Ethereum Name Service DAO uses delegated on-chain voting to carry out voting and steering the protocol’s development. It means users are encouraged to delegate the voting power of their ENS bitcoin now accepted at starbucks whole foods and dozens of other major retailers tokens to a voter that represents their vision of ENS. ENS is an open-source decentralized internet naming protocol powered by a set of Ethereum smart contracts. Trying to infer something comprehensible from a chunk of data from a blockchain can be a headache.
- ENS is an important set of infrastructure, built as a public good for humanity and not for profit.
- Behind the scenes, ENS generates and keeps track of the names through a process called Namehash.
- However, there are some big differences in the philosophy underlying these projects.
- As a simple example, Vitalik.eth is an ENS name that maps to 0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045, an Ethereum blockchain address.
What is the Ethereum Name Service?
You can try ENS out for yourself now by using the ENS Manager App, or by using any of the many ENS enabled applications on our homepage. Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad. The foundation has three directors — Nick Johnson, Brantly Millegan and Kevin Gaspar — who are also ENS core team members. The Ethereum Name Service converts an Ethereum address into a human-readable string formatted like a URL. You can look up a name in a phone book and get the number that will allow you to reach that person.
Types of ENS names
The Ethereum Name Service or ENS is the decentralized naming protocol that is built on the Ethereum blockchain. It adheres to open-source standards and is based on a set of decentralized smart contracts that translate blockchain addresses into human-readable names. The ENS token is used to conduct governance of the ENS protocol through a process of proposals and community votes.
Similar to how DNS maps a domain name to an IP address, ENS was created to map blockchain addresses to human readable labels. You can share your ENS name instead of a long, hard to remember crypto address. ENS is not solely a naming service for Ethereum, but in fact the wider blockchain ecosystem. ENS enables cross chain naming of long addresses such as crypto wallets, content hashes, how to buy klaytn metadata and even smart contracts. The ENS approaches blockchain addresses almost like the Internet’s DNS approaches IP addresses.
The DAO held a retroactive airdrop of the token to the second-level domain name owners and contributors on November 8, 2021. The airdrop released 25% of the supply to holders of ENS names, and another 25% were allocated to over 100 of the project’s contributors. Only 10% of these tokens were available for immediate use, and the remaining ENS were scheduled to unlock over the course of 4 years (ending in 2025). This funding led to the creation of an organization now called ENS Labs, a non-profit based in Singapore, that directs the development of ENS.
After joining the Ethereum Foundation as a core contributor, Johnson worked on Swarm, a project dedicated to decentralized data storage. At that time, Swarm aimed to create a decentralized content store but faced challenges in making stored content in a human-readable format. This naming system was the groundwork for what would eventually evolve into ENS (Ethereum Name Service). As the internal project expanded in impact, scope, and complexity, the Ethereum Foundation awarded Johnson a grant to spin ENS off from the Ethereum Foundation and into an independent organization.
Comparison with Similar Projects: FIO Protocol
Due to core contributors and the treasury receiving the largest shares and holding a significant amount of the token supply (69.54%), their rewards have a vesting period of 4 years. Airdrop receivers, translators, and Discord server members could use their ENS tokens freely from the very start. In practice, this means that many casual users received tens of thousands of dollars of tokens in the airdrop — while people who have held domains for many years received even more generous allocations. ENS’s story begins with Nick Johnson, the founder and lead developer of ENS.
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Token holders can propose changes, from technical upgrades to policy shifts, which are then put to a DAO vote. This mechanism ensures that ENS evolves in alignment with its user’s needs and collective vision, bolstering its resilience and adaptability. Through forums, discussions, and collaborative decision-making, the DAO fosters a sense of belonging and shared purpose among its members. Recent votes learn from the best to fund eight new, independent teams for direct contribution to ENS’s future have significantly brightened the outlook for the ENS DAO and its governance.
