ENS, Ethereum's most widely used naming protocol, has chosen the Taiko stack as the foundation for Namechain, its dedicated ZK rollup for decentralized naming services.

Namechain will deploy as a based rollup using Surge, Nethermind's framework built on Taiko's technology. One of Ethereum's most critical infrastructure protocols is launching with the architecture Taiko pioneered and brought to production.

When ENS (responsible for human-readable addresses across the entire Ethereum ecosystem) commits to a based architecture from launch, it validates everything Taiko has been building. Based rollups are production-ready, and they're the future of Ethereum-aligned scaling.

Taiko's technology made it possible for ENS to skip progressive decentralization entirely and launch Namechain as a fully based rollup.

Taiko didn't just theorize about based sequencing. We shipped it. Since mainnet launch in May 2024:

• 50M+ transactions processed with zero downtime

• Sub-second preconfirmations in production, not whitepapers

• Ethereum validators sequencing L2 blocks efficiently and reliably

• Performance without centralization at scale

As ENS Labs wrote in their decision to move Namechain to Surge: "We were presented with the rare opportunity to skip several steps in the 'progressive decentralization' pathway." By realizing they could build based rollups using Surge and launch with maximal decentralization from day one, ENS chose not just infrastructure in production, but the infrastructure aligned with their core mission.

Building on Taiko's technology through Nethermind's Surge, Namechain inherits:

Infrastructure

• Ethereum-native sequencing with no centralized operators

• Stage 1 rollup from launch with a credible path to Stage 2

• Battle-tested stack: the same infrastructure running Taiko mainnet

• Open-source and credibly neutral with no corporate capture

The Technical Breakthrough

ENS needs near-instant name resolution across chains with cryptographic security guarantees. Traditional L2s force a choice between decentralization and performance. Based rollups eliminate that tradeoff.

Namechain leverages preconfirmation technology (which Taiko brought to production on mainnet) to deliver state updates in seconds, not hours. This solves a critical CCIP-Read bottleneck that has plagued ENS for years. Combined with TEE-backed proofs and based sequencing, Namechain achieves institutional-grade performance with full decentralization from launch.

Only possible because Taiko shipped preconfirmations first.

If ENS (with its stringent reliability requirements and deep Ethereum alignment) can build on this stack, any application can. Namechain sets a new standard for what's possible when you refuse to compromise on decentralization.

This deployment shows based rollups aren't just theoretically superior. They're the practical choice for teams building critical Ethereum infrastructure.

For teams evaluating rollup frameworks, Namechain is the reference implementation. For the ecosystem, it demonstrates that the based rollup thesis isn't aspirational. It's here, and it's working.

As Namechain moves through internal testing toward public testnet (Q2 2026) and mainnet launch, it will demonstrate at scale what Taiko has already established: you don't need to centralize to scale Ethereum.

Nethermind provides infrastructure operations and the Surge framework. Taiko provides the based sequencing technology and preconfirmations protocol. ENS brings product vision and naming protocol expertise. This collaboration shows how open-source infrastructure enables mission-critical applications without vendor lock-in.

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