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How did the founder of ENS see the story of ENS vision and Web3.0? A few days ago, he was a guest at The Defiant, and chatted with the host about his story and original intention of doing ENS, as well as the future of ENS. Rhythm BlockBeats translates the full text as follows:
Camila Russo (host): Nick is the founder and main developer of Ethereum Domain Name Service (ENS) , but ENS is the domain version of Ethereum. He will also talk about all the specific details in a later interview. ENS allows Ethereum users to link readable domain names to their Ethereum addresses, which makes sending and receiving Crypto easier. However, this is only the starting point for the ENS roadmap and future goals. Basically, any domain name with .eth you see on Crypto Twitter comes from ENS. So, before we start to explore the story and development goals of ENS, I want to know what made you create ENS in the first place?
Nick Johnson: I remember it was in 2016, when I was still working at Google and working as a software engineer. At that time, a well-known financial services company contacted me and said, “Do you want to find a job on Ethereum?” I replied I said, “I don’t want to, but Ethereum sounds interesting.” After that, I wrote some code and then created a few libraries. Then I received a call from the Ethereum Foundation and they asked me, “Would you like to work on Go Ethereum or Swarm?” This sounds even more exciting because I have neither done remote work nor contracted. Work, so it will be a complete challenge for me, but I still chose this job resolutely.
I just started working on Swarm, and one of the projects requires domain name services to provide domain names for decentralized content, such as those you see on Swarm and IPFS . So I started ENS only when I wanted to do a side job, but then it quickly evolved from a small side job to my full-time job at the foundation. Then we separated it again, established our own organization, and created today’s ENS.
CR: Can you tell us about Swarm?
NJ: Swarm is a decentralized content storage similar to IPFS. It is an Ethereum native program, and an incentive system is built on Ethereum. They recently launched a Token delivery mechanism, but even if they put a lot of effort into it, it is far less popular than IPFS.
CR: Was ENS originally funded and guided by the Ethereum Foundation?
NJ: Yes, it was originally an authorized sideline project of mine on the Ethereum Foundation (EF). However, as it continued to grow and develop, I was no longer able to complete all the work by myself, so the foundation suggested that instead of forming a team in the foundation to take charge of the business of ENS, I should set up a team of my own, and they would give it back This gave us a large grant. We used this money to recruit the first batch of people who were willing to work with me. These people did some voluntary or paid work for us when the ENS was still part of the foundation. After that, we developed step by step, and now we have stable registration income.
CR: Is this kind of thing common in foundations? Let an internal project be independent and set up your own company?
NJ: I think they want to encourage this kind of practice, but we have not really happened before, because sometimes it is unrealistic to do so. For example, core infrastructure such as Go Ethereum, if it is independently independent It does not seem to bring any benefits. It is difficult to see how they will benefit from a completely independent organization. But in other cases it makes sense. For us, the initial funding provided by the foundation allows us to gain a foothold and keep everything going smoothly, and we have made significant progress in the first two years. .
ENS has never considered the issue of income. The registration fee is set to reduce the amount of spam and illegal occupation, but it does bring us considerable income, which is a pleasant surprise.
Nick Johnson
CR: Sounds very interesting. I would like to ask how much funding the foundation has given you?
NJ: They gave us one million dollars. This was probably the situation at the time. They asked me to draft an appropriation letter, so I thought about how many employees I needed to hire, how much I should pay them, what else I needed, and so on. In the end, I calculated that the operating expenses for the first year required US$500,000. However, the final decision is still in the hands of Vitalik . He said, “This is far from enough. Give them US$1 million.”
I am really grateful that they can give us so much funding. This money has helped us through the difficult times and allowed us to gain a foothold. Without this funding, we might not have achieved what we are today. They later gave us a special grant, which is equally significant to us.
CR: Does the foundation now own shares in ENS?
NJ: No, the money is purely an appropriation they gave us. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit foundation, so the reason they gave us funding is purely to ensure the normal operation of ENS.
CR: Can you talk about your business model and the income from registration? You mentioned earlier that when you separated ENS, you did not consider the issue of income, but your company does have stable income, so what vision do you have for the future? Do you want to build it into a profitable company? Can you talk about your current actual income?
NJ: I have always wanted to make ENS a public welfare cause, not a profit-making enterprise, or want to profit from it, because I want people to use the domain name system. However, when building a domain name system, the first problem you need to solve is how to ensure that those names that people find interesting or useful will not be immediately taken away by speculators and then resold on the secondary market.
When you are building a neutral system, you have no way to completely eliminate this situation, but what you can do is to set some costs so that the robbed names are not cost-effective and force speculators to pay more attention to them. Think the most valuable thing. Systems like Namecoin have been compromised by speculators to the point that it lacks liquidity-it is difficult to find a favorite domain name on it, because speculators have long used extreme premiums to resell them, and the secondary market It is also very inefficient. Therefore, we want to avoid this situation as much as possible without affecting ordinary users.
In the first version of ENS, there is an auction-based system. If you win the auction, you cannot get your deposit back as long as you hold the domain name. Of course, this approach is not for profit, it is just the cost you should pay for using the domain name, which will have a positive effect in theory.
The problem is that squatters and speculators know that they will sell the name and get the deposit back. But any long-term project investments are by default like they can not get back the deposit, because for them, to give up the domain name is not the reality, the situation is further exacerbated the phenomenon of squatting. Therefore, we decided to adopt an annual registration fee model, and the fee is also nominally charged. For domains with more than 5 characters, the annual registration fee is $5-now the transaction fee on Ethereum is several times higher. Nevertheless, this model does limit speculative behavior to a certain extent, unused domain names will return to the registration pool, and it also provides us with higher revenue than expected.
According to the price of Ethereum today, ENS has assets worth about 40 million U.S. dollars in multi-signatures and DAO soon , of which 20 million is the funds we have already earned. Because, for example, someone registered a two-year domain name a year ago, and now the first year has passed, we have already received half of the money, and the other half of the money will be recognized as revenue in the future. When the DAO goes online in the future, it will also have its own token to reward people for participating in governance or completing some projects that conform to the development ideas of ENS.
CR: So this 40 million is pure registration fee income, and this income is separate from the ENS Token vault?
NJ: Yes, about 10 million of them are USDC , and the rest are currently ETH . But of course, once the DAO takes over, they will take over all management work.
CR: Can you talk about the vision or goal of creating a DAO?
NJ: From day one, our goal is to build a decentralized system, which means we need to get rid of human control to the greatest extent. I firmly believe that this is the most feasible way to build a decentralized system. At the same time, we have to minimize the number of systems that need to be executed by trusted parties. To this end, we have built a system that is managed in an encrypted manner with the help of certificates, and gradually removed some of the permissions that will no longer be used. Therefore, even ENS root key holders who use ENS for management work cannot affect existing registrations because they no longer have this authority. Even if we were eventually taken over by the DAO, they would not be able to do this.
The second thing we have to do is to shift our original management model from 70 holders to a more decentralized model. The future DAO will control the overall development. We have raised sufficient funds so far. We will use enough funds other than our operating expenses to fund other public welfare undertakings and other undertakings in the Ethereum ecosystem. Secondly, we will continue to upgrade and adjust ENS to ensure its normal operation.
When we were founded, DAO was still a new thing, and I don’t think its development is mature enough, so I don’t want to hand over ENS to a DAO that is still in its infancy. But since then, even in the past six months to one year, the ecosystem has matured. Not only has many tools been built, but also rich practical operations, as well as a smart contract system. , Such as the OpenZeppelin component we are using (it is a DAO-based composite model), plus we have successfully removed human manipulation from the management function, we are confident to return control to the community.
CR: For a founder, it is very interesting to have the confidence to entrust the organization he has established over the years to a group of decentralized token holders. You just mentioned that the management no longer has management authority. I think this sounds a bit disturbing because it means that no one can influence the mode of operation of ENS. How will you deal with these risks, and why do you think that decentralization is the right decision?
NJ: Part of the reason is that ENS has been like this since the first day it was created. Since the launch, we have seven key holders, which is certainly not decentralized enough, but it is better than I alone dominate. Moreover, we are not from a group of several people from the same company. Several of us come from the entire Ethereum community, and we are a trustworthy and respectable group.
We hope that if someone (not necessarily me) proposes to upgrade or change ENS, they will look at it critically and evaluate whether this is a good idea. This mechanism can not only prevent someone’s key from being leaked, but also a way of self-management. The committee or board of directors will be responsible for reviewing any proposals and ensuring that they always keep the best interests of the Ethereum community at heart.
Therefore, to some extent, the handover of ENS to DAO is just another step in this direction. I can no longer influence the direction of things, and I have to convince others that this is a good idea. However, as more participants continue to join, we may unavoidably make some serious mistakes. But at the same time, there are currently many DAOs that are developing very well and have achieved success in decentralized governance. In the process of learning from them, we also regained confidence, allowing us to affirm that we have not placed ENS. In danger.
In my opinion, the worst situation we may encounter is the misallocation and misuse of funds, but which are not guaranteed ENS user safety as well as the normal use of the domain name and not be diverted important.
CR: Can you talk about how you designed the ENS Token distribution? Why is it designed like this?
NJ: The design of the Token distribution mechanism is also crucial to achieving our long-term goals. As the first public welfare product to serve the community, our goal is to provide users with the most effective and convenient services. On how to allocate tokens, we mainly look at the number of domain names registered by users or the registration period. However, there is also a problem with this distribution. Some people who want to use the system for personal gain will get a large amount of governance tokens, which is not conducive to the development of the system, and those who have been using the system will not receive much rewards.
Therefore, we want to set up a set of parameters to identify those who have been using the system and distribute the airdrop to those who are actually using the system. Not only that, these parameters have to be difficult to forge.
So we split the airdrop into two halves, half of which are based on the number of days the account has owned a domain name in the past. Therefore, if you own this domain name from day one, then you can get the largest airdrop. But if you registered the day before Snapshot, you won’t get any money. This number of days is difficult to forge. You must start thinking about airdrops four years ago on the day ENS was launched to successfully forge it, so this is a very good allocation plan.
But this model ignores those who have just joined ENS with enthusiasm, so the other half of the airdrop will be allocated based on how long your last name is about to expire. We think this is a good indicator, because if you don’t think ENS can achieve long-term development, you may not register for ten or eight years, at most one or two years. Therefore, if you are willing to register for a long time, it means that you believe in ENS and that this domain name can be valid for a long time. But the registration time can’t be as long as it is up to eight years, because if someone wants to register for several thousand years, then we still have to transfer the entire DAO to him.
The last point is whether you set your domain name as the main DNS domain name. If the domain name appears when you log in to your Apple account or vote, it means that you are really using the domain name. We will double the amount of the other two parts of the airdrop.
CR: Of the total Token supply, how much is allocated to users, and how much is allocated to ENS domain name holders?
NJ: 25% are allocated to domain name holders through airdrops, and 50% are kept in the DAO vault and managed by Token holders.
CR: What is the Token economy of ENS? How is the value of Token accumulated?
NJ: The Token is designed as a governance token. DAO can add additional functions to it, but our main goal is to let those who have helped ENS succeed in participating in governance, and to ensure that they can help manage the entire system. Therefore, its function is that if you obtain the ENS token, you can delegate your voting rights to others, and then this person can vote on how to use the treasury funds to fund other public welfare undertakings and other proposals, and can also vote on the system How should it be modified to vote.
CR: How will the tokens in the vault be distributed in the next step? Is there an inflation mechanism? What is your plan?
NJ: The 5 million Tokens in the vault can be used at any time, while the remaining 45 million has a four-year redemption period to prevent all 50 million Tokens in the vault from being transferred out one day in the future. Token has an inflation rate of 2%, which means that the DAO can start voting in November next year to allocate 2% of the total Token to an address, and this behavior can be carried out once a year.
CR: So you have a built-in annual inflation rate of 2%?
NJ: Yes, and up to 2%, they can also choose to exercise or not.
CR: Then Token holders can decide their specific issuance amount at any time?
NJ: Yes.
CR: Has the airdrop been carried out for a month?
NJ: We announced the airdrop on November 1. The actual airdrop was on November 8, and today is November 24, so about three weeks have passed since we announced it.
CR: During this time, what interesting governance proposals have you received?
NJ: I am really happy to see that things are starting to get on the right track. As we expected, some of the discussions before the “Article Zero” charter was activated basically explained the charter and why ENS DAO can be placed outside the rule system. Although this is just a draft proposal, I am very happy to see that the community has also actively participated in it. We also want to see the proposal to transfer the vault from multi-signature to DAO, and this will be a formal petition proposal for multi-signature key holders.
But there are some things that we didn’t expect. For example, we encountered a subtle problem when calculating the airdrop multiplier. If the account that accepts the airdrop has a main ENS domain name setting, then the account can get the airdrop multiplier, but some people have pointed out that the ENS domain name of some people’s accounts is likely to be the domain name of others. I know that many people do this for security reasons, but these accounts still cannot get the airdrop multiplier, even though they also use ENS.
Therefore, there is currently a very popular proposal under discussion. We plan to use DAO Token worth about US$200,000 to send additional airdrops to these users. Of the 137,000 users who received the airdrop, there are about 2,000 users. Received this additional airdrop.
In the next step, I will think about how to establish a working group and give them a certain budget, so that they don’t need to seek the approval of the entire DAO for 5 ETH funds, because if this is the case, the management of the DAO will be difficult conduct.
CR: This sounds interesting, so what role do you play in it?
NJ: I’m still running True Names, which is a development company that builds most of the infrastructure of ENS. Sometimes, we will also apply to the DAO for a budget to continue operations. Not only that, I also participated in governance to ensure the smooth progress of work, so that people’s proposals can be truly valued, and finally implemented through voting.
CR: Do you think your development company will be the only organization that will build ENS in the future? Or since it has become a DAO, will other development companies compete with your company or ENS?
NJ: I certainly hope that we will not be the only company, but I think that as long as we do well enough, then we can cooperate with other companies instead of competing with each other, which will be more effective. But if we do not do well, then I also hope that others can stand up. And I hope that no matter what, I hope someone can stand up and say, “If you give us part of the budget, then we will be able to accomplish a lot.”
CR: I am very interested in these emerging business models developed from DAO. I know that there are only three weeks from the airdrop to now, but I want to ask you what lessons or initial gains have you learned during the process of increasing the tokens of ENS?
NJ: The content posted on Twitter by our head of operations Brantley has now become an online mystery. He said, “You are not simply airdropped Token, you are airdropped a responsibility.” I thought it was funny, and of course it immediately resonated with people. I jokingly said that the effect of this tweet in helping people understand ENS DAO is greater than all our previous efforts combined.
Many people now choose to entrust others to deal with their Token related matters, so we have established a corresponding claim process to encourage people to entrust. It remains to be seen how the Token delegation will develop in the future, because it depends on what functions the DAO wants to give Token other than governance.
CR: I used to post on Twitter to ask people to ask me questions. One of the questions was, “Will the token need to be pledged?” Is it too early to think about this?
NJ: Yes, I don’t have any ideas on this issue. In my opinion, we should first understand the development goals of ENS and DAO. If pledges are needed to achieve these goals, then we will let people do pledges. One of the more interesting suggestions I saw is that we can change the current voting mechanism so that it can recognize when you hold votes. This can encourage people to keep their ENS to vote. Therefore, if they are long-term users of ENS, rather than those who are only interested in something to vote, then they will have more say.
CR: What is the long-term vision of ENS?
NJ: Our long-term vision is that we want to be the domain name system for all digital resources in the world. We are making improvements on the basis of DNS technology to make it more decentralized and more convenient. So what we want to do is not only the Ethereum domain name service, but also want the domain name to become part of your decentralized identity. For example, we have launched the Sign-In With Ethereum service, which allows you to use your Ethereum on the website. The account serves as a personal identity, and displays your name and personal photo, which is well integrated with ENS.
CR: So you want to provide domain names for all blockchain addresses, not just Ethereum addresses?
NJ: Yes, we have supported more than 100 popular blockchains.
CR: You are working hard to make ENS a digital identity, and hope that it can replace Google or Facebook to log in, so will you log in with your own blockchain address in the future?
NJ: That’s right, and unlike those systems, you can use your own encryption keys to manage your identity without relying on third-party service providers.
CR: What do you think of this kind of user experience improvement? Do you think people will have their own digital archives, which contain all your assets, NFTs, and history of interactions with different DApps ? What will a blockchain user’s profile look like?
NJ: We released some pictures of the redesigned manager not long ago, which contains a lot of content in this respect. It is very much like what you said. It can manage the user’s personal information and update it, but it can’t generate history yet. Record, but this is what we will build in the future.
CR: I think the avatar is the NFT in the user’s wallet , right?
NJ: Yes, but you can also use any image you like, but we are more interested in NFT. We will make it easier to set NFT as an avatar.
CR: Do you think this new user profile will be integrated with Web 2.0 in the future? Can I use ENS to log in to Twitter, and then my profile picture is my avatar? Can such integration go smoothly?
NJ: This is exactly what we hope to see, and it is also the direction that Sign-In With Ethereum is working on. We are building an OAuth gateway, which is basically the same as the authentication provider used by Google, Facebook, and GitHub to log in. This means you only need to deploy any one of them, and then update existing Web 2.0 applications to use this specific gateway. Log in and integrate with all existing protocols that use it.
CR: This sounds very interesting, but will it have any effect? Continuing to use Twitter as an example, maybe it is possible to send encryption tips to other Twitter users?
NJ: Yes, our idea is that you have only one unified profile in all services, so that you only need to set the profile once, and the profile can appear in all services, and people who want to follow you can also See which services you are using. Twitter can choose to automatically provide personal information to their users. Therefore, your existing Twitter login can be used as an ENS file. The domain name is your username plus .twitter.com. You can use it in any other service. , And it will automatically get your Twitter avatar and profile.
CR: I am looking forward to this very much. Once we start using DeFi and Web 3.0, and use MetaMask or Ethereum wallets to log in to different DApps, the Web 2.0 login method will be completely dwarfed. Because in that way, we have to disclose our email and personal information. Not only that, we have to remember the password repeatedly, but if we can log in with Ethereum wallet or blockchain wallet, everything becomes easy. too much.
NJ: That’s natural.
CR: How will ENS integrate with Internet domain names and website names?
NJ: I think this will involve two aspects. One is that with today’s ENS, you can host a website on IPFS or other content storage and link to your ENS domain name. For example, if you are using a browser with MetaMask, then you only need to enter the .eth domain name and add a slash after the ENS domain name, and it will be loaded in your web browser, just like other DNS domain names Same. If you don’t use this kind of browser, or you want to link these words to other places, you can add .link or .lambo to the end of the ENS domain name, and then it will be completed by a gateway service that can be used by people all over the world Parsing.
Conversely, ENS also integrates all DNS namespaces. Therefore, in the twitter.com example I mentioned earlier, Twitter can claim the twitter.com domain name in ENS, so that they can use twitter.com as the ENS name instead of twitter.eth. Therefore, they can use the wallet address to set it up, but more interestingly, they can host a website on it so that they can create subdomains for all users.
Therefore, each user can have their twitter.com address, or any other domain name they want to use. Therefore, we integrate all these existing DNS namespaces into ENS, because we believe that improving the existing domain name services is the starting point for the effective establishment of future systems.
CR: So now, any Web 2.0 domain name owner can set up their .com, .org or any other suffix domain name on ENS and link their existing domain name to the blockchain account?
NJ: Yes, most of them are like this. However, some top-level domain names, especially those with country codes, cannot be set yet, but the remaining 97% to 98% of the domain names can be set and linked freely.
CR: So I can use TheDefiant.io and search for it in ENS and link it to my account? I think I already have an email address for TheDefiant.eth.
NJ: Yes, then you can already do anything.
CR: That’s great, so what can I do with it after I link it to my account?
NJ: Basically, everything that can be done with a native .eth domain name is basically fine. You can link them to IPFS content or personal wallets, you can also use contracts to issue subdomains, so you can distribute subdomains to users, or you can manually distribute domains for yourself for other purposes.
If you want to distribute the subdomain name of TheDefiant.eth to people, then people can keep the domain name forever and gain a certain sense of security. However, the DNS domain name cannot guarantee this, because its ownership depends on the external DNS registrar and the actual owner of the DNS domain name. However, when using other applications of ENS, you can also create a personal profile on TheDefiant.io. In this way, the file will be displayed when you log in.
CR: So, if I can provide all The Defiant users with their specific ENS URL name, then that name will exist as a profile on TheDefiant.io?
NJ: Yes, that’s right.
CR: Can they keep this domain name permanently? It is also said that the functions and attributes of different profile pages are different. For example, paying users will get special domain names to allow them to access paid content, while the website can recognize these names and give them access rights?
NJ: Yes, of course.
CR: A tweet posted by Brantley Milligan, ENS Operations Director, has attracted the attention of many people. He said: “I hope everyone understands that most of these encrypted domain name suffixes do not recognize the global namespace, and in the future it will be in DNS and ENS is available for different people to use. .ETH has already been taken, so it can’t be used by people, but its domain names such as .sol and .crypto can be used by everyone.” Can you explain this tweet?
NJ: So, when we think of domain names with suffixes, we mainly consider the existing DNS namespaces-.com, .net, .org, but more than a thousand new top-level domain names have also appeared. These are all issued and managed by ICANN (Internet Agency for Assigned Domain Names and Numbers). These domain names today exist because the agency held an auction a few years ago, at which bidders could bid to register a new top-level domain name, and the agency would then issue these domain names to the successful bidder. And it is almost certain that they will hold another auction like this in the next few years.
These domain names are recognized in every browser and application in the United States. Therefore, other blockchain domain name systems are also launching dozens of different top-level domain names, and sometimes there are many top-level domain names in one system. This leads to a problem, that is, the source of the link between two identical domains is not the same. Crypto is very popular nowadays, and the .crypto domain name will also be very popular in auctions. Therefore, among the many decentralized domain name systems, it is not yet known who will eventually get the domain name.
The .eth suffix is not so lucky, because the three letters ETH is still the country code of Ethiopia, but we do not intend to give up this domain name. We are still working hard to maintain cooperation with the online community and assure them: “We need our own namespace, but we will not harm the global namespace. On the contrary, we are integrating with it to provide people with more Function, and I think we have done a good job in this regard.
CR: Okay, but this is a bit confusing. So, although you can integrate all existing Web 2.0 domain names on ENS, link them with your address, and link regular DNS domain names with blockchain addresses, the existing Web 3.0 domain names, such as .sol And .crypto, can this be done? Although they exist on Web 3.0, can they appear on Web 2.0? Will there be another auction? And what’s not certain is, if you own the .crypto domain name on ENS, do you really own it?
NJ: So ENS is committed to issuing only .eth domain names. Therefore, if I can issue a .crypto domain name to someone, then this will become a top-level domain name within ENS, and it will be managed by this person instead of claimed to own it. Blockchain naming system for crypto domain names.
CR: Okay, so what does this mean for the owners of .crypto today?
NJ: What I mean is that in the future, there will be two competing servers. Both claim to have the same domain name, but their domain names actually belong to different servers, which will cause people a lot of trouble. . For example, people may think that they are using the same system as .crypto, but in fact it is another system, then they are likely to suffer losses due to this. Although this situation is dangerous, it is also inevitable, because ICANN cannot prohibit people from using their own domain names. Therefore, certain domain names must have more than one owner, one in the DNS and one in their own proprietary domain name system.
CR: So what do you plan to do with the coincidence of .eth?
NJ: It is indeed a coincidence, because eth is still a country code, and the country codes currently used in many countries have only two letters, such as .uk, .ch, .nz, etc., so although this country code has been retained, Impossible to be released. We hope to cooperate with Ethiopia and reach an agreement on how to deal with .eth.
CR: This is really interesting.
NJ: Yes, that’s right. I think that for any naming system, these collisions should be minimized. And I think we cannot issue top-level domain names with buzzwords, because this will inevitably lead to conflicts among Internet giants.
CR: You mentioned in the conversation that the gas fee for Ethereum is many times the actual registration fee for ENS. How do you plan to solve this situation? Will you consider using Layer 2?
NJ: Yes, we do have plans in this regard. We discussed in some meetings and listened to Vitalik’s suggestions and extended it on the basis of it. Our basic idea is that we want people to independently choose the Layer 2 protocol they want to host, instead of having to use ENS’s Layer 2 protocol uniformly. It can be a second-level domain name such as TheDefiant.eth , or it can be Optimism , Arbitrum, or any network you think is suitable.
In the long run, we will study how to transfer the registration of new second-level domain names such as .eth to L2. But in the short term, we will focus on how to let L2 participate in management and create subdomains. We expect that many users will obtain subdomains provided by wallet providers or third parties through L2 instead of registering their own second-level domains.
CR: So what will be the next step for ENS? What kind of products are being developed in the near future? What kind of products do you expect to be launched in the near future?
NJ: We hope to launch the L2 project just mentioned in the near future, at least for private deployment, and then may be launched on Optimism first. We have made great improvements to the manager to effectively improve the user experience and provide some new features. At the same time, we have also improved a large set of smart contracts, which will make it easier for Name Wrapper to publish subdomains under limited licenses. We have also made improvements to some core contracts, increased their usability, and reduced gas fees. These improvements have effectively improved the user experience of registering and managing domain names with ENS.
CR: When do you think Web 3.0 login will become popular?
NJ: I think there will be initial signs in the next two or three months, because Sign-In With Ethereum is rapidly developing and mature, and many websites will start to use this program. I also heard that some large Web 2.0 companies will also begin to adopt and deploy it, and bring us more relevant talents. Just like ENS and anything else, the adoption and acceptance of Web 3.0 login by everyone will never be completed overnight, but we have already made a good start, and I hope it can produce a certain snowball effect, thereby Achieve more efficient and rapid development.
CR: This reminds me of a tweet from the chief operating officer of Discord. In the tweet, he hinted that people can log in with Ethereum in the future, but this has also met with resistance. I would love to hear your opinion on this matter.
NJ: I think the emergence of Sign-In With Ethereum is really exciting, so I am very disappointed with the resistance of some people. I found that some people are already happy to hate Crypto. They are indiscriminate and have a hatred attitude towards all the development of Crypto. It is true that the Crypto community and Crypto itself still have many problems to be solved, but it also brings us a lot of convenience, so I really don’t want people to fall into an endless loop-if they don’t like something, they think it’s Everything is sinful and meaningless.
CR: I also agree with you. This is really disappointing. I hope that more people can regard Ethereum login as an empowering tool to manage our digital identities. I have another question. What is the most misunderstood or underestimated thing in ENS?
NJ: I think the most misunderstood thing about ENS is that people think that the domain name of ENS is only .eth, but in fact ENS also has DNS domain names. Also, people think that ENS can only be used to provide domain names for wallets, but in fact you can use it for IPFS content, or it can be used for data information, user discovery, digital identity, and so on.
CR: This conversation is very exciting. You make us look forward to the future of Web 3.0 and ENS, and hope that more people are willing to learn about ENS.
NJ: It is my honor, thank you.
How did the founder of ENS see the story of ENS vision and Web3.0? A few days ago, he was a guest at The Defiant, and chatted with the host about his story and original intention of doing ENS, as well as the future of ENS. Rhythm BlockBeats translates the full text as follows:
Camila Russo (host): Nick is the founder and main developer of Ethereum Domain Name Service (ENS) , but ENS is the domain version of Ethereum. He will also talk about all the specific details in a later interview. ENS allows Ethereum users to link readable domain names to their Ethereum addresses, which makes sending and receiving Crypto easier. However, this is only the starting point for the ENS roadmap and future goals. Basically, any domain name with .eth you see on Crypto Twitter comes from ENS. So, before we start to explore the story and development goals of ENS, I want to know what made you create ENS in the first place?
Nick Johnson: I remember it was in 2016, when I was still working at Google and working as a software engineer. At that time, a well-known financial services company contacted me and said, “Do you want to find a job on Ethereum?” I replied I said, “I don’t want to, but Ethereum sounds interesting.” After that, I wrote some code and then created a few libraries. Then I received a call from the Ethereum Foundation and they asked me, “Would you like to work on Go Ethereum or Swarm?” This sounds even more exciting because I have neither done remote work nor contracted. Work, so it will be a complete challenge for me, but I still chose this job resolutely.
I just started working on Swarm, and one of the projects requires domain name services to provide domain names for decentralized content, such as those you see on Swarm and IPFS . So I started ENS only when I wanted to do a side job, but then it quickly evolved from a small side job to my full-time job at the foundation. Then we separated it again, established our own organization, and created today’s ENS.
CR: Can you tell us about Swarm?
NJ: Swarm is a decentralized content storage similar to IPFS. It is an Ethereum native program, and an incentive system is built on Ethereum. They recently launched a Token delivery mechanism, but even if they put a lot of effort into it, it is far less popular than IPFS.
CR: Was ENS originally funded and guided by the Ethereum Foundation?
NJ: Yes, it was originally an authorized sideline project of mine on the Ethereum Foundation (EF). However, as it continued to grow and develop, I was no longer able to complete all the work by myself, so the foundation suggested that instead of forming a team in the foundation to take charge of the business of ENS, I should set up a team of my own, and they would give it back This gave us a large grant. We used this money to recruit the first batch of people who were willing to work with me. These people did some voluntary or paid work for us when the ENS was still part of the foundation. After that, we developed step by step, and now we have stable registration income.
CR: Is this kind of thing common in foundations? Let an internal project be independent and set up your own company?
NJ: I think they want to encourage this kind of practice, but we have not really happened before, because sometimes it is unrealistic to do so. For example, core infrastructure such as Go Ethereum, if it is independently independent It does not seem to bring any benefits. It is difficult to see how they will benefit from a completely independent organization. But in other cases it makes sense. For us, the initial funding provided by the foundation allows us to gain a foothold and keep everything going smoothly, and we have made significant progress in the first two years. .
ENS has never considered the issue of income. The registration fee is set to reduce the amount of spam and illegal occupation, but it does bring us considerable income, which is a pleasant surprise.
Nick Johnson
CR: Sounds very interesting. I would like to ask how much funding the foundation has given you?
NJ: They gave us one million dollars. This was probably the situation at the time. They asked me to draft an appropriation letter, so I thought about how many employees I needed to hire, how much I should pay them, what else I needed, and so on. In the end, I calculated that the operating expenses for the first year required US$500,000. However, the final decision is still in the hands of Vitalik . He said, “This is far from enough. Give them US$1 million.”
I am really grateful that they can give us so much funding. This money has helped us through the difficult times and allowed us to gain a foothold. Without this funding, we might not have achieved what we are today. They later gave us a special grant, which is equally significant to us.
CR: Does the foundation now own shares in ENS?
NJ: No, the money is purely an appropriation they gave us. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit foundation, so the reason they gave us funding is purely to ensure the normal operation of ENS.
CR: Can you talk about your business model and the income from registration? You mentioned earlier that when you separated ENS, you did not consider the issue of income, but your company does have stable income, so what vision do you have for the future? Do you want to build it into a profitable company? Can you talk about your current actual income?
NJ: I have always wanted to make ENS a public welfare cause, not a profit-making enterprise, or want to profit from it, because I want people to use the domain name system. However, when building a domain name system, the first problem you need to solve is how to ensure that those names that people find interesting or useful will not be immediately taken away by speculators and then resold on the secondary market.
When you are building a neutral system, you have no way to completely eliminate this situation, but what you can do is to set some costs so that the robbed names are not cost-effective and force speculators to pay more attention to them. Think the most valuable thing. Systems like Namecoin have been compromised by speculators to the point that it lacks liquidity-it is difficult to find a favorite domain name on it, because speculators have long used extreme premiums to resell them, and the secondary market It is also very inefficient. Therefore, we want to avoid this situation as much as possible without affecting ordinary users.
In the first version of ENS, there is an auction-based system. If you win the auction, you cannot get your deposit back as long as you hold the domain name. Of course, this approach is not for profit, it is just the cost you should pay for using the domain name, which will have a positive effect in theory.
The problem is that squatters and speculators know that they will sell the name and get the deposit back. But any long-term project investments are by default like they can not get back the deposit, because for them, to give up the domain name is not the reality, the situation is further exacerbated the phenomenon of squatting. Therefore, we decided to adopt an annual registration fee model, and the fee is also nominally charged. For domains with more than 5 characters, the annual registration fee is $5-now the transaction fee on Ethereum is several times higher. Nevertheless, this model does limit speculative behavior to a certain extent, unused domain names will return to the registration pool, and it also provides us with higher revenue than expected.
According to the price of Ethereum today, ENS has assets worth about 40 million U.S. dollars in multi-signatures and DAO soon , of which 20 million is the funds we have already earned. Because, for example, someone registered a two-year domain name a year ago, and now the first year has passed, we have already received half of the money, and the other half of the money will be recognized as revenue in the future. When the DAO goes online in the future, it will also have its own token to reward people for participating in governance or completing some projects that conform to the development ideas of ENS.
CR: So this 40 million is pure registration fee income, and this income is separate from the ENS Token vault?
NJ: Yes, about 10 million of them are USDC , and the rest are currently ETH . But of course, once the DAO takes over, they will take over all management work.
CR: Can you talk about the vision or goal of creating a DAO?
NJ: From day one, our goal is to build a decentralized system, which means we need to get rid of human control to the greatest extent. I firmly believe that this is the most feasible way to build a decentralized system. At the same time, we have to minimize the number of systems that need to be executed by trusted parties. To this end, we have built a system that is managed in an encrypted manner with the help of certificates, and gradually removed some of the permissions that will no longer be used. Therefore, even ENS root key holders who use ENS for management work cannot affect existing registrations because they no longer have this authority. Even if we were eventually taken over by the DAO, they would not be able to do this.
The second thing we have to do is to shift our original management model from 70 holders to a more decentralized model. The future DAO will control the overall development. We have raised sufficient funds so far. We will use enough funds other than our operating expenses to fund other public welfare undertakings and other undertakings in the Ethereum ecosystem. Secondly, we will continue to upgrade and adjust ENS to ensure its normal operation.
When we were founded, DAO was still a new thing, and I don’t think its development is mature enough, so I don’t want to hand over ENS to a DAO that is still in its infancy. But since then, even in the past six months to one year, the ecosystem has matured. Not only has many tools been built, but also rich practical operations, as well as a smart contract system. , Such as the OpenZeppelin component we are using (it is a DAO-based composite model), plus we have successfully removed human manipulation from the management function, we are confident to return control to the community.
CR: For a founder, it is very interesting to have the confidence to entrust the organization he has established over the years to a group of decentralized token holders. You just mentioned that the management no longer has management authority. I think this sounds a bit disturbing because it means that no one can influence the mode of operation of ENS. How will you deal with these risks, and why do you think that decentralization is the right decision?
NJ: Part of the reason is that ENS has been like this since the first day it was created. Since the launch, we have seven key holders, which is certainly not decentralized enough, but it is better than I alone dominate. Moreover, we are not from a group of several people from the same company. Several of us come from the entire Ethereum community, and we are a trustworthy and respectable group.
We hope that if someone (not necessarily me) proposes to upgrade or change ENS, they will look at it critically and evaluate whether this is a good idea. This mechanism can not only prevent someone’s key from being leaked, but also a way of self-management. The committee or board of directors will be responsible for reviewing any proposals and ensuring that they always keep the best interests of the Ethereum community at heart.
Therefore, to some extent, the handover of ENS to DAO is just another step in this direction. I can no longer influence the direction of things, and I have to convince others that this is a good idea. However, as more participants continue to join, we may unavoidably make some serious mistakes. But at the same time, there are currently many DAOs that are developing very well and have achieved success in decentralized governance. In the process of learning from them, we also regained confidence, allowing us to affirm that we have not placed ENS. In danger.
In my opinion, the worst situation we may encounter is the misallocation and misuse of funds, but which are not guaranteed ENS user safety as well as the normal use of the domain name and not be diverted important.
CR: Can you talk about how you designed the ENS Token distribution? Why is it designed like this?
NJ: The design of the Token distribution mechanism is also crucial to achieving our long-term goals. As the first public welfare product to serve the community, our goal is to provide users with the most effective and convenient services. On how to allocate tokens, we mainly look at the number of domain names registered by users or the registration period. However, there is also a problem with this distribution. Some people who want to use the system for personal gain will get a large amount of governance tokens, which is not conducive to the development of the system, and those who have been using the system will not receive much rewards.
Therefore, we want to set up a set of parameters to identify those who have been using the system and distribute the airdrop to those who are actually using the system. Not only that, these parameters have to be difficult to forge.
So we split the airdrop into two halves, half of which are based on the number of days the account has owned a domain name in the past. Therefore, if you own this domain name from day one, then you can get the largest airdrop. But if you registered the day before Snapshot, you won’t get any money. This number of days is difficult to forge. You must start thinking about airdrops four years ago on the day ENS was launched to successfully forge it, so this is a very good allocation plan.
But this model ignores those who have just joined ENS with enthusiasm, so the other half of the airdrop will be allocated based on how long your last name is about to expire. We think this is a good indicator, because if you don’t think ENS can achieve long-term development, you may not register for ten or eight years, at most one or two years. Therefore, if you are willing to register for a long time, it means that you believe in ENS and that this domain name can be valid for a long time. But the registration time can’t be as long as it is up to eight years, because if someone wants to register for several thousand years, then we still have to transfer the entire DAO to him.
The last point is whether you set your domain name as the main DNS domain name. If the domain name appears when you log in to your Apple account or vote, it means that you are really using the domain name. We will double the amount of the other two parts of the airdrop.
CR: Of the total Token supply, how much is allocated to users, and how much is allocated to ENS domain name holders?
NJ: 25% are allocated to domain name holders through airdrops, and 50% are kept in the DAO vault and managed by Token holders.
CR: What is the Token economy of ENS? How is the value of Token accumulated?
NJ: The Token is designed as a governance token. DAO can add additional functions to it, but our main goal is to let those who have helped ENS succeed in participating in governance, and to ensure that they can help manage the entire system. Therefore, its function is that if you obtain the ENS token, you can delegate your voting rights to others, and then this person can vote on how to use the treasury funds to fund other public welfare undertakings and other proposals, and can also vote on the system How should it be modified to vote.
CR: How will the tokens in the vault be distributed in the next step? Is there an inflation mechanism? What is your plan?
NJ: The 5 million Tokens in the vault can be used at any time, while the remaining 45 million has a four-year redemption period to prevent all 50 million Tokens in the vault from being transferred out one day in the future. Token has an inflation rate of 2%, which means that the DAO can start voting in November next year to allocate 2% of the total Token to an address, and this behavior can be carried out once a year.
CR: So you have a built-in annual inflation rate of 2%?
NJ: Yes, and up to 2%, they can also choose to exercise or not.
CR: Then Token holders can decide their specific issuance amount at any time?
NJ: Yes.
CR: Has the airdrop been carried out for a month?
NJ: We announced the airdrop on November 1. The actual airdrop was on November 8, and today is November 24, so about three weeks have passed since we announced it.
CR: During this time, what interesting governance proposals have you received?
NJ: I am really happy to see that things are starting to get on the right track. As we expected, some of the discussions before the “Article Zero” charter was activated basically explained the charter and why ENS DAO can be placed outside the rule system. Although this is just a draft proposal, I am very happy to see that the community has also actively participated in it. We also want to see the proposal to transfer the vault from multi-signature to DAO, and this will be a formal petition proposal for multi-signature key holders.
But there are some things that we didn’t expect. For example, we encountered a subtle problem when calculating the airdrop multiplier. If the account that accepts the airdrop has a main ENS domain name setting, then the account can get the airdrop multiplier, but some people have pointed out that the ENS domain name of some people’s accounts is likely to be the domain name of others. I know that many people do this for security reasons, but these accounts still cannot get the airdrop multiplier, even though they also use ENS.
Therefore, there is currently a very popular proposal under discussion. We plan to use DAO Token worth about US$200,000 to send additional airdrops to these users. Of the 137,000 users who received the airdrop, there are about 2,000 users. Received this additional airdrop.
In the next step, I will think about how to establish a working group and give them a certain budget, so that they don’t need to seek the approval of the entire DAO for 5 ETH funds, because if this is the case, the management of the DAO will be difficult conduct.
CR: This sounds interesting, so what role do you play in it?
NJ: I’m still running True Names, which is a development company that builds most of the infrastructure of ENS. Sometimes, we will also apply to the DAO for a budget to continue operations. Not only that, I also participated in governance to ensure the smooth progress of work, so that people’s proposals can be truly valued, and finally implemented through voting.
CR: Do you think your development company will be the only organization that will build ENS in the future? Or since it has become a DAO, will other development companies compete with your company or ENS?
NJ: I certainly hope that we will not be the only company, but I think that as long as we do well enough, then we can cooperate with other companies instead of competing with each other, which will be more effective. But if we do not do well, then I also hope that others can stand up. And I hope that no matter what, I hope someone can stand up and say, “If you give us part of the budget, then we will be able to accomplish a lot.”
CR: I am very interested in these emerging business models developed from DAO. I know that there are only three weeks from the airdrop to now, but I want to ask you what lessons or initial gains have you learned during the process of increasing the tokens of ENS?
NJ: The content posted on Twitter by our head of operations Brantley has now become an online mystery. He said, “You are not simply airdropped Token, you are airdropped a responsibility.” I thought it was funny, and of course it immediately resonated with people. I jokingly said that the effect of this tweet in helping people understand ENS DAO is greater than all our previous efforts combined.
Many people now choose to entrust others to deal with their Token related matters, so we have established a corresponding claim process to encourage people to entrust. It remains to be seen how the Token delegation will develop in the future, because it depends on what functions the DAO wants to give Token other than governance.
CR: I used to post on Twitter to ask people to ask me questions. One of the questions was, “Will the token need to be pledged?” Is it too early to think about this?
NJ: Yes, I don’t have any ideas on this issue. In my opinion, we should first understand the development goals of ENS and DAO. If pledges are needed to achieve these goals, then we will let people do pledges. One of the more interesting suggestions I saw is that we can change the current voting mechanism so that it can recognize when you hold votes. This can encourage people to keep their ENS to vote. Therefore, if they are long-term users of ENS, rather than those who are only interested in something to vote, then they will have more say.
CR: What is the long-term vision of ENS?
NJ: Our long-term vision is that we want to be the domain name system for all digital resources in the world. We are making improvements on the basis of DNS technology to make it more decentralized and more convenient. So what we want to do is not only the Ethereum domain name service, but also want the domain name to become part of your decentralized identity. For example, we have launched the Sign-In With Ethereum service, which allows you to use your Ethereum on the website. The account serves as a personal identity, and displays your name and personal photo, which is well integrated with ENS.
CR: So you want to provide domain names for all blockchain addresses, not just Ethereum addresses?
NJ: Yes, we have supported more than 100 popular blockchains.
CR: You are working hard to make ENS a digital identity, and hope that it can replace Google or Facebook to log in, so will you log in with your own blockchain address in the future?
NJ: That’s right, and unlike those systems, you can use your own encryption keys to manage your identity without relying on third-party service providers.
CR: What do you think of this kind of user experience improvement? Do you think people will have their own digital archives, which contain all your assets, NFTs, and history of interactions with different DApps ? What will a blockchain user’s profile look like?
NJ: We released some pictures of the redesigned manager not long ago, which contains a lot of content in this respect. It is very much like what you said. It can manage the user’s personal information and update it, but it can’t generate history yet. Record, but this is what we will build in the future.
CR: I think the avatar is the NFT in the user’s wallet , right?
NJ: Yes, but you can also use any image you like, but we are more interested in NFT. We will make it easier to set NFT as an avatar.
CR: Do you think this new user profile will be integrated with Web 2.0 in the future? Can I use ENS to log in to Twitter, and then my profile picture is my avatar? Can such integration go smoothly?
NJ: This is exactly what we hope to see, and it is also the direction that Sign-In With Ethereum is working on. We are building an OAuth gateway, which is basically the same as the authentication provider used by Google, Facebook, and GitHub to log in. This means you only need to deploy any one of them, and then update existing Web 2.0 applications to use this specific gateway. Log in and integrate with all existing protocols that use it.
CR: This sounds very interesting, but will it have any effect? Continuing to use Twitter as an example, maybe it is possible to send encryption tips to other Twitter users?
NJ: Yes, our idea is that you have only one unified profile in all services, so that you only need to set the profile once, and the profile can appear in all services, and people who want to follow you can also See which services you are using. Twitter can choose to automatically provide personal information to their users. Therefore, your existing Twitter login can be used as an ENS file. The domain name is your username plus .twitter.com. You can use it in any other service. , And it will automatically get your Twitter avatar and profile.
CR: I am looking forward to this very much. Once we start using DeFi and Web 3.0, and use MetaMask or Ethereum wallets to log in to different DApps, the Web 2.0 login method will be completely dwarfed. Because in that way, we have to disclose our email and personal information. Not only that, we have to remember the password repeatedly, but if we can log in with Ethereum wallet or blockchain wallet, everything becomes easy. too much.
NJ: That’s natural.
CR: How will ENS integrate with Internet domain names and website names?
NJ: I think this will involve two aspects. One is that with today’s ENS, you can host a website on IPFS or other content storage and link to your ENS domain name. For example, if you are using a browser with MetaMask, then you only need to enter the .eth domain name and add a slash after the ENS domain name, and it will be loaded in your web browser, just like other DNS domain names Same. If you don’t use this kind of browser, or you want to link these words to other places, you can add .link or .lambo to the end of the ENS domain name, and then it will be completed by a gateway service that can be used by people all over the world Parsing.
Conversely, ENS also integrates all DNS namespaces. Therefore, in the twitter.com example I mentioned earlier, Twitter can claim the twitter.com domain name in ENS, so that they can use twitter.com as the ENS name instead of twitter.eth. Therefore, they can use the wallet address to set it up, but more interestingly, they can host a website on it so that they can create subdomains for all users.
Therefore, each user can have their twitter.com address, or any other domain name they want to use. Therefore, we integrate all these existing DNS namespaces into ENS, because we believe that improving the existing domain name services is the starting point for the effective establishment of future systems.
CR: So now, any Web 2.0 domain name owner can set up their .com, .org or any other suffix domain name on ENS and link their existing domain name to the blockchain account?
NJ: Yes, most of them are like this. However, some top-level domain names, especially those with country codes, cannot be set yet, but the remaining 97% to 98% of the domain names can be set and linked freely.
CR: So I can use TheDefiant.io and search for it in ENS and link it to my account? I think I already have an email address for TheDefiant.eth.
NJ: Yes, then you can already do anything.
CR: That’s great, so what can I do with it after I link it to my account?
NJ: Basically, everything that can be done with a native .eth domain name is basically fine. You can link them to IPFS content or personal wallets, you can also use contracts to issue subdomains, so you can distribute subdomains to users, or you can manually distribute domains for yourself for other purposes.
If you want to distribute the subdomain name of TheDefiant.eth to people, then people can keep the domain name forever and gain a certain sense of security. However, the DNS domain name cannot guarantee this, because its ownership depends on the external DNS registrar and the actual owner of the DNS domain name. However, when using other applications of ENS, you can also create a personal profile on TheDefiant.io. In this way, the file will be displayed when you log in.
CR: So, if I can provide all The Defiant users with their specific ENS URL name, then that name will exist as a profile on TheDefiant.io?
NJ: Yes, that’s right.
CR: Can they keep this domain name permanently? It is also said that the functions and attributes of different profile pages are different. For example, paying users will get special domain names to allow them to access paid content, while the website can recognize these names and give them access rights?
NJ: Yes, of course.
CR: A tweet posted by Brantley Milligan, ENS Operations Director, has attracted the attention of many people. He said: “I hope everyone understands that most of these encrypted domain name suffixes do not recognize the global namespace, and in the future it will be in DNS and ENS is available for different people to use. .ETH has already been taken, so it can’t be used by people, but its domain names such as .sol and .crypto can be used by everyone.” Can you explain this tweet?
NJ: So, when we think of domain names with suffixes, we mainly consider the existing DNS namespaces-.com, .net, .org, but more than a thousand new top-level domain names have also appeared. These are all issued and managed by ICANN (Internet Agency for Assigned Domain Names and Numbers). These domain names today exist because the agency held an auction a few years ago, at which bidders could bid to register a new top-level domain name, and the agency would then issue these domain names to the successful bidder. And it is almost certain that they will hold another auction like this in the next few years.
These domain names are recognized in every browser and application in the United States. Therefore, other blockchain domain name systems are also launching dozens of different top-level domain names, and sometimes there are many top-level domain names in one system. This leads to a problem, that is, the source of the link between two identical domains is not the same. Crypto is very popular nowadays, and the .crypto domain name will also be very popular in auctions. Therefore, among the many decentralized domain name systems, it is not yet known who will eventually get the domain name.
The .eth suffix is not so lucky, because the three letters ETH is still the country code of Ethiopia, but we do not intend to give up this domain name. We are still working hard to maintain cooperation with the online community and assure them: “We need our own namespace, but we will not harm the global namespace. On the contrary, we are integrating with it to provide people with more Function, and I think we have done a good job in this regard.
CR: Okay, but this is a bit confusing. So, although you can integrate all existing Web 2.0 domain names on ENS, link them with your address, and link regular DNS domain names with blockchain addresses, the existing Web 3.0 domain names, such as .sol And .crypto, can this be done? Although they exist on Web 3.0, can they appear on Web 2.0? Will there be another auction? And what’s not certain is, if you own the .crypto domain name on ENS, do you really own it?
NJ: So ENS is committed to issuing only .eth domain names. Therefore, if I can issue a .crypto domain name to someone, then this will become a top-level domain name within ENS, and it will be managed by this person instead of claimed to own it. Blockchain naming system for crypto domain names.
CR: Okay, so what does this mean for the owners of .crypto today?
NJ: What I mean is that in the future, there will be two competing servers. Both claim to have the same domain name, but their domain names actually belong to different servers, which will cause people a lot of trouble. . For example, people may think that they are using the same system as .crypto, but in fact it is another system, then they are likely to suffer losses due to this. Although this situation is dangerous, it is also inevitable, because ICANN cannot prohibit people from using their own domain names. Therefore, certain domain names must have more than one owner, one in the DNS and one in their own proprietary domain name system.
CR: So what do you plan to do with the coincidence of .eth?
NJ: It is indeed a coincidence, because eth is still a country code, and the country codes currently used in many countries have only two letters, such as .uk, .ch, .nz, etc., so although this country code has been retained, Impossible to be released. We hope to cooperate with Ethiopia and reach an agreement on how to deal with .eth.
CR: This is really interesting.
NJ: Yes, that’s right. I think that for any naming system, these collisions should be minimized. And I think we cannot issue top-level domain names with buzzwords, because this will inevitably lead to conflicts among Internet giants.
CR: You mentioned in the conversation that the gas fee for Ethereum is many times the actual registration fee for ENS. How do you plan to solve this situation? Will you consider using Layer 2?
NJ: Yes, we do have plans in this regard. We discussed in some meetings and listened to Vitalik’s suggestions and extended it on the basis of it. Our basic idea is that we want people to independently choose the Layer 2 protocol they want to host, instead of having to use ENS’s Layer 2 protocol uniformly. It can be a second-level domain name such as TheDefiant.eth , or it can be Optimism , Arbitrum, or any network you think is suitable.
In the long run, we will study how to transfer the registration of new second-level domain names such as .eth to L2. But in the short term, we will focus on how to let L2 participate in management and create subdomains. We expect that many users will obtain subdomains provided by wallet providers or third parties through L2 instead of registering their own second-level domains.
CR: So what will be the next step for ENS? What kind of products are being developed in the near future? What kind of products do you expect to be launched in the near future?
NJ: We hope to launch the L2 project just mentioned in the near future, at least for private deployment, and then may be launched on Optimism first. We have made great improvements to the manager to effectively improve the user experience and provide some new features. At the same time, we have also improved a large set of smart contracts, which will make it easier for Name Wrapper to publish subdomains under limited licenses. We have also made improvements to some core contracts, increased their usability, and reduced gas fees. These improvements have effectively improved the user experience of registering and managing domain names with ENS.
CR: When do you think Web 3.0 login will become popular?
NJ: I think there will be initial signs in the next two or three months, because Sign-In With Ethereum is rapidly developing and mature, and many websites will start to use this program. I also heard that some large Web 2.0 companies will also begin to adopt and deploy it, and bring us more relevant talents. Just like ENS and anything else, the adoption and acceptance of Web 3.0 login by everyone will never be completed overnight, but we have already made a good start, and I hope it can produce a certain snowball effect, thereby Achieve more efficient and rapid development.
CR: This reminds me of a tweet from the chief operating officer of Discord. In the tweet, he hinted that people can log in with Ethereum in the future, but this has also met with resistance. I would love to hear your opinion on this matter.
NJ: I think the emergence of Sign-In With Ethereum is really exciting, so I am very disappointed with the resistance of some people. I found that some people are already happy to hate Crypto. They are indiscriminate and have a hatred attitude towards all the development of Crypto. It is true that the Crypto community and Crypto itself still have many problems to be solved, but it also brings us a lot of convenience, so I really don’t want people to fall into an endless loop-if they don’t like something, they think it’s Everything is sinful and meaningless.
CR: I also agree with you. This is really disappointing. I hope that more people can regard Ethereum login as an empowering tool to manage our digital identities. I have another question. What is the most misunderstood or underestimated thing in ENS?
NJ: I think the most misunderstood thing about ENS is that people think that the domain name of ENS is only .eth, but in fact ENS also has DNS domain names. Also, people think that ENS can only be used to provide domain names for wallets, but in fact you can use it for IPFS content, or it can be used for data information, user discovery, digital identity, and so on.
CR: This conversation is very exciting. You make us look forward to the future of Web 3.0 and ENS, and hope that more people are willing to learn about ENS.
NJ: It is my honor, thank you.
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