Ethereum Name Service
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a a decentralized system for domain names that shortens Ethereum’s long wallet addresses into readable addresses. ENS calls itself “an open public utility that belongs to the company.”
ENS is also the name of the governance token and is used to govern the protocol and influence decisions on pricing its .eth addresses and the price oracle.
Background
ENS was developed by Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande from the Ethereum Foundation but spun off as a separate organization in 2018.
Launch
ENS launched in May 2017.
How does it work?
ENS converts human-readable Ethereum addresses into the machine-readable alphanumeric codes from wallets. Like DNS, ENS also uses a system of dot-separated hierarchical names called domains with domain owners fully controlling their subdomains. Instead of using machine-readable albeit inconvenient alphanumeric codes, users can receive any crypto or NFT to a short and easy-to-remember link. This simplifies the user experience and makes blockchain technology less technical.
ENS is built on two smart contracts. The first is an ENS registry recording and storing domains registered on ENS and the second smart contract is the resolver. Its purpose is to translate the machine-readable addresses to domain names and vice versa and match each domain to its corresponding user, website, or address.
Sources and resources
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