More than 50 years ago, one of humanity's greatest inventions emerged. As a result of research and the work of many scientists, the development of the information infrastructure provided by the internet has had an unprecedented impact.
Moving from a military communication tool to something widely used around the world, today it would be difficult to imagine our lives without it.
But did you know that it continues to evolve? Going through phases like the first static sites, then the creation of social networks, we are currently in its third phase, which proposes to structure a more secure, interoperable and decentralized web. Blockchain technology has a fundamental role in this objective and today we are going to know one more tool that shows that we are in the early stages of what could actually become the evolution of the internet.
One of the examples that demonstrate how it evolved is the DNS, which added efficiency and security to the network, which we will understand more below and know its equivalent used in the Ethereum blockchain, ENS.
WHAT IS DNS
It is a system that allows you to connect to websites by combining readable domain names with the unique ID of the server where a website is stored. It is one of the bases of the internet, but most people probably don't even realize that they use it every day to check their e-mails or visit websites.
To identify the computers that are part of and communicate with each other through the huge global network that is the internet, each computer receives an IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is a
series of numbers that identifies a particular computer.
An IP address like that is quite difficult to remember, isn't it? Imagine, now, if you had to use these numbers to access the sites you usually visit.
Domain names were invented just to solve this problem, not having to enter a long numeric string to access a website, instead, just enter a specific and easy-to-remember domain name in the browser's address bar.
Simply put, if the website you visit was a home, its domain name would be the address.
WHAT IS ENS?
Developed at the Ethereum Foundation in early 2017, the Ethereum Name Service was originally proposed and created by developer Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande. It is similar to DNS, but it has advantages and some specific features.
Both are search engines that use domain names to map and reference complex addresses, making them more user-friendly. The difference is that while the DNS uses domain names to translate a website's underlying IP address, ENS is based on Ethe reum and uses domain names suffixed with .ETH to refer to Ethereum addresses, in addition to being decentralized.
Therefore, it works in a similar way to the Internet's DNS system, helping users find websites by name instead of numbers.
ENS eliminates the need to copy - and worse, type - long, 42-character hexadecimal addresses and makes it possible to send money to an acquaintance by replacing it with the name of an address. Example: “cryptosimplify.eth” instead of “0x2abc55dhc4775…”.
HOW IT WORKS?
The ENS consists of two smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. The first is the ENS registration contract, which has the registration of all domains and subdomains, details of the owners and other information about the registrations in that domain. The second is Resolver, which is the other smart contract that translates the ENS domain names to the referenced addresses, underlying hash or other types of resources.
They perform the task of verifying whether the domain "cryptosimplify.eth" references and responds to the resource's address, eg oxe158ef5rte66544i552…
HOW A DOMAIN AUCTION OCCURS
The distribution of new domains takes place on the Ethereum blockchain and anyone can participate. The acquisition of a domain takes place in the format of Vickrey Auction, a type of closed auction where participants do not know the value of each other's bid.
Whoever offers the highest bid wins, but the price paid is for the second highest bid.
Each registered name requires the deposit of some amount of ETH directly in the respective contract for a minimum period of one year, therefore, no central entity receives the funds. All deposited ETH is temporarily blocked until the end of the auction.
AUCTIONS OCCUR IN THREE STEPS
First, someone opens an auction for a name they want to buy and makes a bid. This starts a three-day timer for others to bid on the name. During this period, the details of the values are hidden, it is not possible to see the offer data.
After the end of the three days, a two-day disclosure period begins and everyone who has bid must reveal the details of their offer - if they do not, they lose all deposited amount. If the bid is not the highest, the amount is refunded with a discount of a 0.5% fee, which is burned.
At the end of the two-day period, the highest bidder wins, but he only has to pay the amount of the second highest bidder. This amount is locked in the contract as long as the winning bidder maintains control of the domain name.
Once someone wins an auction, their name is at least during the initial registration.
After keeping the name for at least a year, however, they can choose to release the name and recover the full amount of their deposit.
TO CREATE A DOMAIN YOU CAN ACCESS THE FOLLOWING SITES:
To register a domain, you will need to use a Web 3 wallet, such as MetaMask. Then, follow the steps below:
- Access an ENS domain application.
- Connect to the main network.
- Define and confirm the registration period.
- Review the details and set up the renewal reminder.
Then, as the domain owner, you can configure different information that you want to link to the name, as well as any subdomains.
WHY ENS DOMAINS ARE IMPORTANT
Not only does ENS offer a decentralized alternative for dealing with complex resources inside or outside the blockchain with easy-to-read names, but it is also a complementary piece on the road to fully decentralizing web hosting.
Today, on Web 2.0, most hosting components are centralized. Instead of having domain name registrars like GoDaddy and DNS servers, ENS has decentralized components that eliminate these intermediaries and allow the community to take care of domain management.
And when combined with IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), a distributed P2P file system, ENS starts to open the door to get rid of the centralized and censored components of Web 2.0 and make it decentralized, P2P and secure, fulfilling some of the objectives of Web 3.0.
ENS opens the door for websites, Dapps and other resources and services to be accessible through a decentralized, censorship-resistant and user-controlled domain nomenclature system.
As it resides in the Ethereum ecosystem, ENS can also easily interact with Dapps, Defi, NFTs, DAOs, wallets, etc.
ENS focuses primarily on providing reliable, distributed name resolution for Web 3.0 features, such as blockchain addresses and distributed content.
ENS adoption still needs to grow and P2P content storage / distribution networks are also evolving to increase their adoption. The ENS domains - and the idea behind them - definitely represent the basic structure of what hosting and content service should look like on Web 3.0: decentralized, immutable, resistant to censorship and with user-controlled ownership.
ENS was not designed to replace DNS, but to work with it. In the future, they can even be integrated so that users can claim the use of that name in ENS.
We can say that cryptocurrencies are still in the IP address phase: users need long, hard-to-remember addresses to access the services they need.
Many new enhancement services for Web 3.0 are yet to emerge to make using cryptography as easy as browsing the web. Notably, the future looks a lot like the past.
