Since our launch of Holder Wallet Messaging, we have been publishing a number of articles around wallet messaging best practices, campaign ideas, and how-tos.

We are big believers in the power and opportunity for wallet messaging as a brand-new channel and way of engaging customers. One of the unique aspects of wallet messages is that they are direct wallet-to-wallet messages, end-to-end encrypted, and provide a more secure way to engage and message customers and users. 

Matt Galligan, one of the co-founders of XMTP describes it in this way on the XMTP blog: 

“By default, messages sent with XMTP are end-to-end encrypted and use blockchain accounts, as opposed to usernames and passwords. This makes secure direct communication possible between blockchain accounts, where message and sender authenticity can be easily verified and deemed trustworthy. Message recipients who are skeptical about a message or sender’s authenticity can look up the public information associated with the account, and see for themselves if they can trust what’s going on.

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Associating ENS names to messaging accounts makes these interactions even more seamless and trustworthy, as then it’s also possible to verify the associated domain.”

If you are a brand or creator and want to start to send wallet messages through on-chain domains, you will want to make branded ENS domains and subnames. This article will help you set up a wallet ENS correctly — it's the best way to get the full benefit of wallet messaging with your on-chain customers. 

Let’s dig in on why and how to do that.

What Is ENS and Why Use ENS Domains

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a distributed domain name service (DNS) built on Ethereum. They resolve human-readable names like ‘holderxyz.eth’ to a public 0x Ethereum address (0x437316b9A71E183D4097409438C5F8A8F27c0F33). 

Not only are ENS domains easy ways to not need to remember a 42-character 0x address, but they also provide a unique on-chain brand touchpoint opportunity. 

In one example, Bud Light famously purchased a beer.eth ENS domain for 30 ETH in 2021. Many brands, including Holder, also use .eth addresses for branding and promotional purposes, just like their website domain. 

At Holder, for example, our primary branded ENS domain is holderxyz.eth.

How to Register an ENS Wallet Domain 

Start by going to the ENS application and searching for an available ENS domain. Connect your wallet, select an available domain, and decide how many years you’d like to register the domain for. 

Registering for multiple years will save you money on network costs by only paying gas fees once. 

ENS will walk you through the rest of the steps to ensure the domain is available and officially purchase the domain via a transaction in your wallet.

Now you will need to set this new ENS domain as your primary name in ENS and set the resolver to be the wallet address you would like to send wallet messages from. This will incur a gas fee in order for you to set up the first time. 

ENS Subnames

Similar to sub domains like app.holder.xyz, you can also set up subnames on a .eth address inside the ENS application (gm.holderxyz.eth). Both a .eth address and a subname are separate ENS domains, but subnames have a parent name and can only be created by the owner of the parent name. They also inherit the security of the root domain.

By default, ENS subnames can also be revoked by the parent domain’s controller. This helps ensure their security in case of a compromise.

To set up your subnames, just click subnames on the domain you own and set up the names you’d like to create.

With each subname, you can assign a different resolver and transfer ownership of that subname to the new wallet. This lets you set different subnames as the primary domain for other wallet addresses. At Holder, we help every new employee set up a wallet and assign a branded subname ENS domain to their wallet just like their corporate email address (i.e. drew.holderxyz.eth). 

For brand marketing and wallet messaging purposes, we also recommend creating a handful of branded subnames that you can use for messaging and marketing. This will also let you better manage subscription preferences based on the types of messages an end-user wants to receive. 

Below are a handful of example subnames we’d recommend you consider setting up:

• marketing.holderxyz.eth: For general marketing purposes, offers, and promotional messages
• product.holderxyz.eth: For product updates and announcements — especially if you are a B2B or product company
• support.holderxyz.eth: For support and help requests, making it easy to manage support requests without needing an email address
• newsletter.holderxyz.eth: For regular newsletter updates
• gm.holderxyz.eth: A fun variation for general messages or marketing and promotional messages
• alerts.holderxyz.eth: Especially useful if you want to send transaction app alerts or updates to your audiences

There are a number of variations for subname management and subscription preferences. You could create different subnames for each of your products or NFT collections (i.e. BAYC.yuga.eth, MAYC.yuga.eth, and Otherside.yuga.eth) or use entirely new ENS domains for specific campaigns. For example, Coinbase created a new ENS domain, onchainsummer.eth, for their Onchain Summer campaign in August to promote the launch of Base. You can text ‘gm’ to onchainsummer.eth and subscribe to daily updates on Onchain Summer mints and other updates. 

Regardless of how you use ENS domains and subnames for your brand, they can be a powerful branding tool and an opportunity for increased security and trust with your end customers. 

If you want to give Holder and wallet messaging marketing a try for your brand, feel free to get in touch.