Ethereum Name ServiceENS Labs explores vLEI-linked identities with GLEIF
ENS Labs and GLEIF (the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) are exploring how organizations can link their ENS name to a verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI), creating one persistent, verifiable identity onchain. GLEIF framed the need with a simple question in a post amplified by ENS — "0x7a3f… received the funds. Which legal entity is that?" — explaining that a signed link between an organization's ENS name and its vLEI would let counterparties and applications verify the legal entity behind an onchain address.
A vLEI is a decentralized, digitally signed credential that lets counterparties verify the identity, authority, and role of people acting on behalf of a legal entity. The exploration is aimed at giving organizations a single way to prove who they are both offchain and onchain via ENS.
Sources
- RT @GLEIF: 0x7a3f… received the funds. Which legal entity is that? GLEIF and @ensdomains are exploring a signed link between an organizati…x.com ↗
- ENS Labs and @GLEIF are exploring how organizations can link their ENS name to a verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI), creating one persistent, verifiable identity onchain. Learn more ⤵ https://t.co/bS9LtnLWm1x.com ↗
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.
