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Is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) losing its own homepage?

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) web domain license is expiring.

By Finst News
• 4 min read
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Is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) losing its own homepage?

The license for the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) web domain is expiring. However, there’s a problem. The only person who can renew it is in prison. ENS DAO members currently can't access the web address. The license for the address expired on July 26 and must be renewed by September 5 at the latest to prevent expiration. The problem: the only person who could renew the license is currently serving a prison sentence — Virgil Griffith.

Former Ethereum developer Griffith was sentenced in April 2022 to 63 months in prison for attending a crypto conference in Pyongyang, North Korea. U.S. lawmakers view this as ‘instigating and violating international sanctions’.

Earlier the domain had expired, but according to the ENS-DAO it could be extended for one more year via an alternate method. Now GoDaddy, the domain registrar from which Griffith acquired the domain, apparently only allows renewal through regular channels, which poses a problem for the Ethereum Name Service. If renewal doesn’t happen, the eth.link address will be back on the market starting in early September.

Web 3.0 domain names

The ENS-DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that manages Ethereum domain names. The ENS protocol is known, for example, for assigning .eth shortcuts to the names of some Ethereum prominent figures. Users can buy .eth names and link them to their wallet address to make sending and receiving Ethereum tokens easier. Plus, due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, anyone can support and renew an ENS domain without owning it themselves.

The ENS DAO website, eth.link, is, like almost all web addresses, registered with a standard domain name service (DNS) and is subject to time limits that only the domain owner can renew.

Until a solution is found, ENS redirects to the replacement link eth.limo, through which users can access the site. According to the service, they are in contact with Griffith and his lawyers to gain access to his account and renew the web domain.

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