ENS, or Ethereum Name Service, is a distributed domain Name Service based on Ethereum that provides a secure and decentralized way to resolve simple human-readable domain names into on-chain and off-chain address resources. ENS was launched on May 4, 2017. Through a unique bidding mechanism, any user can register one (or more) Ethereum domain names ending in ". Eth "for their Ethereum addresses through the bidding process. In simple terms, ENS can map a person's long and hard to remember "ethereum address starting with 0x" to a custom short address, such as Satoshi. eth, Vitalik. eth, and so on. That way, in an Ens-enabled wallet, instead of copying and pasting long addresses, users can directly use the ENS domain name to bind various cryptocurrency addresses and receive cryptocurrency payments. At the same time, ENS can be used with its own DNS domain name. Currently, ENS supports many DNS domain names, such as.com,. IO, and. In addition, ENS is built on ERC721 protocol, that is, each ENS domain name is actually an NFT. Therefore, after the registration is completed, a price can be selected to be listed in OpenSea and other NFT trading markets for subsequent auction and transfer. In some ways, ethereum's mix of alphanumeric and alphanumeric addresses of equal length (typically 42 bits) is not friendly to most users, nor is encryption itself popular, and huge losses caused by incorrect address typing are reported every year. ENS replaces ethereum addresses with characters that are easy for humans to remember, which is a key step in the spread of encryption. Users can choose a friendlier user address to remember, making it easy to send and receive encrypted assets and reducing the risk of the wrong address when transferring money.

ENS is an important infrastructure for Web3.0. ENS is not only the most influential account system and decentralized domain name system in the cryptocurrency market, but also a community consensus account system.

Blockchain networks, led by Bitcoin and Ethereum, are inherently computer-friendly because of asymmetric encryption, often referred to as public-private key encryption, underlying accounts, which makes human readability rather unfriendly. Crypto users must have been plagued by these questions when making cryptocurrency transfers, especially when confirming the recipient's address: Is this gibberish the right address? Do you need to check the accuracy letter by letter? Does the letter case disorder want to matter? What if I miss a letter? Can the transaction be rolled back if the transfer is wrong? This makes this kind of "user experience" in the cryptocurrency world very bad. In contrast, with all the conventional Internet products we use, most of the time we can safely confirm the identity or address of the other party by confirming a simple name, username, nickname, mobile phone number or email address. More and more startups are exploring this area, and their focus is on providing "translation" services, "lossless" translation between "computer languages" and "human-readable languages." Just as Internet domain names solve the problem of hard to remember IP addresses, decentralized blockchain-based "domain names" solve the problem of hard to remember blockchain addresses. You used to have to copy and paste each other's address and check it carefully each time. With decentralized "domain names," you can send money by typing in easy-to-read and easy-to-spell names like Alice.bit, Bob. Eth. Also, these names are globally unique and can only be managed by the user's private key.

In order to solve this problem, the team used the function of block chain intelligence contracts, or directly use the chain itself, to build a "map" and "translate" system, the user common block chain native underlying address mapping to a human-readable "user name", as the user to the outside world and open a "identity". The core of ENS is to provide "translation" services, "lossless" translation between "computer language" and "human readable language". Money transfers to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin now require no record of his original Ethereum account address (0xd8dA... 6045), but simply remember "vitalik.eth," which is a typical human-readable username.

ENS can map a person's long and hard to remember "ethereum address starting with 0x" to a custom short address, such as Satoshi. eth, Vitalik. eth, and so on. That way, in an Ens-enabled wallet, instead of copying and pasting long addresses, users can directly use the ENS domain name to bind various cryptocurrency addresses and receive cryptocurrency payments. At the same time, ENS can be used with its own DNS domain name. Currently, ENS supports many DNS domain names, such as.com,. IO, and. In addition, ENS is built on ERC721 protocol, that is, each ENS domain name is actually an NFT. Therefore, after the registration is completed, a price can be selected to be listed in OpenSea and other NFT trading markets for subsequent auction and transfer. In some ways, ethereum's mix of alphanumeric and alphanumeric addresses of equal length (typically 42 bits) is not friendly to most users, nor is encryption itself popular, and huge losses caused by incorrect address typing are reported every year. ENS replaces ethereum addresses with characters that are easy for humans to remember, which is a key step in the spread of encryption. Users can choose a friendlier user address to remember, making it easy to send and receive encrypted assets and reducing the risk of the wrong address when transferring money.

The integration of ENS 'reverse resolution capabilities across decentralized applications means that both users and applications are treating ENS as an underlying account system. It is important to explain that for ethereum users, it is common to create an Ethereum address starting with 0x as the user's payment address. Then consider registering an ENS name, such as Vitalik. eth, to map vitalik.eth to the ethereum address starting with 0x, which is called forward resolution. > forward lookup: vitalik.eth -- > 0xd8dA... In reverse resolution, when a user logs in to an application with an 0x account address, such as Uniswap's website, the user does not see the 0x address, but is mapped directly to the user's ENS address. > reverse lookup: 0xd8dA... This means that users and applications are starting to use ENS as their default user name. More interestingly, addresses that have been set up for reverse resolution will display the ENS account name directly on Etherscan, the largest block browser for Ethereum users. When reverse parsing was first introduced, the community didn't realize its usefulness on a large scale, but the ENS team held a community event to encourage more apps and users to implement reverse parsing (because it required additional steps), so it became known to all apps and users.

First, we need to confirm a transaction in our wallet. This is the first of two transactions required to complete the domain name registration. If step 2 is not completed within 24 hours after step 1 is completed, we need to restart from Step 1. Secondly, after approving the transaction in step 1, wait for about 1 minute to make sure that the whole network does not choose to register the domain name as well as protecting our registration request. Finally, we need to confirm a transaction in the wallet again. Only after the transaction is confirmed can we confirm whether the domain name has been successfully registered. If you register once for a five-year term, which expires on October 18, 2026, you can choose to renew it at that time, similar to the rules for traditional Internet domain names. At the same time, the main cost of the whole process is the on-chain operation cost of contract interaction. As a 5-digit domain name, the actual registration price is not expensive ($5), and the main cost is the on-chain operation fee of a series of contract interaction during the period.

50% of ENS airdrop tokens will belong to DAO itself. 25% will go to accounts with the name.eth, and another 25% will be distributed to hundreds of people who have contributed to ENS in significant ways over the past five years. DNS mapped domain names and subdomain names are not included in the airdrop. ENS project has not been financed, and the core team will not provide liquidity for tokens or actively contact the exchange. The ENS DAO will decide on any transaction fee change, use of the vault, etc. related to.eth. Any $ENS holder can participate in DAO governance and become a Delegator.

Ethereum Domain Name Service (ENS) has evolved into the most influential account system and decentralized domain name system in the cryptocurrency market, although it is still a very small project with a very early user experience. ENS was an early project incubated by the Ethereum Foundation. It is based on Ethereum's smart contract implementation, so there is no need to maintain an additional blockchain network. Even the currency system uses ETH, and it has recently announced that it will issue protocol tokens. As the project evolved and continued to generate cash flow, it became independent of the Ethereum Foundation. Compared with Namecoin, ENS has further expanded its use. It is not limited to decentralized domain names, but indirectly becomes an account system with community consensus. In addition to many DeFi and DApps deploying decentralized front-end versions of websites through ". Eth "domain names, many crypto community kols use their ENS accounts as twitter names, and many applications use ENS secondary domain names as protocol account systems. ENS 'decentralized domain name resolution capabilities have also been integrated into several cryptocurrency-friendly web browsers, such as Brave and Opera. In addition, ENS comes up with another magical solution. Compared to Namecoin, ENS can access the traditional Internet infrastructure more easily, compatible with all existing browsers. The implementation of this solution is actually very simple, that is, ENS team purchased eth. Link, the traditional domain name, to provide resolution service for all users accessing ENS domain name.

The full name of DAS is Decentralized Account Systems, which uses Nervos as the infrastructure of the system. Thanks to Nervos, DAS can realize many unique functions compared to Ethereum. For example, you can use the private key of any public chain to register and manage a DAS. In terms of specific use cases, DAS currently supports the management and control of the DAS protocol through ETH and TRX private keys, which means ethereum users can directly manage dAS-related smart contracts on the Nervos network without having to generate Nervos addresses. This is possible because the underlying Nervos protocol is more abstract in design and is compatible with the specific cryptography algorithms of any blockchain. For example, another team called Portal Wallet demonstrated the ability to send and receive assets in a Nervos network using Ethereum addresses because Nervos supports Ethereum's public and private key algorithms. In terms of wallet support, DAS should be second only to ENS. It has supported many mainstream wallets, including TokenPocket, imToken, HuobiWallet, AlphaWallet, HyperPay, BitKeep, etc., like NFTScan, These NFTGo applications have already integrated with DAS. In addition, DAS also uses the ".bit "domain name. After all, this domain name is not the patent of Namecoin team, and has not been registered by ICANN, so everyone can use it, although it may cause some confusion to Namecoin's regular users. I don't think there are any regular Namecoin users anymore (I've had a bunch of Namecoin accounts but never renewed them). The core scenario of DAS can be used as a unified cryptocurrency receiving account, supporting the sending and receiving of multi-chain assets, as well as a home page for personal information (bit.cc), or a domain name for decentralized websites, etc. But in terms of the team's vision and product name, DAS is more like an account system, and the domain name is just an incidental feature. After the launch of the main network, the data growth of DAS is also worth paying attention to. According to the latest official data, the number of independently registered addresses in the past three months has exceeded 5000, and the registered accounts have exceeded 25,000. At present, only 4 addresses and 35% of the total number above are opened. More registrable accounts should be gradually opened as the system matures.

Unstoppable Domains has launched the ".crypto "(and more) top-level Domains that can be purchased with permanent ownership, and Unstoppable Domains has a huge advantage in browser integration, which almost always supports the ens-supported browser. In addition, Unstoppable Domains has developed its own web browser, an open source version based on Chrome, to provide a more polished user experience. At Unstoppable Domains, they don't offer individual blockchains, but smart contracts based on other blockchains. For example, the ". Cryptp "domain name service is a smart contract system on the Ethereum network.

Handshake is even more ambitious. It wants to create a complete parallel to ICANN from the beginning of the namespace, where users can register ". Crypto "or". Eth ", but auction it first, so it can offer an unlimited number of possible domains. In order to migrate the existing DNS system, it also reserves the domain name for the world's most famous websites. The holders of these domain names can obtain the domain name in the Handshake as long as they pass the cryptography verification. Handshake is an independent public chain and adopts PoW mining mechanism. There are also professional teams that launch Handshake mining machine. One problem with this, however, is that whereas protocols that only deal with business logic require extra worry about network power and the possibility of attacks, ENS and Unstoppable Domains rely solely on Ethereum's security.

The FIO Protocol is a decentralized account system that focuses on working with the wallets, because its full name is the Foundation for Interwallet Operability. Its most important partner is the wallet, as it is the entry level app for cryptocurrencies. Deep integration with wallets can provide a more complete user experience for THE FIO protocol, such as "request transaction" and "context transaction" for transaction functions. FIO Protocol has also launched its own blockchain network with dPoS consensus, which could be an advantage for its high performance, or a disadvantage for questioning its security.

No matter what the future decentralized identity system is and how complex the business behind it is, it will always have a set of globally unique identifiers as a representation of each object for us to identify. Although each of us has different cultural backgrounds, personalities, preferences, intelligence, height and so on. When we want to represent a person, we don't describe him in every detail. Instead, mention his name first, or his ID number. Human-readable means that these globally unique symbols should be easy to read and spell for humans. Decentralized identity is an evolution. It doesn't happen suddenly. We don't suddenly figure out what decentralized identity will look like on a whim. It should evolve from a product form that current users are willing to continue to use. 3. Decentralized "domain names" provide globally unique identifiers that can be recognized by humans. Just as Internet domain names solve the problem of difficult to remember IP addresses, decentralized "domain names" based on blockchain solve the problem of difficult to remember blockchain addresses. You used to have to copy and paste each other's address and check it carefully each time. With decentralized "domain names," you can send money by typing in easy-to-read and easy-to-spell names like Alice.bit, Bob. Eth. Also, these names are globally unique and can only be managed by the user's private key. 4. Decentralized "domain name" has the foundation for evolution. There are at least two aspects that make users willing to hold decentralized "domain name" continuously. On the other hand, its uniqueness makes users willing to take it as a personalized identity mark. In addition, unlike traditional domain names, which can only be associated with limited data types such as IP addresses, decentralized domain names can be associated with arbitrary data types, so that different applications can read the data they care about and provide different services for users. In a money transfer scenario, for example, the wallet reads the blockchain address under the "domain name"; In the personal home page scenario, the personal home page application will read various Profile information of the user; In an end-to-end encrypted communication scenario, the application reads the user's public key. Support for arbitrary data types makes decentralized "domain names" flexible and easy to overlay applications on. As a result, the usefulness of decentralized "domain names" will continue to be reinforced. There is reason to believe that decentralized "domain names", which solve real problems today, are an early form of decentralized identity. Instead of directly building decentralized identity products, it is more pragmatic to continuously overlay decentralized identity related features on top of decentralized "domain names."

At present, ENS has nearly 400,000 registered domain names and integrates more than 300 applications. From wallet, application to browser, ENS has gradually established a relatively complete ecology. At the recent Wanxiang Blockchain Summit in Shanghai, Vitalik also said that for users, infrastructure is key, and ENS is a very important infrastructure. There are a lot of Ethereum users using ENS, and more and more people are expected to use ENS in the future. The problem with ENS right now is that all the functions are implemented on the main network, which leads to very high transaction costs, and that's the infrastructure challenge that we're facing. At the same time, in addition to Ethereum-based ENS, there are other blockchain domain name systems that have the underlying advantages of low cost and high throughput of competing public chains, but are temporarily inferior to ENS in terms of ecological construction. These include the well-known EOS short domain name and Nervos-based DAS, Terra Ecology's TNS, Solana Eco Domain name service, and more.

Blockchain-based decentralized domain names and decentralized account systems have been around for 10 years, and the pioneer Namecoin, while still in operation, has become a niche project with low user adoption. Later, ENS took a more pragmatic route, and with the rapid expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem, it also gained a lot of dividends. Many third-party applications used it to build specific account systems, and it became an indispensable infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem. And because it's so deeply tied to the Ethereum ecosystem, it may limit it from becoming a more generic protocol, since it feels weird to send and receive assets like Solana, Mina, BTC, and BSC using the ethereum domain ".eth." So in that sense, ".crypto ", ".bit "or customizable top-level domain names are a bit more generous, and their domain names are a bit more generic. In addition, these protocols are exploring more possibilities from wallet integration, interoperability, and ownership models. Thankfully, the track doesn't have as many events as DeFi, nor is it particularly homogeneous. It doesn't really matter if there's one protocol or multiple protocols in the future. Many people believe that in a Web3 world, there will be a need for decentralized domain names and accounts like this to host applications, websites and user identities, but these projects are still in very early stages of exploration. There is much, much room for improvement in protocol integration, user experience, and access to the Web2 world. Some time ago, the Ethereum Foundation, ENS, and digital identity company Spruce launched login.xyz, a website that tracks the progress of sign-in with Ethereum, Sign-in with Ethereum is a set of technical specifications for logging into third-party Web applications through Ethereum accounts, enabling users to control their digital identities through Ethereum accounts and ENS profiles, rather than relying on traditional middlemen. It is already used in Web3 and aims to standardize on best practices to make Web2 services easier to adopt, while decentralized domains such as ENS will not only be used for addresses but will cover all aspects of DApp services in the future. On October 8, ENS announced that it supports setting NFT profile pictures in personal profiles. Users can set any NFT they own as the profile picture of ENS profile, and then DApps can display this profile picture next to the name of ENS. According to the current development momentum of NFT and the increasing popularity of Web3, ENS and others are also likely to become the next hot wave of NFT, and even become the key carrier of users' digital identity in the Era of Web3, which deserves our special attention.