Ethereum Name ServiceENS DAO opens on-chain vote to activate ENSv2 on mainnet
The ENS DAO has opened an on-chain vote to activate ENSv2 on Ethereum mainnet, ENS announced on X. The proposal bundles 15 execution items to be carried out in a single transaction by a DAO-controlled execution contract if approved.
- If passed, new ENS v1 registrations will stop, while existing names remain usable and renewable.
- ENSv2 lets domain owners set custom subname registration systems and split permissions granularly — e.g., changing a name's address without transferring ownership authority.
- Migrating existing names is optional and irreversible once done; new registrations will pause briefly during the transition, after which ENS Labs hands remaining administrative authority to the DAO.
- The vote ends at 5:32 a.m. UTC on Oct. 25; early votes ran near 100% approval but quorum had not yet been met.
Ethereum Name Service
The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain.
ENS’s job is to map human-readable names like ‘alice.eth’ to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and metadata. ENS also supports ‘reverse resolution’, making it possible to associate metadata such as canonical names or interface descriptions with Ethereum addresses.
ENS has similar goals to DNS, the Internet’s Domain Name Service, but has significantly different architecture due to the capabilities and constraints provided by the Ethereum blockchain. Like DNS, ENS operates on a system of dot-separated hierarchical names called domains, with the owner of a domain having full control over subdomains.
Top-level domains, like ‘.eth’ and ‘.test’, are owned by smart contracts called registrars, which specify rules governing the allocation of their subdomains. Anyone may, by following the rules imposed by these registrar contracts, obtain ownership of a domain for their own use. ENS also supports importing in DNS names already owned by the user for use on ENS.
