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Rent-to-own

A purchase arrangement where the buyer pays in installments while using the domain and gains full ownership once the agreed total is paid.

FBFenwei BianAuthorVZVictor ZhouEditorJune 30, 2025
  • glossary

Rent-to-own is a financing model where users make regular payments to gradually acquire ownership of an asset, typically used for expensive items like homes or vehicles. For domains, rent-to-own can make premium domains accessible to users who cannot afford the full purchase price upfront. Smart contracts can automate rent-to-own agreements, handling payment collection, partial ownership tracking, and final transfer when payments are complete. This model could allow startups to gradually acquire valuable domains like fintech.com through monthly payments, with the domain automatically transferring to full ownership once the payment schedule is fulfilled, creating new pathways to premium domain ownership.

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Contributors

Fenwei Bian

Software Developer & Writer • Namefi
Author

Fenwei Bian is a software developer in her thirties who spends her working hours in pull requests and her weekends with her hands in soil or sawdust. Years of open source on GitHub taught her that names are interfaces: a good one is clear, honest about what it does, and kind to whoever has to use it next.

She gardens because it rewards patience and punishes wishful thinking, and she does woodwork because a joint either fits or it doesn't. Both habits show up in how she writes about naming — measure twice, check the source, and don't sand over a rough spot and hope no one notices.

For Namefi she writes about how domain markets actually move, the practical trade-offs of tokenizing and flipping names, and picking a domain you'll still be glad you own in twenty years.

GitHub

Victor Zhou

Founder & Standards Editor • Namefi
Editor

Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.

His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.

For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.

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