Wikipedia

Draft:Ethereum Naming Service


This page is about the decentralized naming protocol. For the governance token, see Ethereum Name Service (token). For the organization, see ENS Labs.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a decentralized, open, and extensible naming system built on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to map human-readable names, such as alice.eth, to machine-readable identifiers like cryptocurrency wallet addresses, content hashes, and metadata. The protocol is analogous to the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) but operates through smart contracts that issue domains as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), giving users full ownership and control over their digital identity without the oversight of a central authority.[1][2]

The project was launched on the Ethereum mainnet on May 4, 2017, and was initially developed at the Ethereum Foundation by Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande.[2][3] In November 2021, ENS decentralized its governance by launching the ENS DAO and airdropping its $ENS governance token to early users in a distribution valued at over $500 million.[4] By March 2023, the protocol had grown to over 2.7 million registered names held by more than 663,000 participants.[1]

ENS has secured partnerships with major technology and financial companies, including a 2024 integration with GoDaddy that allows traditional domain owners to link their domains to Ethereum addresses, and a partnership with PayPal and Venmo enabling cryptocurrency transfers using ENS names.[5][6] ENS Labs has also announced plans to launch Namechain, a Layer 2 blockchain network intended to reduce transaction costs.[7]

The protocol's growth has also attracted scrutiny. The popularity of ENS domains has led to a modern form of cybersquatting, with speculators registering names associated with brands and celebrities for resale at high prices.[2] A 2022 academic study published by the Association for Computing Machinery identified several security challenges, including evidence of scams, malicious websites, and a vulnerability that left thousands of .eth names susceptible to hijacking.[8]

History

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ENS was launched on the Ethereum mainnet on May 4, 2017.[2] The project was initially developed at the Ethereum Foundation by Nick Johnson, a former Google engineer, and Alex Van de Sande.[3] In 2018, the project was spun off into a separate Singapore-based non-profit organization, True Names Ltd. (now known as ENS Labs), with a $1 million grant from the Ethereum Foundation to continue its development independently.[1]

In November 2021, ENS decentralized its governance structure by launching the ENS DAO and airdropping the $ENS governance token to early users of the protocol. The airdrop distributed 25 million tokens to over 137,000 addresses that had registered a .eth domain. To claim their tokens, users were required to vote on a foundational constitution and delegate their voting power, a process that was widely praised in the crypto community as a successful example of progressive decentralization. The airdrop was valued at over $500 million at the time, with many users reporting allocations worth tens of thousands of dollars.[4]

Architecture

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ENS operates through two primary smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain: the registry and resolvers. The registry maintains a list of all registered domains and subdomains, storing information about the owner, the resolver, and the caching time-to-live for records. The resolver is responsible for the process of translating names into addresses or other identifiers. This two-tiered system allows for a separation of concerns, where domain ownership and resolution are handled by different smart contracts.[1]

Unlike the traditional DNS, which is hierarchical and controlled by the ICANN, ENS is decentralized. Domains are issued as ERC-721 non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which gives the owner full control over the domain. This means that, unlike traditional domains, ENS names cannot be revoked or taken down by a central authority.[2] These NFT-based domains can be traded on secondary markets like OpenSea.[2]

In 2021, ENS and the Ethereum Foundation sponsored the development of Sign-In with Ethereum (SIWE), an open standard designed to provide a decentralized alternative to traditional single sign-on services like those offered by Google, Facebook, and Apple. The startup developing this standard, Spruce, later raised a $34 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz.[9][1]

Adoption and Reception

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ENS has seen significant adoption, with over 2.7 million active names registered by more than 663,000 participants as of March 2023.[1] The protocol experienced a surge in interest in late 2021 and mid-2022. In November 2021, following its token airdrop, over 71,000 new domains were registered in that month alone.[2] Another spike occurred in July 2022, when over 126,000 domains were registered in a single week, partly driven by the sale of the domain 000.eth for 300 ETH (approximately $315,000 at the time).[10]

Corporate Partnerships

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In February 2024, GoDaddy, one of the world's largest domain registrars, partnered with ENS to enable its customers to link their traditional domain names to ENS addresses at no additional cost.[5][11] The integration allowed GoDaddy users to connect their DNS domains to Ethereum wallet addresses through a simplified interface within their domain management system.

In September 2024, ENS Labs announced integration with PayPal and Venmo, enabling users in the United States to use ENS names for cryptocurrency transfers.[6][12] This partnership allowed users to send cryptocurrency using ENS names instead of complex hexadecimal wallet addresses, with the goal of simplifying cryptocurrency transactions for mainstream users.

Scalability Development

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In November 2024, ENS Labs announced plans to launch Namechain, a Layer 2 blockchain network using zero-knowledge rollup technology, with an expected launch by the end of 2025.[7][13] The network aims to reduce transaction costs by up to 99% compared to Ethereum's mainnet while maintaining security through Layer 2 scaling technology.[13] In December 2024, ENS Labs selected Linea's zkEVM technology stack to develop Namechain.[14]

Domain Market and Cybersquatting

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The popularity of ENS domains has led to a modern form of cybersquatting, where speculators register names associated with brands, celebrities, and common words in the hope of reselling them for a high price. For example, the domain amazon.eth was listed for sale for nearly $1 million, and paradigm.eth (associated with the venture capital firm Paradigm) was sold for $1.5 million.[2] Brantly Millegan, former Director of Operations for ENS, has stated that the organization is "explicitly anti-squatting," calling the practice "pure extortion."[2]

A 2022 academic study published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) provided the first large-scale measurement of the ENS ecosystem. The study confirmed the protocol's growing popularity but also identified several security challenges. The researchers found evidence of attackers abusing the system through squatting, scams, and the indexing of malicious websites. They also described a novel "record persistence attack," finding that thousands of .eth names were vulnerable to hijacking.[8]

See Also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Castiglione, Chris (March 10, 2023). "How Ethereum Is Shaping Global Identity". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dugan, Kevin T. (November 23, 2021). "ENS Domain Squatting: A New Crypto Land Grab". New York Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  3. ^ a b "What Is Ethereum Name Service? (ENS)". Kraken. February 2, 2023. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  4. ^ a b Thurman, Andrew (November 9, 2021). "Ethereum Name Service Tokens Soar After $500M+ Airdrop". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  5. ^ a b "GoDaddy and Ethereum Name Service Bridge the Gap Between Domain Names and Crypto Wallets". GoDaddy Inc. February 5, 2024. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  6. ^ a b "Bringing Crypto Transfers to Millions with PayPal & Venmo". ENS Domains. September 10, 2024. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  7. ^ a b Nijkerk, Margaux (November 11, 2024). "Ethereum's ENS Identity System Set to Launch Own Layer-2 Blockchain". CoinDesk. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  8. ^ a b Xia, Pengcheng; Wang, Haoyu; Yu, Zhou; Liu, Xinyu; Luo, Xiapu; Xu, Guoai; Tyson, Gareth (October 25, 2022). "Challenges in decentralized name management: the case of ENS". IMC '22: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Internet Measurement Conference: 65–82. doi:10.1145/3517745.3561469.
  9. ^ Ramaswamy, Anita (April 20, 2022). "Decentralized identity startup Spruce wants to help users control their sign-in data". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  10. ^ "Explained: Ethereum Name Service and the reason behind the 216% spike in ENS domain registrations". CNBC TV18. July 7, 2022. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  11. ^ Nijkerk, Margaux (February 5, 2024). "Web Registry GoDaddy, Ethereum Name Service Connect Domain Names With Crypto Wallets". CoinDesk. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  12. ^ Nijkerk, Margaux (September 10, 2024). "PayPal, Venmo to Accept ENS's Human-Readable Blockchain Names". CoinDesk. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  13. ^ a b Park, Danny (November 11, 2024). "ENS Labs introduces own 'L2-agnostic' rollup Namechain, aiming for launch by end of 2025". The Block. Retrieved 2025-12-17.
  14. ^ Chawla, Vishal (December 18, 2024). "ENS picks Linea to develop 'Namechain' Layer 2 network". The Block. Retrieved 2025-12-17.

Category:Ethereum Category:Decentralized autonomous organizations Category:Web3

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