What is the Ethereum Name Service?

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain.

ENS's job is to map human-readable names like 'alice.eth' to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata. ENS also supports 'reverse resolution', making it possible to associate metadata such as canonical names or interface descriptions with Ethereum addresses.

nick.eth

➡️

0xb8c2c29ee19d8307cb7255e1cd9cbde883a267d5

ETH Registrar

Top-Level Domains (TLDs), like .eth and .test, are owned by smart contracts called registrars, which specify rules governing the allocation of their names. The ETH Registrar is the registrar for the .eth TLD, it allows for trustless decentralized names issued as tokens on the Ethereum Blockchain.

What about DNS?

ENS has similar goals to DNS, the Internet's Domain Name Service, and aims to extend its capability. Like DNS, ENS operates on a system of dot-separated hierarchical resolution process.

DNS on ENS (through DNSSEC)

ENS also supports importing in DNS names through the use of DNSSEC. This allows you to take your .com, .xyz, or .art into the ENS ecosystem. Read more about DNSSEC names on this page.

.com.xyz.nl.net.org.amsterdam.pizza.cash.money.so.info.contact.domains.be.de.co.uk.se.tv.pl.es.me.us.id.fr.hr.com.au.camera.wtf.capital.finance.home.limo.link.uk.nz.dev.ax.pl.md

and any other DNSSEC-compatible domain...

Subnames

Because of the hierarchal nature of ENS, anyone who owns a domain at any level may configure subdomains - for themselves or others - as desired. For instance, if Alice owns 'alice.eth', she can create 'pay.alice.eth' and configure it as she wishes.

To read more about subdomains, check out the Resolution page.

ENS Manager App

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.