What Is Ethereum Name Service (ENS)? The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is said to be the naming service in the context of wallet addresses, hashes, and other machine-readable identifiers. It turns the process of reading strings of data, which is considered difficult, into an easily readable address. ENS has been working in the line of Domain Name System (DNS) which is used for websites.
In the beginning, the ENS sold popular six, five, four, and three-letter domain names to those users who were interested in using the Vickrey auction format. Each name included .eth at the end and was able to get attached to multiple cryptocurrency addresses, hashes, and other information.
It has become easy to purchase names without an auction or rent them. However, the cost depends on the length of the name desired to be put on rent. Also, if you have owned an ENS domain on October 31, 2021, you were given an airdrop of $ENS governance tokens. It is pertinent to mention that the airdrop collection period was sustained until May 04, 2022.
One of the biggest challenges of blockchain technology has been improving in terms of ease of use and accessibility. You can have a look at the payments via Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC).
The new experienced users may find the long wallet addresses confusing as the hexadecimal strings of data are simple for a computer to analyze, however, it is less instinctive for human users. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) deals with the issues and allows an individual to create simple addresses that are very easy to remember.
What is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS)?
It is pertinent to mention that the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a project based on Ethereum. It was launched on May 4, 2017, by Alex Van de Sande and Nick Johnson. It allowed the users to demonstrate long Ethereum public addresses in an easy text-based way. With this, sharing, using, and remembering addresses and other data became easier.
It is worth mentioning that Ethereum Name Service is not only limited to wallet addresses, either, but also it can be used to speak for transaction IDs, hashes, and metadata. All of these are commonly found in the world of cryptocurrency. If you are into the technological aspects of blockchain technology, then you might have been familiar with the Domain Name System (DNS), which is a naming system that works like an internet phonebook.
Notably, the DNS picks hard-to-remember IP addresses and attaches them to a URL that can be easily used. Besides, some experts also call ENS the DNS of the Ethereum blockchain.
ENS has also initiated a governance token transforming into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Considering a large rise in the price of tokens, the project has been trending and generating a lot of interest among users.
How does Ethereum Name Service (ENS) work?
It is pertinent to mention that the ENS domain name uses ERC-721 Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in an order to represent a unique address. An individual is allowed to trade a domain by either transferring or selling the NFT to others. It is also worth mentioning here that the wallet addresses and other information are included with each token and it is manageable by the owner.
Moreover, the top-level domain such as .eth is owned by a smart contract known as a registrar. It takes care of the creation of subdomains.
In an order to buy an Ethereum domain name, an individual can also check its availability and rent it on the yearly basis. However, the prominent names were auctioned initially. The highest bidder, winning the domain, was allowed to attach the addresses, and create sub-domains, besides loaning or selling their domain name.
What can you do with Ethereum Name Service (ENS)?
In case you ever find yourself getting confused with so many addresses while sending cryptocurrencies, then you will understand the requirement for ENS. Just like someone saves the phone number of his/her friend under their name, ENS allows its users to turn long numbers into words that are easy to remember. This becomes a straightforward experience while the chances for errors are automatically reduced.
An ENS domain owner is allowed to create subdomains that can assign other data. It is to be mentioned that it should not have to be a wallet address always because you can also use it to be redirected to a smart contract, transaction, or metadata.
How to get your own Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain?
These days, it has become simple to get an ENS name. It is more like checking its availability on https://app.ens.domains/ and registering on it. Let’s have a look at how to start the process. First, you have to go to https://app.ens.domains/ and connect your wallet and fill in the domain that you’re interested in.
After clicking on the name, you will be displayed the instructions on how to register the ENS domain. You have to choose your registration period. Also, you can have an estimate of the charges. If you are having ether (ETH) in your wallet, you would be allowed to follow the three steps and request to register the address.
In the early days of Ethereum Name Service, the popular six, five, four, and three-letter names were sold in Vickrey-style auctions. Back then, a smart contract had processed the whole process for over five days and anyone was allowed to participate in a public auction and purchase the same domain name. In the meanwhile, all the interested parties would have to send a transaction that included the maximum bid in the open auctions for the first three days.
Later, the auction would enter the reveal phase and everyone would have to either make their bid public or lose their locked-up ETH, thereby, the winning bidder would pay an amount equivalent to the second-largest bid. Afterward, all the revealed bids would get a refund.
How much does it cost to get an ENS domain?
Experts believe that there are two parts to the cost of an ENS domain. One of them is auction costs and the other one is rental costs. The cost of an ENS domain name in an auction used to depend on the prominence of the name while the recognizable names such as God, Car, or ETH, were of higher cost. On the other hand, the short three-letter words were considered the most expensive.
Once owning an ENS domain, you would be required to pay a yearly renewal cost which is payable in ETH. The fees are designated in dollars, however, it is converted with the help of an exchange rate which is given by the Chainlink ETH/USD oracle. Notably, the annual renewal cost is somewhat around $5 per year for names having five characters or more. However, it becomes more expensive when you have fewer letters.
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