is making Nouns the center of a naming revolution that will attract not only end users, but also companies and other big projects.
Some aspects of Phase 3 are still being brainstormed and we can’t wait to share more details with the community when they’ll be ready.
FUNDS
Personal context for full transparency from Dom (@dotnouns)
Besides the 2 ETH received from Prop House in April, all the NNS development was bootstrapped.
As a founder and a true believer in the NNS, since the end of May I decided to commit 90% of my time on the project, gradually reducing the personal clients I was following in my day job.
If this can seem a hazard to many, burning the bridges that could act as a way out allowed the project to be laser focused on execution and allowed the NNS to become what it is today.
The goal of this proposal is helping the NNS to build a starting fund that will push the development and the proliferation with the same laser focus that has characterized Phase 1.
The request in a nutshell
We are requesting 195 ETH to scale the NNS, fully complete Phase 2 and begin experiments for Phase 3 as well.
Funds will be immediately converted in USDC to avoid volatility of any kind.
How the funds will be used
The funding from this proposal will serve to develop the following areas, which will be crucial for the long-term success:
· Expand the team and hire top professionals for specific tasks or projects. In particular, main focus will be given to external integrations and community building. · Design a website that will offer more support to end users and developers. This will include an extensive tech documentation and FAQ section. · Create a DAO for the NNS Squad through Nouns Builder. The DAO treasury will be used to coordinate proliferation actions among members and to manage the allocation of numbers for the Nounish Club. · Create an NNS House on Prop House focused on building new products for the NNS ecosystem, the Nounish Club and developing new integrations with important partners. · Push proliferation in and outside the Nouns ecosystem through the Nounish Club. · Add a new .nouns TLD that will help overcome .⌐◨-◨ copy-paste problems on external apps, thus making its applications more flexible and effective.
Thoughts about the .⌐◨-◨ copy-paste “issue”
One frequent objection about the .⌐◨-◨ is that noggles are not easy to type on the keyboard. This is indisputably true.
The .⌐◨-◨ is first of all an identity badge of the Nouniverse. That’s why it’s natively resolved on all the nounish platforms without any effort or action by the user.
Even if every tool built around the NNS would make writing the .⌐◨-◨ easy as a click, to expand the applications of the Nouns Name Service we are also exploring the creation of a .nouns TLD. This domain would ease the integration of the NNS in several apps (especially wallets) and would unlock interesting additional applications.
In the future, NNS users would be able to connect all their NNS names to this core extension and from their dashboard they could decide how they want to appear in their favorite communities.
This development is still in brainstorming mode, but we wanted to share it to give some context about our initial focus and what we’re going to work on next.
Milestones and funding release
In an effort to show our commitment and laser focus in the NNS mission, we decided to divide the funding allocation in 2 tranches.
The first 97.5 ETH will be unlocked upfront and will cover the first 3 months. In particular, during this period we will:
- Launch and proliferate the Nounish Club project and its DAO
- Release the new website with a full documentation
- Complete the first new integrations with projects outside the Nouns ecosystem
- Start the first experiments with the .nouns extension. (If everything works smoothly we will be able to release it during the first 3 months, otherwise it will be launched in month 4.)
The list only refers to the goals highlighted in this proposal and doesn't include actions that will be part of the ordinary proliferation strategy of the NNS, such as community initiatives, viral actions and collabs with other projects in and outside the Nouns ecosystem.
At the end of the first 3 months, these milestones will be checked and verified by nouns community members Toady Hawk and Benbodhi.
If this first Milestone Check is successful, the second and last part of the funding will be released.
Multisig Wallet
Funds will be managed through a Gnosis multisig wallet (2/3) with the following trusted signers:
- Dotnouns (NNS)
- Toady Hawk (Proposal Sponsor and Milestones Checker)
- Benbodhi (Milestone Checker)
Conclusion
This is what the Nouns Name Service is right now, and what it could become.
We realize it’s an ambitious vision, and that there might be challenges and many things we didn’t predict, as for every venture in unexplored waters.
However, ever since the beginning, we’ve tried to earn the community’s trust. We are now fully committing ourselves to something that could be extremely beneficial for the Nouns ecosystem in the long term.
If you believe in this project, we ask you to consider supporting this proposal, so that we can together build the future of the Nouns Name Service!