Nope, that is short names.  This is pubkeys.  Imagine every user had uncensorable DNS for their npub.  For free.  You dont need an auction because pubkeys are unique to the user, and the user can prove they own it.  Imagine you could click on a user npub in your client and it will take you to their own part of the internet they control (opt-in) could be anywhere, including Tor.  A place where they can express themselves and excercise free speech, on top of nostr.  And there's no way to censor it.  It's much more like dnstr, zerobit is like namecoin which is harder problem.

https://dnstr.org/