We have a new controversy in the crypto market. Ethereum Name Service, the service that provides .eth domains and names for wallets in a decentralized way will not be able to renew its own domain. For a few weeks now, users who enter the ENS DAO website have seen a nice banner at the top of the screen where GoDaddy warns that the expiration date of the domain has already passed. The deadline to check out is September 5th. However, nobody believes that this is going to happen, because the one who has to put the credit card is going to be behind bars for a while.
.eth domain provider cannot renew its own domain
Virgil Griffith is the only person in this world authorized to renew the Ethereum Name Service domain. However, he is fulfilling 63 month sentence for helping North Koreans use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions. This crime is the same for which a few months ago, the FBI put Cao de Benós on the most wanted list.
According to a notice that the domain registrar GoDaddy posted on his website late this Friday, eth.link expired on july 26 and is scheduled to return to a domain registry on September 5, where it will be available to anyone who wants to get hold of it.
Ethereum Name Service, an important piece within Ethereum
The ENS DAO is not a small or minor project. Through this website, the Ethereum Naming Service Protocol, a web3 version of a domain name service provider. If you follow people from the world of cryptocurrencies on TwitterSurely you have seen the occasional user who identifies with the .eth extension. That domain has previously been issued by this decentralized organization.
Their products include not only domains, but they also sell custom names for wallets and other services linked to the Ethereum blockchain. The usefulness of this is to create names that are easy to remember, hiding to some extent the jumble of numbers and letters that we usually see in blockchain products. To make an analogy, the Ethereum Name Service is nothing other than the ICANN of Ethereum.
The community already has a temporary alternative
The Ethereum Name Service has been using the eth.link site all this time to provide access to information on all ENS names. However, the DAO is already advising its users to switch to eth.limo, another domain operated by the user community.
According to a tweet from the ENS DAO Twitter account, EasyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic had previously reached an agreement to renew the domain address for another year before the domain provider allegedly decided to stop honoring the agreement "suddenly and without warning».
According to them, that a domain service cannot renew your domain is not an oxymoron. Some of company executives have charged GoDaddy for 're-expiring' the domain once renewed. According to ENS, this manipulation by GoDaddy It shows that a decentralized service like the one they offer is necessary to avoid this type of practice.