So, is over a year since we at Techeconomy broke that news.

The TLD – .9jacom allowed Nigeria to claim a Global Technology First.

We caught up on its founder, John Mc Keown (JMK), an Irish man married to a Nigerian, and with several children with dual nationality.

Since then, we also covered a few of 9ja Cosmos later product launches, including the first ‘NFT’ like digital assets to the FIFA world cup finals in Qatar last year (read more here).

Now we are back to him again, to find he and 9ja Cosmos have done another world first.

Using Blockchain Technology, John has ‘registered’ 9ja Cosmos as a borderless business, belonging everywhere and nowhere, belonging to everyone who owns shares, regardless of where they are.

TE: Where did you get the idea?

JMK – Well I wanted to give something to community. But I’m not a fan of location events, and I’m not a fan of physical ‘merch’ (probably made in poorly paying sweat shops in the global south).

We must make the idea of ‘decentralization driving fairness’ more than just about how the product is made. So, I came to the idea of giving away a % of 9ja Cosmos to early community adopters.

TE: So, how did you do that?

So, I’m now very familiar with how the Handshake Blockchain works. ‘TLDs’ generated off the blockchain are just tokens that have been afforded multiple use cases. I just decided to create loads of ‘names’ with random strings that wouldn’t seem interesting for those typical use cases, and as ‘tokens’ use them to represent shares in 9ja Cosmos instead.

TE: John, will it work?

JMK: Well, Peter, the idea of using blockchain tokens (which is essentially what HNS domains are) as a representative of share allocation isn’t new. Legal firms in Switzerland have been doing it for several years. But the company behind the issuance is still registered with a sovereign authority. The tokenization is just a function of share management. Blockchain is being used by them to execute on shareholder activities more efficiently, but it’s still a company with sovereign limitations – like in Nigeria how you have a CAC certificate, and the company files annual returns, and so on.

In the case of 9ja Cosmos, it isn’t registered anywhere, except the Handshake Blockchain. It is extra-sovereign.

That’s what makes it new, that’s what makes us ‘first’, and it’s already working.

TE: How does that work?

JMK: Embedded text records in the domains update share ownership, and enable things like voting at an AGM, or claiming dividends, and other potential shareholder actions as allowed by the share type.

Currently we only have two types of shares – The celebratory shares are ‘up to’ 500 eligible for 5% of the business, and so worth 0.01% of 9ja Cosmos each.

The ‘ordinary’ shares, which make up the remaining 95% are issued as 950 tokens, and so are worth 0.1% each.

So far, we’ve issued some of the celebratory shares, and 1.5% of the business (15 ordinary shares) have been transferred to a support business in lieu of payment.

Celebratory shares are ‘soulbound’, but ordinary shares are tradeable. Our share register system is trustless, with ZKP (Zero Knowledge Proof). Shares can be traded atomically, or through any marketplace that supports Handshake Domain sales. The register with status of shares will be open source published, so the global public can identify them.

TE: Are we now in a new age of illegal activity hidden behind anonymity?

JMK: Not really, because only the executive can execute on the collective will of shareholders. That executive will still be accountable to ‘the law of the land’.  What it will not be able to do is report on income and other benefits extracted by shareholders.

The executive will know when benefit issue happened and what was issued to what class of share, but it won’t know who owns shares. Income declaration is a decentralized responsibility enforced by the technology and in which executive can play no part. Shareholders have full autonomy over disclosure.

TE: If others follow 9ja Cosmos lead – wouldn’t there be a breakdown of Sovereign control?

JMK: Peter, I don’t think sovereign control need to get panic attacks just yet! Though obviously, if down the line, this form of ‘incorporation’ becomes popular, authorities would need to approach some things differently.

Regulatory control may prove challenging… one of the problems with civil structures is they become lazy and inefficient over time, and expecting the same draconian tools to always work. In some things, Legislation and Regulation are two tools that are well past their sell by date.

They could for example, decide to become ‘ordinary shareholders’ themselves, and get influence through ownership. Not saying that’s an ideal answer, I’m sure lead civil servants and law makers can come up with new ideas to cope with changing methods of business incorporation!

Earlier than expected, 9jacom gets its first hosting provider and SLD (Second Level Domain) retailer, Encirca.

The progenitor, John Mc Keown, disclosed the cheering news thus: “I’m really happy they offered the first year registration at the same low price I did, $2. This means they are not getting any revenue at all for the first year on registration. Their renewal at $9 is still affordable.

Mr. Keown is the Country Manager of 8M, Elite, Guidepoint, LLC, providing a broad spectrum of Business Services being delivered through key agents servicing the Nigerian Market. The key sectors are Edible FMCG – food, dairy, beverages; plastics and packaging; ingredients and raw materials; telecommunications, data transport and storage infrastructure solutions; and off grid power solutions – renewable energy.

John Keown is a transformational business leader with exceptional business repositioning and sales growth skills – experience drawn from five continents. He has been present in West Africa / Nigeria since 1997.

The concept of web3 has taken the minds of digital entrepreneurs and venture capitalists by storm. The idea behind this technology is to build a new version of the web that incorporates concepts such as decentralization, smart contracts, and blockchain technologies.

Web3 and blockchain technologies have also enabled the new blockchain domain naming services and a new type of domain name – a blockchain domain name.

Although, Vasily Agateev and Kseniya Karchenko would write: “Blockchain domains have spurred a legal tightrope as these domain names are outside of ICANN’s jurisdiction and are not directly subject to any DNS-related laws and regulations that are in place to protect brand owners”, John Keown has an idea on how to get the job done.

“As sales come in, each $2 that reaches me, goes towards staking another .9ja domain and giving Nigeria extra choices as the first country to have Web 3 cc TLDs (country domains) available.

Mr. Keown explained that the holding entity, 9ja Cosmos, will not be raising the prices at their end.

“Our cut is the same $2 to start and $4.50 per year renewal whether you are a struggling local in Ebute Meta or Aliko Dangote”, he promised, stressing “All funds from ‘9ja’ themed domains become reinvested to make service and choice better. All are Kings and Queens at this table”.

Hope you took note of the low prices?

He added that through the intermediary, this will pass down to some domain management and hosting providers. “They will be available to offer SLDs (Second Level Domains) to the public.

“I expect there to be a few integration challenges. Once the model is perfected, more formal promotion will begin and other Nigeria centric products will follow. A new journey is beginning. Let’s enter Web 3 together”, John said, cheerfully.

WAIT! I still have something to tell you:

This development is coming at the time Ethereum is going through ‘transformation’. Many are still at lost at what Ethereum Merger means for the industry.

ALSO READ: ETHEREUM MERGE: What You Need to Know and Opportunities Around It

Mr. Keown shared his view about the whole thing, this way: “The lower the number of entities with control of the staking side of Eth, and how easy they can be found, the easier it is for some central authority, nation, or the other, to force down some directive or the other, because they have decided it is in some nations interest, and they don’t give a hoot about the eth community.

“We’ve now got a case where just 4 entities own 60% of staking capacity and 78% are known and can easily be found. Call that decentralisation?

“We’ve all seen the SEC decision in US ‘deciding’ the Ethereum Chain falls under Federal US jurisdiction. There would be no point in just ‘declaring’ such if acting upon it wasn’t feasible.

“Moreover, Ethereum has now become a potential political tool.

“The Chinese ‘Binance’ has a dependency on the eth-chain. So, welcome to Huawei part 2.

“If I was Unstoppable Domains, with that $68m from Panthera, I’d be business as usual on Polygon (L2 off Eth) for now, but I’d be seriously looking around for migration options or planning to do something on my own.

“Though in any case, everything that surrounds Polygon reeks of ConsenSys which is heavily invested in by Microsoft.

“Decentralization is very quickly becoming a mirage!”

Well, time is a revealer of all intents and the Ethereum Merger will not be any different.

For now, welcome .9jacom!