Meet ENS
An Encompassing Knowledge Base on the Ethereum Name Service
Before we launch Namespace — the complementary product as a service we’re building utilizing ENS core contracts — we want to tell people what makes us optimistic, excited, and bullish about ENS.
We will look at what aspects of the project we love the most, where we think we can make a significant contribution, and why we think ENS will become one of the foundational pillars of web3 infrastructure.
This article was written with the intent to cover all major aspects of the ENS ecosystem. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone. You don’t have to read it entirely, just scroll through, stop where you want, and take what you need.
We hope to provide a little education, some guidance, and get you up to speed with everything ENS has accomplished so far. Enjoy.
What is ENS?
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) is a naming system designed to map human-readable names like ‘nick.eth’, to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata. Simply put, ENS is the naming system for all things digital and/or natively decentralized. Not only that, it also plays a role in connecting Web2 with the world of Web3, effectively functioning as a bridge between the two.
At the moment, the most widespread use case - which is naming wallets - makes for an easier user experience when transferring funds and navigating the Web3 space. Names can be registered where they are then programmed to point to a variety of things; primarily to wallet addresses, effectively displaying the registered name in all kinds of dApps and dWebsites. Instead of displaying the longform k4M6…D9k1 wallet address, it displays human-readable text such as nick.eth. This makes for an easier user experience when transferring funds and navigating the web3 space.
In the case above, if you wanted to send some ETH to Nick Johnson, creator of ENS, instead of copying and pasting his address in Metamask, you could just type ‘nick.eth’ and safely send money to his wallet.
In the future, your .eth name could serve as your official identificatory in the Web3 world. With the rise of on-chain data, credentials, soulbound tokens, and reputation tracking, ENS names have the potential to become your multichain passport, personal or business bank account identifier, and even the contact details you use in the future.
There will come a time when looking up Etherscan some token contract’s holders list will be only .eth names.
To Sum Up
ENS is an open-source project, publicly available to everyone and controlled by its DAO. As such, ENS was built with one idea in mind – to be simple and extendable. The entire project is built to act as an infrastructure with a strong foundation so that anyone can utilize its resources and extend it by building customized applications. These applications will find solutions to particular issues, one’s which are both currently known and unknown, and in turn, expand the reach and use case of ENS itself to solidify its position as the apex naming service in web3.
ENS — numbers & stats
If you’re not bullish about ENS domains after witnessing their staggering growth during the bear market, you should re-examine your investment thesis. In case you’ve missed their growth, here are some stats.
Let’s kick things off with the latest speech about ENS that its founder Nick Johnson gave at Devcon Bogota:
The entire speech called ‘State of the ENS’ can be found here.
ENS names
Total ENS names created: 2,758,246
Unique Participants: 597,352
Names registered last month (October): 174,204
The average number of names registered for the past 6 months: 296,674
Source: Dune
The average number of *new* wallet addresses registering ENS names:
Last month: 24,738
Last 3 months: 31,745
Last 6 months: 38,365
Source: Dune
Revenue
ENS Revenue
Total Cost of Registration: 34,725 ETH
Total Cost of Renewal: 7,683 ETH
For comparison, shown below are the quarterly registrations of .com/.net domain names. Our journey is only getting started considering the diverse nature and many different applications of .eth domains.
“There are 2.7M ENS domains and 160M .com domains.” Maybe we’re early?......
Source: Dune
Last year:
Revenue: 7,991 ETH
Income: 4,895 ETH
This year (so far):
Revenue: 27,163 ETH
Income: 15,493 ETH
‘State of ENS’ by Messari
One of the most definitive articles capturing the most important metrics about ENS was written and published by Messari recently. You can read it in full here.
New and returning users
Every founder knows that one of the key metrics (KPIs) that measure the long-term success and overall health of your business is CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). Meaning, how long are your customers/users going to stick with you over the next years and decades? Additionally, are you doing enough to make them happy, engaged, fulfilled, and satisfied with what you are offering? Judging by the number of returning users, it appears that ENS has been doing an amazing job building, delivering new things, and nurturing its culture as a DAO.
Source: Full Revenue and Income charts breakdown by Nick — ENS Google Dashboard
Geoffrey Moore’s Chasm — Technology Adoption Life Cycle
Currently, there are 2.7M ENS names issued. Even if there was only one user behind each name, that is still a tiny portion of the market in the grand scheme of things. We are yet to see global adoption as we cross the chasm (shown below), and one could argue that the crypto industry as a whole is not even at the doorstep of the chasm that needs to be crossed for mainstream adoption, let alone ENS.
ENS Use Cases
Cross-platform human-readable Web3 username
The primary use case of ENS is resolving Ethereum addresses with ENS names. This fixes the issue of lengthy, messy addresses that the Ethereum network generates as a default, and makes it easier to transact without having to continually remember - or copying and pasting - someone's longform address. It’s a helpful and handy way to navigate the entire web3 world more easily.
Personal point of identification in the entire web3 world
Personal profiles. Your social media handles and profile picture can be attached to your ENS name, and all of that information will be available whenever you log in to any Web3 dApp. Therefore, if you change your Twitter name to something else and want to update all platforms to display this change accordingly, you would only need to change it on the ENS website/manager.
Web3 multichain ID/Passport/Credentials
The future is certainly multichain! Having a .eth name that is compatible across all blockchains will be a huge advantage in the time ahead. With the rise of soulbound tokens, your one wallet will be used to accumulate different achievements. For example, how long you have used it and how frequently, how much ETH you have, are you staking or providing liquidity, are you participating in GitCoin grants, are you donating, and so on.
All of this data will be available and immutably attached to your wallet/.eth name as a wallet score. Based on this, you could potentially do a variety of things in the future with added benefits, depending on the strength of your score. Thus, users will have the incentive to have one key wallet that they are using.
Do we really think that wallet would not have a name attached to it?! That’s like having an ID card with only your fingerprint and signature, but no name on it.
Metaverse Identity
Since we have already established that your.eth name is multichain, with this in mind, you will be able to utilize your ENS name in the future to link it to your avatar. These avatars will likely be operational in a variety of different metaverses across multiple chains. Additionally, your metaverse identity will be linked to other.eth identities and other digital assets. The sky's the limit.
Email Enabled Solution
People can use different email service providers, such as Skiff, and integrate their .eth name, whereby they can receive emails, leveraging end-to-end encrypted communication with the innate blockchain ethos of private security firmly front and center.
Subdomains
All ENS names can sell or rent subnames. ENS name holders can mint an unlimited number of subdomains and allow others to use them however they want. With an upcoming NameWrapper, those subdomains will become standalone NFTs that will be tradable, self-sovereign, and not dependent on the parent domain control. This opens up a world of different possibilities and use-cases.
Sign-in (log in) With Ethereum (across ALL dApps) – A convenient way to use your ENS credentials to login via one click into any dApp. ‘Sign-In with Ethereum’ is a new form of authentication that enables users to control their digital identity with their Ethereum account and ENS profile, instead of relying on a traditional intermediary like Google, Facebook, or Twitter.
Naming/Branding/Flexing
We are already seeing this use-case being used like crazy. When you’re sending funds to yourself between wallets, or having someone send you some funds, or receiving a salary paid in crypto – it’s a lot easier to send them nick.eth rather than a long, chunky wallet address with 64 characters. It reduces mistakes when transferring funds and makes it easier to navigate the entire process.
Status Symbol
People currently use .eth names as status symbols. It acts as a crypto advocate's badge of honor to show their early support for the Web3 space. As of October ‘22, over 139,000 Twitter accounts possess a .eth mention in their profile name, with this number expected to exponentially rise as mainstream adoption and social media payment integration begin to take shape.
Exclusive Clubs/Groups/Community Access
People are starting to create exclusive groups that are much like PFP collections. These groups, or clubs as they’re more commonly known in the ENS space, are token-gated communities where you can enter only if you hold a certain .eth category. The most notable examples are 3-digit or 4-digit names (000.eth to 9999.eth), emojis, negative numbers, and palindromes, and the list continues to grow as time goes on.
Decentralized Content/Websites
Distributed content, primarily on IPFS. There are a lot of decentralized websites relying on ENS names. One clear example is that .eth names can be used to resolve different websites, blogs, etc. Decentralized websites are yet to become fully supported by different browsers other than Brave.
Personal or Business ‘Bank’ Account
It’s very obvious for people that they are going to be using one wallet primarily (and thus one .eth name) by now. Additionally, companies that accept cryptocurrency will acquire more and more dedicated.eth names for a variety of factors:
Easy payments or donations
For regulation purposes and paying taxes on income
Payroll and salaries
Automated monthly compensation for DAO contributors
.eth communities
Most of the use cases that kick-started the recent huge growth in sales of ENS have come from communities. Due to the wide-ranging possibilities in how ENS domains can be created (numbers, words, languages, emojis, etc), and with no overall formalized structure in place, a balkanization has occurred where many subsets exist under the umbrella of the ENS community.
The first of these to really take hold was the ‘999 Club’; a group that holds domains that run from 000.eth to 999.eth. The 999 Club soon became a viral sensation, opening up the eyes of many for the first time the cultural importance of owning a short, easy to type Web3 domain which brings with it a high social standing - or a ‘flex’ as any good ENS maxi will call it.
Reference and picture: 10k club Twitter
From here, perhaps originally with the intention to replicate the success of the 999 Club, the 10K Club (0000.eth to 9999.eth) was formed. Once again, this was a wholly organic, grassroots movement where holders tweeted lengthy, detailed educational threads on what they saw in ENS and the digits they held. Additionally, they formed their own Discord servers for other holders to congregate in. Within these private servers, marketing strategies were devised and public town halls were held to onboard the uninitiated, all with the intention to spread the good word and educate each other - but most importantly, to those who didn’t understand the appeal just yet.
Current floor prices:
999 club (3 number names): 19.5 ETH
10k club (4 number names): 1.16 ETH
100k club (5 number names): 0.035 ETH
Single Emoji: 0.891 ETH
Double emoji: 0.099 ETH
Source: ENS Vision
Thoughts
Scarcity in numbers provides value and uniqueness, which gives birth to exclusive groups such as these. Each of these groups has dedicated members with a shared passion for crypto, but especially ENS and its future. *Communities* that are tied together around the same values, interests, and beliefs tend to stick together for long periods of time, develop great friendships, pursue common goals, start collaborating together, etc. All of this lays a strong foundation for a community to thrive upon.
As we’ve seen across many different industries from L1s and Defi to memecoins and hyped PFPs, communities are the ones that can make or break the project. Where there’s a strong community, there’s strong value!
.eth name trends:
First name
Last name (with subnames)
Digits (most lucrative category)
Ethmojis
Nouns
Verbs
Professions
Palindromes
Cities
States
Countries
Area codes
Clubs (exclusivity, private access)
Meta names (cyber names)
Gaming names
‘THE’ names
Payments category (used for businesses — accept.eth, accepts.eth, willtake.eth, yesto.eth, pay.eth, payin.eth…)
The most expensive ENS domains:
Paradigm.eth — Sold for 420 Ξ (OpenSea)
000.eth — Sold for 300 Ξ (OpenSea)
Porno.eth — Sold for 184 Ξ (OpenSea)
Sam.eth — Sold for 100 Ξ (OpenSea)
Worthy mentions:
003.eth — 83.5 Ξ (~$107,165)
555.eth — 55.5 Ξ (~$162,000)
005.eth — 50 Ξ (~$146,000)
047.eth — 50 Ξ (~$142,467)
006.eth — 32 Ξ (~$93,000)
0x8.eth — 25 Ξ (~$73,000)
025.eth — 25 Ξ (~$73,000)
008.eth — 20 Ξ (~$58,000)
2000.eth — 20 Ξ (~$58,000)
OpenSea.eth — 99.89 Ξ (~$128,226)
Games.eth — 80 Ξ (~$102,721)
Patriots.eth — 75 Ξ (~$96,196)
Wallet.eth — 75 Ξ (~$96,196)
Crypto.eth — 60 Ξ (~$77,037)
Samsung.eth — 60 Ξ (~$77,037)
Nike.eth — 60 Ξ (~$77,037)
Google — 52.9 Ξ (~$67,987)
Apple — 51 Ξ (~$65,545)
Starbucks — 50 Ξ (~$64,195)
Ecosystem
ENS is an avenue for innovation that is open source and accessible to everyone. It has a fully transparent team, with a vibrant community of energized supporters; all of whom can come and build creative products on top of it, thus adding more value and utility to the ecosystem organically. The ENS product design philosophy allows for endless products to be created as extensions, so anyone can come and make the user experience richer for web3 users via their ideas and ingenuity.
Ecosystem projects
ENS Vision: https://www.ens.vision/
Enables users to discover and trade an array of ENS names via an extensive categorization of listings. As an ENS aggregator marketplace, ens.vision enables anyone to bulk search, list, and register an ENS name directly on the platform or from other marketplaces.
Sign-In with Ethereum: https://login.xyz/
Sign-In with Ethereum is a new form of authentication, enabling users to control their digital identity with their Ethereum account and ENS profile, instead of relying on a traditional intermediary.
Planetable: https://www.planetable.xyz/
Planet is a free and open-source software for publishing and following web content, and it does not require a centralized server or service. It uses IPFS to achieve peer-to-peer content distribution. Furthermore, you can link your content to an Ethereum Name (.eth) so that others can follow you via Planet by the .eth name.
ETH LIMO: https://eth.limo/
A privacy-preserving ENS gateway for resolving Ethereum Name Service (ENS) records and associated IPFS/IPNS/Skynet content. LIMO allows users and dApp developers to effortlessly access and hosts static sites built with a combination of IPFS/IPNS/Skynet and ENS.
CNS: https://twitter.com/CNSdomains
Policy-based ENS subdomains issuance infrastructure. Conditionally allows your ENS subdomains to be registered and handed out to your community with CNS.
Domain Plug: https://beta.domainplug.io/
ENS marketplace intended for buying, selling, and discovering the best ENS names through their smart search feature to level up your ENS game.
Predomain: https://predomain.eth.limo/
Open source, decentralized, web3 domains search, registration and marketplace.
ENS Maxis: https://www.ensmaxis.com/
The very first PFP NFT collection for the ENS community. In the true spirit of ENS, Maxis is a no royalties collection - a rarity for a PFP project.
OptiNames: https://optinames.eth.limo/
A platform that offers users to register a subdomain for free on Optimism and use it everywhere including Ethereum L1.
.earth: https://www.earth.domains/
ENS domain + avatar + metadata = 1 NFT. Nomads are the FIRST-ever ENS Avatar collection!
Web3 Domains: https://web3domains.com/
Founded by prominent ENS advocates GaryPalmerJr.eth and Ada.eth, W3D creates content about decentralized domains, distributed websites, and Web3 usernames with the vision to educate and inform both those who are freshly stepping into the space, and seasoned veterans alike.
NiftySparks: https://www.niftysparks.com/
Nifty Sparks is a community hub and directory of everything related to ENS domains. Resources, IRL events, podcasts, a public calendar of community events, twitter spaces, clubs and groups, protocols, and apps built on ENS can all be found here.
ENS Academy: https://www.ensacademy.io/
A platform to educate, support, and empower anyone who can benefit from this technology.
Domains Theory: https://domainstheory.io/
A consultation and brokerage service company helping individuals and businesses find their desired web3 identity.
ENS Grows: https://ensgrows.xyz/
A blog and newsletter dedicated to supporting ENS builders.
ENS Domains Academy: https://ensdomains.academy/
Resources to get you started on ENS fundamentals with guides and courses.
.eth Leaderboard: https://ethleaderboard.xyz/
A platform that shows the most followed Twitter accounts that have .eth in their name.
ENS.tools: https://ens.tools/
A platform to help users find and register the best names that have expired or are soon about to expire.
ESF.Tools: https://esf.tools/
A subdomain management platform.
GweiClub: https://www.gweiclub.xyz/
Curate and build your web 3 profile, the way you like it.
ENS Fairy: https://ensfairy.xyz/
The best platform to go to if you want to gift someone an ENS name and kickstart their web3 journey.
Sek9: https://www.sek9.com/
SeK9 was built to help users better find their favorite domains based on hundreds of different categories.
ENS Appraiser: https://ensappraiser.com/
An appraisal tool that gives you an estimated value for your searched ENS name.
3bra: https://3bra.com/YourEnsNameHere.eth
Social profiles for ENS with a content feed from Twitter and wallet transaction history.
Bcard: https://bsite.io/
An on-chain business card running on the Polygon network. The bustling community swap Bcards to grow their network of connections and display their interests and professions in order to garner interest from others and form relationships.
Esteroids: https://esteroids.eth.limo/#/
A search engine for the decentralized web.
Simple.eth: https://simple.eth.limo/
Simple.eth helps you launch a decentralized webapp on the Ethereum network.
ENS Solitaire: https://enssolitaire.eth.limo/
The famous solitaire card game built with the ENS theme for fun.
🚨Shameless plug!🚨
👉 Namespace 👈 https://thename.space/
Creative tools to help you get the most out of your ENS name.
A special shoutout to the three new ETH Global winners:
ENSEverywhere: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/enseverywhere-q2rvq
Sublettuce: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/sublettuce-g6ysh
World Hash: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/world-hash-qdx6t
There are many products being developed using ENS contracts, and there’s no shortage of amazing ideas constantly emerging. Therefore, if we have left out someone, it was completely unintentional. But if you'd like to be the first one to know about new ENS projects, you can follow the ecosystem topic on their official forum at ENS Ecosystem.
Technical overview
The entire ENS ecosystem is open-source, designed to be very flexible, scalable, and easily extended. It was built with the thought in mind that everyone can use contracts from the ENS tech stack and build on top of the protocol and expand its utility with more applications, products, personal or business use cases. For example, anyone can add a new field to their own resolver, deploy it, and use it without having to upgrade the entire ENS system.
The entirety of ENS focuses on 5 main smart contracts:
Registry — The contract that represents the heart of ENS. It stores ENS records for registered domains and subdomains, and tells you who owns what. It also contains the relationship structure of ENS domain names. For example, the relationship between a .eth domain, its subdomains, and their owners.
Registrar — Creates records for registered .eth domain names. Once registered, the .eth domain names are minted as NFTs according to the ERC-721 standard, which is a standard used by most NFT projects. ERC-721 domains can also have their subdomains, but unless converted into ERC-1155 NFTs (wrapped by the NameWrapper contract), subdomains will not be able to have the ability to be transferred and owned by wallets. ‘Unwrapped’ subdomains are owned only by the parent domain, and not a wallet.
Resolver — When ENS domains and subdomains are registered they are created only as NFTs. However, in order to use a subdomain or domain name as a representation of an Ethereum address, that name needs to be associated with the address. The role of the resolver is to store the association between the name and the address. Public resolver supports ETH addresses, addresses for other blockchains, content on IPFS, Arweave, etc. Furthermore, for social profiles like Twitter, Discord handles, and other text records.
Controller — Provides the functionality to register .eth domains. The old version of the Controller invoked the Registrar in order to create ERC-721 domains. However, with the introduction of NameWrapper, Controller has been upgraded to invoke NameWrapper in order to complete the registration process, which automatically “wraps” registered domains. The controller is usually invoked by dApps that provide .eth domain registration.
NameWrapper — Provides the ability to “wrap” domains and subdomains, which refers to the process of turning registered domains and subdomains into tradable NFTs. It also provides the functionality to remove certain controls a domain can have over its subdomains. For example, an owner of a domain can be prevented from transferring or setting the expiry of its subdomains, effectively giving full control of the subdomain to the subdomain owner.
Besides wrapping, NameWrapper is also invoked in order to create and transfer subdomains. Also, the NFT standard implemented by NameWrapper is ERC-1155, which acts like ERC-721, but has some additional features such as batch transfers. A batch transfer would, for example, allow a collection of domains or subdomains to be transferred.
A Map of all ENS contracts can be found on the official Discussion forum written by one of the delegates — AvsA — Here is the link to the forum discussion. Note that this post is from February 10, 2022, and with the upcoming NameWrapper some things are going to be changed on the base contract level.
If you’d like to dive deeper into how everything works feel free to refer to their Official Gitbook Documentation.
Governance
One of the major milestones in the ENS ecosystem was setting up governance effectively. That includes forming a DAO, deciding on its bylaws via the ENS constitution, choosing delegates, and executing the airdrop in a way that would benefit the project the most.
A DAO is a trustless organization that enables blockchain developers to automate decisions and collaborate without third parties or intermediaries. The rules and decisions of a DAO are governed by its members, rather than any central authority or board of directors.
ENS governance being DAO based has many advantages over if it were to be run as a corporation:
Members are incentivized to collaborate with one another to drive value. DAOs decentralize power over a wide-reaching number of individuals, rather than a concentrated, select number of people with their own interests, as is often seen in corporations.
DAOs promote transparency. Voting on decisions takes place on the blockchain and results can be viewed by anyone. In turn, individuals are compelled to vote with their beliefs at heart and in good faith, as voting records are documented and widely broadcast.
Participation, regardless of location or social standing, is enabled via the DAO structure. Corporations are closed off and nepotistic - whereas in a DAO you can be a contributor and decision-maker so long as you own a token to allow you to do so.
To solidify the structure of the DAO, ENS has published the ENS Constitution – a set of binding rules that determine what governance actions are legitimate for the DAO to take.
For anyone not experienced with how Web3 governance systems work, it’s worth mentioning that a native token is used as a central piece of the ecosystem. ENS has issued its governance token, $ENS, which is used for voting and decision-making for the entire ENS ecosystem.
ENS Token
The purpose of the token is governance — a meaningful vote on the future of ENS to decide what technical improvements should be made and how treasury funds should be used. This participation is crucial for the functionality of ENS. Delegation is necessary for an infrastructure such as this, as it’s not practical for the majority of users to keep up to date with every single update and development that occurs within ENS.
Token airdrop
The ENS token airdrop was very well thought out and designed. It was done in a way that would ensure core ENS supporters are valued the most.
ENS wanted to give governance power to the people who had the biggest impact on ENS and reward the people who had been present in the ENS ecosystem for a long time beforehand; quite crucially also, those who had shown a strong commitment to stick with them going into the future.
The airdrop was split in half:
The first 50% was airdropped to people on a basis of how long they’ve owned their ENS name – the earliest registered names received the bigger airdrops
The second 50% was airdropped to people on a basis of how long in the future their ENS names had been registered. The names registered for the most years in advance received the biggest airdrop (capped at 8 years)
After the airdrop was delivered, those who claimed their tokens were required to choose their own delegate to represent them. Essentially, representative democracy was enacted. It’s arguable to conclude that representative democracy is the strongest form of democracy, as within this system people vote for representatives who enact policy initiatives.
With direct democracy, people decide on policies without any intermediary or representative. Having an individual vote on issues that are most aligned with your position is best for keeping a structured and consistent decision-making process intact. The alternative would lead to complicated problems, such as whether people would engage with the process properly, have enough knowledge of the voting issue at hand, or even have time to follow the proposals and vote on them punctually.
Delegates are in place to fill this role and act on behalf of their constituents. As all voting takes place on the blockchain, these voting decisions will always be available publicly to be reviewed, and so delegates are the most active, mandatory participants of the process.
Full details about the airdrop can be found here.
Delegates
In order to nominate yourself as a delegate, it was necessary to write a short profile about yourself and why people should delegate to you. Delegates are one of the most important aspects of the ecosystem and key members of the community. Successful applicants were chosen based on their commitment, knowledge, and prior experience in this field, and they personally ran campaigns to make sure those selected were the best possible representatives of the community.
There are a few decisions that delegates have made so far:
The first decision was to formally petition a multisig - which previously controlled all treasury funds - and hand them over to the DAO. This motion passed almost unanimously
There had been issues where people received incorrect amounts with their airdrops, and so the community compensated them and corrected the miscalculation
Creating different working groups to get the DAO started
Price premium correction – when a name expires, it goes on sale in a Dutch auction format
Ending the airdrops officially
Treasury
ENS, besides having one of the best DAO structures in the entire web3 space, has one of the biggest treasuries of all DAOs as well. The ETH spent from every name registration or renewal goes to the treasury. The treasury is controlled by the DAO, which oversees all the assets. Therefore, the treasury budget in its entirety is managed by the ENS community, which votes on how the funds are to be spent.
The ENS DAO is currently seeking an official Endowment Manager. The role will exist to help maintain and increase the strength of the accumulated assets used to fund DAO activities, contributors, public goods, and official developers.
Details can be found here via this amazing article published by Boardroom.
Source: ENS Dashboard.
How is treasury money spent?
1) Funding the ENS ecosystem directly:
Funding projects directly associated with ENS names, such as ENS Labs Limited, which is the official development arm of ENS
Sign-In with Ethereum and other projects significantly contributing to the ENS space
Wider ecosystem projects through Ecosystem Grants.
2) Public goods in general – things outside ENS - but still within Ethereum - or wider space public goods
Official DAO Governance Docs can be found here.
Team
ENS is renowned for its great team culture, excellent values, and very thoughtful and philosophical approach to building. There is a lot of thought put in before implementing anything, exemplified superbly by their astute airdrop strategy, mentioned above.
ENS team members are not profit-driven, rather they are compelled by the will to build a better future over monetary gains. However, everyone is fairly compensated for their work and contributions to the ENS space. This indicates a professional approach to both core developers and ecosystem contributors, which in turn almost guarantees the longevity of the project and a healthy DAO work environment.
Well-respected and reputable members, dedicated to their craft and mission, regularly host Twitter spaces that are open source and transparent. In these, they will publicly discuss topics before starting to work on them.
The team is predominantly made up of what we in the industry call ‘Crypto OGs’. As it happens, ENS is older than Crypto Punks, and many who were there for its inception are still contributing to this day. How about that!
The team is constantly working on and deploying new developments, and in turn inspiring others to do the same. During the early days of ENS, the project was recognized as one of the key innovations and foundational layers that blockchain and crypto needed to have. Thus, the team was awarded $1M from the Ethereum Foundation to help kickstart the project.
DAO
The Goal of Creating a DAO?
Quote from Nick.eth:
“From day 1 the goal for ENS was to build a decentralized system and that means: Minimizing the amount of human control required which I firmly believe is the best to build a decentralized system where it's viable. That means Minimizing the systems that require trusted parties to execute. And we have done that by building a system that is largely administered cryptographically through your credentials and by progressively removing permissions that are no longer needed.”
There are 4 groups that make up the ENS DAO:
Core team
Delegates
Stewards
Community members
Core team – ENS Labs
Besides the Core development team, the ENS Root is managed by some of the most credible people in the crypto industry through a multi-sig wallet.
More about the Root node can be found on the ENS official documentation here.
Delegates
Not only are they role models, ambassadors, advocates, and public representatives of the ENS space, Delegates are the key DAO members that have the biggest voting power. They participate in all key discussions, vote on-chain for proposals, and ultimately decide the path forward for the entire ENS ecosystem.
Source: https://dune.com/andrewshvv/ENS-DAO
If you’re interested in becoming a delegate, you can follow the instructions here.
Stewards
Stewards are people that are leading working groups and contributors in the ENS ecosystem. In order to become a steward and launch a working group, you have to submit a proposal for a specific project or a task that would benefit the ENS ecosystem or community. This will need to be approved by the DAO. After that, the Lead Steward is chosen and the working group can start its job.
If you’re interested in starting a working group and becoming a steward, you can find more info here.
Community Members
Credit: dr3a.eth
Community members participate in public discussion and voice their opinion on matters concerning ENS. They are active proponents of all things ENS including .eth names, ENS culture and values, open-source and permissionless building, and so on. The community also chooses who will be their delegate, and thus who they’ll delegate their voting power through holding ENS tokens.
Every Web3 founder knows that the community is the heart and soul of every project; an army of people whose passion for the project they dedicate themselves runs deep. Spending countless hours in Twitter Spaces, educating and onboarding new users, and leading the path forward for the masses. They are the loudest and best advocates of the space who tend to drive the most adoption on the ground level.
Noteworthy Partnerships & Integrations
Coinbase (cb.id)
Coinbase is using ENS contracts to issue a subname to every new user that creates an account in their app. Now, every user can pick a name for their wallet for free with cb.id extension. This makes it easier for Coinbase users to transfer funds around and diminishes the risk of sending funds to the wrong address.
Decentraland (dcl.eth)
Decentraland made it possible for their users to buy a subname with dlc.eth as their second-level domain and use it within their game. A name can be used for the avatar in the game, but one can also be minted for the parcel/land within Decentraland also.
Other partners and integrations
Currently, there are 512 ENS ecosystem partners and integrations. All of them are top-tier, Web3 companies with impeccable reputations. These companies have recognized ENS as a leader in the naming service industry. Some of them are listed below
Reference and picture: Rainbow
Rainbow Wallet
Trust Wallet
MyCrypto
1inch Wallet
Argent
Uniswap
OpenSea
Etherscan
Aave
Showtime
0 Exchange
Aragon
Lens Protocol
Skiff
This is just to name but a few, you can see see the full list on the ENS website.
Alternatively, view a full list spreadsheet here, provided by community member @mcbosserton.
Future Plans
ENS Long-Term Vision
”Be the Naming System For Every Digital Resource in the World.”
When it comes to building new things in the ENS ecosystem, the only problem we all face is needing more time to deliver everything sooner. There’s no shortage of great ideas, great discussions, and even greater utility for ENS names.
Besides the fact that the entire project is open-source and available to anyone to build upon it, the core founding team has a stacked roadmap of milestones to hit. Some of these include:
Integrations with Other L2s
EVM compatible chains. Integration with Polygon as an L2 for Ethereum, and future plans with other non-EVM compatible chains. Using L2s as management chains have been in discussion for a while nowRewriting and Redesigning the Entire ENS Manager
This would make it a lot easier for a broader audience to navigate the inside of the app and use all of its features with ease. Current progress can be found here: https://alpha.ens.domains/. A new Manager will improve UX massively and provide fresh functionality.Smart contract improvements
Name wrapper - issuing subdomains with different permissions. A lot more changes to other core contracts that improve usability. For example, making it easier to set the primary name simultaneously when you’re registering the name. Effectively, this will save on gas fees because both actions will be handled within one transaction. This has already been done on the Goerli testnet.DAO improvements
These are still necessary, so a lot of focus will be on establishing even stronger and better processes around handling DAO-related activities within the ecosystem. There is a case that can be made that ENS operating as a DAO has given so much power or upper-hand control, they wouldn’t otherwise have had if they weren’t fully decentralized, public, and community-driven.Management of All ENS Related Functionality Off-Chain
This is planned in the future for optimization. This will help save on gas fees and speed up the overall management process.
Future Catalysts
Technological
In the future, every single web3 username, whether it is a .eth, .sol, .dao or .bit will be cross-chain compatible. Just as Defi is becoming more chain-agnostic, we’ll see the same thing happen with ENS and its competitors.
With the utilization of current developments like the ENS name wrapper, future integrations will be potentially natively supported by different browsers so .eth websites can be natively resolved. Thus, the .eth website will not resolve to some external domain name such as .com, .net, .xyz, or anything else you make it point to, but it will be a standalone .eth website.
But maybe, just maybe, there will be an ICANN-like organization dedicated to the decentralized naming services governing the web3 space? Is there any better organization that embodies all blockchain characteristics and its core ethos, such as being permissionless, open-sourced, decentralized, censorship-resistant, and possessing a community-centric approach to all decision-making, than ENS? Not only that but offers self-sovereign user data that is more eligible to govern domain service standards? Asking for a friend…
Disruptive
Disruption can come in different shapes and forms. If we take a look at the possible utility of ENS, it is a strong possibility that every new PFP collection, every new DAO, new metaverse project, new game, and new wallet will get an immediate name within that given ecosystem.
What if someone is building a platform that could automatically enable users to deploy an NFT collection, and automatically assign subdomains for each NFT holder who mints? Due to the nature of how ENS is being constructed, which we discussed before, there are countless opportunities to build on top of the ENS infrastructure.
Social
The majority of .eth names reside currently on Twitter. But can you imagine a future where social profiles exist without ENS names featured?
Social status is a game played for as long as humanity has existed. Different ENS names are worth different prices due to their scarcity, owners, and the benefits attached to them. As sign-in with Ethereum gets a more widespread use, one of the first integrations it will serve is to be able to have Web3 profiles you can use to login to many different social websites. At this point, decentralized social media is yet to be properly ‘disrupted’ and Web3 usernames will be the first step to the mass onboarding experience.
Games
Starting with Decentraland, which developed its own wrapper contract and issued subnames to all of its users, there will be a time in the future when every single game will follow this trend. We are heading toward the future of sovereign digital ownership of in-game assets - and all digital assets for that matter. Now imagine all of the in-game assets and loot being named and customizable, and on top of that, given the functionality to be openly traded.
Imagine an upgradeable NFT in-game sword used by your favorite streamer/gamer for thousands of hours that has a brand on its own, being able to be rented or traded, bought, and sold.
Metaverse
Metaverse platforms, in order to accommodate all users, will need to be cross-chain compatible. What is going to happen when the majority of our daily lives become spent immersed in the metaverse? A world of wonders and endless possibilities. One assumes that the entire digital world, ever-expanding over time, will only get bigger and bigger.
Think about upgradable in-game items that could be bought and sold on the secondary market. Does anyone really believe that assets in the metaverse such as billboards, roads, real estate, land, parks, cars, pets, sneakers, bikes, dinosaurs, weapons, or anything else will be left nameless?
Exclusivity
Access to different exclusive groups. Groups like the 999 Club and the 10K Club will become OGs, and inevitably will be worth a lot more than even now. The people in these exclusive groups will build new and exciting things which contribute to the ENS ecosystem, attracting high-end, motivated, and talented builders which will enhance the reputation of said clubs.
In turn, this will create a connotation of prestige to be within these refined circles, driving the price, and thus also the scarcity of gaining membership into its hallowed halls. With this, and if it plays out in the way we expect, there will be a huge demand to be close to those people, and subsequently be how other exclusive groups will be born.
Closing thoughts
As you’ve no doubt already gathered, ENS is a Web3 project unlike any other. However, the beauty of it not only lies in the technology and future utility of this sleeping giant, but the culture which has been cultivated by the community who believe in it.
Most Web3 projects have a roadmap, a founder, and a host of dynamics where the success of that project almost solely hinges on the aforementioned living up to the expectations which they have bombastically set out for themselves. More often than not, certainly as showcased during the bear market of 2022, these projects are crushed under the weight of expectations and wither into obscurity.
ENS has no such trouble, as there is no one individual to rely on to stay interested in the endeavor and to keep delivering ‘value’ or ‘utility’ for investors. No one, that is, aside from the community that has been active and building since before Crypto Punks were launched! Judging by this credential, ENS seems as though it is in safe hands.
The Ethereum founder has long been an advocate of the premier Web3 naming system, citing it as a “very valuable and important Ethereum infrastructure” from as far back as April 2020.
There might just be something to this ENS thing if the inventor of Ethereum itself is talking about it as much as this:
Many ENS believers proudly display ‘.eth’ in their social and professional display names - acting somewhat as a badge of authenticity to their Web3 credentials. A .eth name exhibited is a status symbol amongst those in Web3 that shows support not only for ENS but Ethereum and Web3 as a whole.
In 2022, it proves that you are an early adopter. It exudes an undertone that the person in question is well-versed in what Web3 has to offer; being not solely motivated by the potential of profit that comes with being early, but by the ability to shape how our world goes forward for our children and beyond. A hope of being a part of something that will deliver a better system for them than we ourselves have endured.
A .eth display name is a lot more than what it appears at face value. Again, something which has been wholly cultivated by the community born from it.
In fact, it’s arguable that the only scenario where ENS fails exists only in a reality where Ethereum itself fails. 🫡
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Written by:
thecap.eth – NeoTokyo Citizen, Founder at Namespace.
PhoenixxDown.eth – NeoTokyo Citizen, Writer for Web3Domains.com.
Namespace
Website: https://thename.space/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheName_Space
Discord: https://discord.gg/3TC6a8uACt
Web3Domains
Website: https://web3domains.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/web3domains_com
NeoTokyo
Website: https://neotokyo.codes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NeoTokyoCode
Discord: https://discord.gg/neotokyocitadel