Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a decentralised naming system built on Ethereum that maps human-readable names (like alice.eth) to machine-readable identifiers – Ethereum addresses, IPFS content hashes, other blockchain addresses, and website metadata. ENS is to crypto wallets what DNS is to the internet: instead of copying a 42-character Ethereum address, you send to alice.eth. ENS names are NFTs (ERC-721 tokens) owned by their registrant; they can be bought, sold, and transferred. Registrations cost a yearly fee: ~$5/year for names 5+ characters, $160/year for 4-character names, $640/year for 3-character names, paid in ETH. ENS names support subdomains (treasury.dao.eth), allowing DAOs to manage complex namespaces. ENS has expanded beyond Ethereum to resolve addresses on Bitcoin, Solana, and other chains. Many DeFi protocols, wallets, and NFT platforms display ENS names instead of raw addresses when available. ENS governance is managed by the ENS DAO, funded by a large ETH treasury accumulated from registration fees.
Example: Example: vitalik.eth resolves to Vitalik Buterin Ethereum address. Any ENS-supporting wallet lets you type vitalik.eth in the Send To field – the wallet resolves it automatically. Sending ETH to a mistyped 42-character address means permanent loss; ENS names eliminate this risk by replacing character strings with memorable human names.
Learn more: ENS Domains
