Yats. Prepare yourself for this annoying but apparently popular new tool. It helps you bring attention to yourself on Web3. Move over NFTs, there’s a new bubble in town.
Emojis have become as annoying and vacuous as some NFTs. Because now, you can buy a “unique sequence” of emojis that can become your Web3 identity. You may (rightfully) scoff at the thought of buying emojis. But recently, a golden key emoji sold for over $400K.
Yats are as annoying as they sound. In a nutshell, Yats are an emoji or several emojis together. When a person buys a Yat, they can then use those Yats as a web identifier. It’s just like buying a web address. But forget typing in numerous alphanumeric characters into a URL. Now, you can type in 💎 💎 💎 instead of www.diamondindustries.com. But that’s only if the web browser supports it. And one now does. Oh dear God, why.
Yats-enabled
Opera became the first web browser to enable these emoji-only based web addresses. For the first time in the history of the internet, users will be able to navigate the web by entering a string of emojis into the URL bar. No letters, words, or numbers needed.
Yat emoji sequences are being touted as ‘Web3 usernames.’ Like NFTs, Yats promise uniqueness. Once the company flogs you ownership of a personalized string of emojis, then only you can use it.
And here we are all thinking that’s what the alphabet was for… you know, to spell out a name. Now we have to spell things with emojis?
Yats and the crypto wallet connection
People using the Opera crypto browser can do things with this Yat. It works as a personal domain and wallet address for the built-in, non-custodial Opera wallet. Now that you have your personalised Yat sequence, it can also be minted as an NFT.
Who is responsible for this mess
Naveen Jain is the co-founder of Yat. He said that Yat is a new censorship-resistant internet identity system. “It enables everyone to use a personalized string of emojis as their universal username. What if instead of being John Smith 535, someone could be Fire-Dragon or Kingpin? Or Unicorn Robot Dancer? And what if they could use this one-of-a-kind emoji username to do all the same things they could do with an alphanumeric username? Like send or receive money, chat with friends, or create a website? One of the use-cases we are excited about is a Yat being used to replace long, unwieldy digital currency addresses. Imagine how beautiful the user experience would be, instead of copying pasting validating and testing a complex digital currency address, a user could send money to ‘I love ice cream.’”
Ew
Opera claims to have 350 million users of their privacy browser. In 2018, Opera created the first browser with a built-in crypto wallet. And it has Web3 support. They have partnered with Yat to integrate its emoji system in Opera’s browsers on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.
Around $20m worth of Yats have been claimed already. (Claimed isn’t sold… it’s claimed… or perhaps given away to celebs in a collab.)
Disclosure ( 😎 🎵 😎 ) and Lil Wayne ( 👽🎵 ) already own their unique emoji sequences.
If you click on their Yats, you will be taken to their websites.
Jorgen Arnesen at Opera said, “It’s been almost 30 years since the world wide web launched to the public, and there hasn’t been much innovation in the weblink space. People still include .com in their URLs. Through the integration with Yat, Opera users are able to ditch .com or even words in their links and use only emojis to be directed to websites. It’s new, it’s easier and more fun.”
Artists, of course, love a bit of self-indulgent Yat buying. Lil Wayne’s Yat page directs users to his record label, and Steve Aoki’s (🎂🎵) takes you to his website. G-Eazy (🦇🌹), Kesha (🌈🚀👽), and 3LAU (🎵🎵) use them too.
More ew
Naveen says, “Whether you’re an artist, musician, creator, business owner, or just want to increase your following, this integration is invaluable, making it easier for you to connect and share content with your community through your unique string of Yat emojis.”
You can buy these, or get on with your life and pretend you never saw this. Get a wet-wipe for your brain, just in case.
Feel free to be appalled at what people will throw good money at for a vanity project. It might just smell like a tulip bubble to some. What is the emoji for ew? Oh there it is. 🤢
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