ENS Use Cases: The Gateway to Web3
If you have maintained a significant online presence in the last few months, there is a high chance that you must have come across several Twitter names with ‘.eth’ added as a suffix to their names, for example vitalik.eth or hayden.eth. In case you are new to all of this, such names are regarded as ENS top-level domain names similar to ‘.com’.
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is an open and distributed naming service, a domain name protocol that aims to become a pivotal point of the decentralized internet by creating portable Web 3.0 usernames that are interoperable across all blockchains and decentralized apps (dApps). An ENS name can be purchased and sold just like any other NFT because it conforms to the ERC-721 token standard.
In everyday web2 internet usage, we use common domain names like “google.com,” which points to the official Google online resource. It is basically the web address for Google. Similar to web3, Blockchain domains like vitalik.eth operate in the same vein, but what benefit does it bring to have a web3 domain name linked to a blockchain address, or is it just another Twitter frenzy? This article takes a deep dive into the existing use cases for ENS domain names.
ENS Application — More than Just a Domain Name
To date, [more than 2 million](https://twitter.com/ensdomains/status/1559811577917755394?) ENS domain names have been registered so far with fresh registrants signing up every day. Why the rush to secure an ENS domain name? The several use cases and benefits attached to owning an ENS domain name will help us in answering these questions. Let’s jump in and explore.
- Crypto-Native Payment
The primary use of ENS is to replace those long, difficult-to-remember crypto addresses with names that are understandable and easily memorizable by humans. People will no longer need to enter cumbersome alphanumeric strings while sending crypto, they will instead use an easily readable address like emojidao.eth or 505.eth to send and receive cryptocurrencies.
Usually, when a user sends crypto to a “.eth” ENS domain name, the sent crypto asset will be received in the wallet address linked to such domain. For instance, if your name is John, you could purchase an ENS domain name and link it to your crypto wallet address. Anyone could pay you in crypto using ‘john.eth’, and the funds will be directed to your linked crypto wallet.
This use case simplifies crypto payment and makes it easy and more convenient to manage user identity and wallet address when sending and receiving payments in cryptocurrencies.
2. Issue .eth Subdomains
Yet another interesting ENS use case that allows users to create as many subdomains as they like for their ‘.eth’ name and customize each one separately. For instance, if you are the owner of double.eth, you can configure site.double.eth to point to a website and pay.double.eth to accept payments for services rendered.
It is possible to transfer control and use of these subdomains while retaining the domain name. A web3 company can issue its employees or community members with their own subdomain. This is useful for corporate or community identity. For example, if a user Lareina works with Emojidao, Lareina could own a subdomain lareina.emojidao.eth. This will help other users to easily associate Lareina with the company or community he belongs to.
In contrast to registering a subdomain for each user, ENS also enables you to open the registration and purchase of your subdomains to the public. This is quite useful for a large community of users, this use case has already been implemented by Double Protocol.
Basically, the ENS subdomain subscription powered by Double Protocol makes it possible to publicly list and monetize ENS domain through the creation of ENS subdomain by other users. This service does not only add to the existing use cases but also delivers a revenue stream to owners of popular, most sought-after ENS domain names. The owners of these domain names could also choose to publicly list them out for free.
3. ENS Establishes Web3 Identity
Before now, the only method to recognize a web3 user was by their native wallet address, which they use to log in to a dApp. But there are many reasons why that is quite awful. Just consider how much more difficult your life would be if you had to enter IP addresses in your browser rather than familiar domain names like google.com. Similar to that was the Ethereum web3 space prior to the emergence of ENS.
In addition to making it easy to identify web3 users, ENS also gives users a single online identity that is available across a broad ecosystem of dApps and supporting services. An ENS domain name could contain a user’s social media handles, NFT collections, and even website links.
In web2 socials, users are required to create a unique profile for each platform. Web3 allows for a single online identity in decentralized and public data storage. Your web3 identity is represented by your “.eth” name and can be used and accessible across a wide range of dApps, wallets, browsers, and services. ENS has made it easier for the average user to interact with web3 applications more conveniently.
4. To Build Decentralized Websites
Another interesting ENS use case is tied to the ability of users to create a decentralized website using the ENS Manager, the system’s web-based user interface. With this function, it’s simpler than ever to leverage Ethereum to upload and view censorship-resistant web content.
ENS Manager allows users to upload content via integration decentralized (web3) servers that use the interplanetary file system (IPFS) which is similar to web2 servers like AWS. However, IPFS uses a decentralized protocol among numerous independent data storage nodes, in contrast to centralized AWS-style servers.
This implies that the data stored in the IPFS network cannot be erased or blocked by a single authority. Additionally, IPFS is far less susceptible to hacking and offers considerable improvements in efficiency over HTTP protocols.
ENS is here to stay…
Without a doubt, ENS has paved a clear road for its adoption by meticulously designing a protocol that meshes with our current reality. As more individuals and corporate entities adopt ENS, it will eventually give rise to more potential use cases, and the web3 world will converge even more closely with the current iteration of the internet.
Being an open-source project, developers and contributors to the industry are working round the clock to unlock valuable use cases for ENS. One of such contributors is Double Protocol which has already integrated ENS domain rentals and ENS subdomain subscriptions. With this fast-paced development in the ecosystem, more ENS use cases are bound to be unlocked in the near future.
