ENS has been in the news these last few days due to developments taking place in the ecosystem. More recently however the platform made headlines when ENS domains got sold for 15 ETH.
ENS domains are just a fraction of ENS. Hence, it is essential to state what ENS stands for and what it does if we discuss ENS. This article will discuss what ENS are and what they do.
What is ENS?
ENS is the short form for Ethereum Name Service, and it is an extensible openly-distributed naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Wallet addresses are stored in a form that mixes numbers and alphabet uniquely identified to the address owner. This form of storing wallet addresses is only readable by machines and is difficult to memorize.
Although this form of address storage makes it difficult to hack into a wallet, it also makes it challenging to retrieve wallets if you misplace them. Therefore, there is a need to store wallet addresses in secure and readable forms for humans. The system built to translate machine languages to human language is Ethereum Name Service.
However, ENS is not unique to Ethereum addresses; they are applicable in content hashes, metadata, and cryptocurrency addresses.
ENS is often stored in forms ending in “.eth,” e.g “Okereke.eth”. However, there are other forms ENS can end with.
That said, ENS and DNS {Domain Name Service} are similar in a few ways but differ in some things too. Like DNS, ENS uses a dot-separated hierarchical system of naming called domains, where the domain owner has complete control of the other domains, subdomains, in that domain. The domain owner can create subdomains and configure them as they wish.
Further, ENS, on the other hand, differs from DNS because of their {ENS} architecture. The ENS architecture differs majorly from the DNS architecture because it is built on Ethereum blockchains and has different constraints and capabilities.
What Does ENS do?
- ENS are important because they allow you to store all your cryptocurrency addresses with one name. So, you can receive different cryptocurrencies with an ENS name.
- ENS is vital for minting NFT if you have a Web3 wallet and some ETH.
- ENS is vital for the readable and easy storage of wallet and crypto addresses.
