From a technical standpoint, the integration marks an intriguing milestone for Opera, which started browsing .coms, .nets, .orgs and others over 26 years ago. Standard browsers get sites’ IP addresses from Domain Name System (DNS) servers, the internet’s near-universal equivalent of a phone book. But there’s no DNS entry for .crypto, according to Unstoppable.
Opera’s Android browser – the “blockchain-ready” web surfing app – added support on Monday for Unstoppable Domains’ decentralized .crypto websites.
The partnership grants Unstoppable Domains’ 200,000 registered .crypto domains an immediate inroad into Opera’s 80 million-strong user base. That means they can access Unstoppable’s Ethereum smart contract-registered, InterPlanetary File System-stored (IPFS) websites without leaving the browser address bar.
“It makes them a lot more useful”, Unstoppable Domains founder Brad Kam said of the .crypto domains. Previously, web users needed either Unstoppable’s eponymous browser or a Google Chrome extension to access such sites.
Kam explained that Opera’s integrated browser uses a fundamentally different process to access .cryptos sites. That’s because .crypto domains scatter their web content across IPFS’ distributed host network and store the content locators – IPFS hashes – in Ethereum smart contracts.
“When I view a website, the browser is looking up the Ethereum blockchain itself in order to find my website content, instead of looking it up on the DNS servers”, Kam said in an email to CoinDesk.
He compared decentralized IPFS storage to Amazon Web Services’ global server network, but said that IPFS’ reliance on distributed computers instead of a single corporate entity’s servers make .crypto websites censorship resistant.
“You have lots of copies, so there’s no one person or one group to ask to take it down”, he said. “Even if one or multiple people decide to take it down, someone else will still have it.”
Opera said in a press release that it partnered with IPFS’ developer Protocol Labs for the integration.
The browser provider also noted Monday that it’s also expanded Opera for Android’s cryptocurrency purchasing feature to the entire EU, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Switzerland.
Opera Browser Adds Apple Pay, Debit Card Cryptocurrency Purchase Options
The Opera browser app has partnered with e-payments startup Wyre to expand its built-in wallet’s crypto buying power, the Norwegian web developer announced Tuesday.In a deal that primarily caters to mobile crypto buyers in the U.S., the Opera-Wyre partnership brings Apple Pay functionality to iOS and debit card integration to Android. It lets users of either system purchase up to $250 in bitcoin or ether daily, for a 30 cent fee plus a 2.9 percent transaction commission, Opera’s Head of Crypto Charles Hamel told CoinDesk.
That’s not a very high ceiling, Hame said, but it’s meant to appeal to dapp developers and day-to-day users, not investors and speculators looking to move well over $250 in crypto a day.
“As our browser-based wallet is focused around the usage of cryptocurrencies on the web and using dApps, we expect the vast majority of transactions will not hit that limit”, he said.
It’s part of Opera’s larger, long-term mission: become the go-to browser for Web 3.0. The browser has already taken strides towards that goal, adding TRON support, an ethereum dapp-compatible desktop version, crypto mining protective layers and a wealth of other built-in blockchain features that other leading browsers only offer through third-party extensions.
On-the-go fiat on-ramps make it yet more simple for Opera’s dapp-using community to interact with blockchain projects, Hamel said. He touted its 30 second transaction settlement time, as Wyre has custody over all the crypto assets sold.
Opera had previously rolled out these features in its native Scandinavia. It plans to introduce more crypto payment options in other countries “soon”, according to the press release.
