---
title: "What Will a Domain Name Be in Ten Years?"
date: 2026-09-16
author: Erwin Groen
image: "/media/what-will-a-domain-name-be-in-ten-years.png"
description: "Domain names may be moving beyond web addresses and toward something much more important: identity. What happens when names become the anchor for people, businesses and AI agents?"
tags:
  - domain names
  - digital identity
  - Handshake
  - Web3
  - AI
  - ownership
---

For most of the internet’s history, a domain name has been treated primarily as an address.

But over the next five or ten years, that role may become much broader.

As more of our lives move online, names may increasingly become persistent digital identifiers for people, businesses, services, wallets and AI agents.

Instead of simply pointing to a website, a name could become the anchor that connects different parts of a digital identity.

## From address to identity

Think about how many separate identities we already manage online.

🌐A website.  
📧An email address.  
⛄️A social profile.  
💰A payment address.  
💡A username.  
🏢A business account.

Now add AI agents that may one day communicate, transact and perform tasks on our behalf.

Those agents will also need names.

They will need ways to identify themselves, distinguish one entity from another and know where information or instructions should be directed.

It could become the point around which reputation, communication, payments, services and identity are organised.

The domain name starts becoming the digital name itself.

## Then comes the bigger question

**Do you actually own it?**

Traditional domain names have served the internet remarkably well, and they will almost certainly continue to play an important role.

But they operate within managed namespaces.

You register a name, renew it and agree to the rules governing that namespace.

That works well for much of today’s internet.

But as names become more closely connected to identity, businesses and individuals may increasingly think about portability, control and long term ownership as well.

The conversation may gradually shift from:

**“Which domain should I register?”**

to:

**“Which name should I own?”**

## What does this mean for businesses?

Businesses do not need to abandon Web2 to begin thinking about Web3.

A strong traditional domain can continue to serve as a company’s website, email address and public presence, while newer naming systems can be explored alongside it.

The important thing is to start thinking further ahead.

If a business expects its digital identity to exist for decades, what should that identity look like?

Should its name work across websites, payments, services and autonomous agents?

Should it be portable?

And how much control should the business itself have over that name?

Those questions may become more important over the next decade.

## Handshake and the idea of owning a name

Handshake allows people to own top-level names 

One where the namespace itself can be owned and totally controlled by the person or organisation holding it.

If digital names become increasingly important to identity, that distinction may matter more than it does today.

## Thinking about Web3?

If your business is already thinking about Web3, it may be worth looking at the names that exist beyond traditional DNS.

Visit **ShakeShift.com** and explore the Handshake names that may suit where your business is heading.

**What name do we want to own?**

The future of domain names may therefore not be about domain names disappearing.

It may be about them becoming something much more important.

Not simply an address.

A name.

An identity.

Something that follows you across the internet rather than belonging to one particular platform.

And perhaps, increasingly, something you expect to control yourself.

**Own The Name | Own The Rules | Own The Dot.**