What Is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS)?

by?William Naranjo?on July 11, 2022

DNS is comparable to the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). However, it provides a safe and decentralized means to send ETH and ERC20 tokens as well as manage website names.

In short

• The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) allows users to search for websites using names rather than numbers, much like the DNS system on the internet.
• ENS is intended to complement DNS rather than to replace it.

In the early days of the internet, entering an IP address — a string of numbers that was challenging to remember and nearly impossible to guess — was required in order to access a website. Then came names that could be read by people, making it simpler for actual people to use the internet.

The IP address phase of cryptocurrency is still very much present. Users must enter lengthy, challenging-to-remember URLs in order to access the pages they desire. The Ethereum Name Service enters the picture here. It aims to make using cryptocurrency as simple as using the internet.

We will look at how it functions, where it came from, and how to register an emoji domain name below.

What is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS)?

A lookup system is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). It connects specifics to a name. It is a name service built on Ethereum, not a naming service exclusive to Ethereum. It provides a safe, decentralized method of addressing resources with names that are human readable. Anyone can purchase and administer domains thanks to this completely decentralized domain name provider. In other words, you may use “realsatoshi.eth” instead of “8e866f012fb8fb” to transmit ETH or ERC20 tokens.

Who runs ENS?

The Ethereum Foundation’s Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande were in charge of the ENS’s initial development.

The project created a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, to run the service, and airdropped ENS tokens to users of the platform in November 2021. True Names Limited is the company that has legal ties to the DAO. Owners of ENS tokens can manage their cash in the treasury and decide on pricing, protocol updates, and other business-like decisions much like shareholders might.

The adoption of ENS tokens also provided the project with the opportunity to move away from grants as its primary funding source. On cryptocurrency exchanges, ENS tokens can be exchanged for dollars and other fiat currencies, giving the project’s creators a financial lifeline.

What’s so special about it?

The ENS is more secure, private, and resistant to censorship than the internet’s Domain Name Service since it is built on Ethereum’s smart contracts (DNS). As a core component, internet naming infrastructure, in the opinion of the ENS team, should be open, decentralized, community-driven, and non-profit. Technically speaking, the ENS can utilize the current Ethereum environment, making it extremely programmable and able to communicate with other smart contracts in addition to naming.

What else is different?

Contrary to some of its rivals, the ENS does not seek to replace DNS. The main objective of the ENS is to provide distributed, reliable name resolution for Web3 resources, such as distributed content and blockchain addresses. Projects like Namecoin, Blockstack, and Handshake, on the other hand, aim to replace DNS.

Did you know?

Domains ending in.eth are actually NFTs. A registered.eth name can be sent to another person just like any other non-fungible token if you wish to.

Inside the ENS

In essence, ENS is made up of two smart contracts. The Resolver is a different smart contract that manages the conversions from names to addresses or other types of resources and vice versa. The ENS registry keeps track of all the domains and subdomains, as well as the owner’s information and a link to it.

In that it features a hierarchical structure that gives the domain owner complete control over any subdomains, ENS functions similarly to the DNS on the Internet. In order to construct wallet.realsatoshi.eth and email.realsatoshi.eth, realsatoshi.eth.

How to get your own ENS domain

You can browse available domain names at manager.ens.domains using an Ethereum wallet like MetaMask. The system will guide you through registration when you’ve selected your domain and have confirmed two transactions from your wallet. Additionally, you must decide for how long you wish to register a domain for $5/year in rent (paid in ETH). As the domain’s owner, you may now configure any subdomains as well as the various URLs or pieces of information you wish that name to link through.

What can you do with ENS?

The best use of ENS is to switch out your lengthy, unintelligible Ethereum address for a pleasant, memorable ENS address like realsatoshi.eth. Due to the necessity to avoid copying and pasting the lengthy public address, it is now simpler to acquire cryptocurrency assets and enter your ENS address into Ethereum dapps.

In addition, the collaboration between ENS and the file storage system IPFS is the foundation upon which the decentralized web is being developed. Almonit.eth, where you may search a directory of decentralized websites, is a wonderful place to start. Thanks to their work connecting Web3 and the internet’s DNS, you can add.link to decentralized websites and access them without MetaMask or specialized browsers. You can visit this website as it is written with MetaMask enabled.

What else can you do?

Not only is ENS.eth. Sites with any of the more than 1,300 top-level domain names — such as those ending in.com,.org, or.edu — were permitted to integrate with ENS starting in 2021. So, if you are the owner of realsatoshi.org, you may link it to realsatoshi.eth so that users can read content and transfer money to the same address.

by?William Naranjo?on July 11, 2022