The ENS have already been in demand for a few months, with companies and people paying millions of dollars in some addresses, we will understand how they work.
Table of Contents
What are ENS
ENS is a distributed, extensible and open naming service based on the Ethereum network. The core purpose of ENS is to map human-readable names such as “john.eth” to machine-readable identifiers such as MetaMask wallet, Ethereum or any other web address3. By analogy, ENS works similarly to Domain Name Service (DNS). Thanks to DNS, we don’t need to enter an IP address when we want to visit a website. Instead, we look up or type the name because DNS associates IP addresses with human-readable domain names. The same is true of the ENS; maps long wallet addresses with easy-to-read names. As a result, it’s easy to share encrypted addresses. ENS is built on Ethereum and is designed to be a decentralized version of the internet. So you can create secure, private and censorship resistant websites as well as upload them to IPFS. ENS is not considering replacing DNS, but extending it. If you have a DNS domain name, you can also use it with ENS. Although the native name suffix for ENS is .eth, it also supports many DNS names, such as .com.
what is it for
Like DNS, ENS has a hierarchical system that allows domain owners to issue and control any number of subdomains, allowing for the use of human readable names. These are essentially two smart contracts. The first is the ENS record, a database that stores and records all domains and subdomains and other domain owner details. In this case, the owner could be a user with an encryption address or another smart contract to which the registry grants the right to issue subdomains. Since, Ethereum naming service exists on the Ethereum mainnet and other test networks. This means that if you use the ENS.js JavaScript library or any end-user application, it autonomously discovers the networks it interacts with. Consequently, the ENS deployment is available for that specific network.
How to buy an ENS
To purchase an ENS, you can use the ENS application to find, register, and manage ENS domains (.eth). A non-custodial crypto wallet is required to connect to the app as MetaMask. There must be sufficient funds to cover annual domain fees, transaction costs, and Ethereum gas fees. The annual fee depends on the number of characters in the name. Currently, four-character names cost US$160 per year, while three-character names cost US$640. Whereas, the domain owner can move the master domain or subdomains. The ENS name is actually an immutable ERC-721 token, so when you send an NFT, you can transfer it to a different wallet address. As the ENS name is NFT, it can also be traded on the NFT market.
Conclusion
ENS domains are becoming popular on marketplaces and many people want to buy one. The most expensive ENS sold was $2 million and many on social media speculate that companies will pay higher prices for their ENS in the future. Currently, many ENS are in fashion, as was the case with the Chinese alphabet that became fashionable and its prices were far above average. Therefore, it is to be expected that ENS will enter Mainstream soon and we can see several companies incorporating this type of address in their domains.
