The organization behind the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), ENS Labs, revealed that it's working on a new Ethereum layer 2 solution known as "Namechain." The unveiling occurred during the frENSday event in Bangkok on November 11, and a follow-up social media post outlining some additional information followed. Built to leverage roll-up technology, Namechain will work alongside ENSv2, promising lower transaction costs and easier domain registration and management.
Namechain, ENS Labs' custom-built layer 2 solution, is designed to alleviate scalability issues and lower the costs of blockchain-based identity management. To overcome this challenge, Namechain plans to use a technology called rollup, which minimizes the size of data to be published on-chain, thereby decreasing users' overall gas fees observed on the Ethereum mainnet. ENS Labs says these enhancements will help register names, update records, or manage decentralized websites.
The Namechain project is similar to ENSv2, an upgraded version of ENS that will help integrate it into other Ethereum layer 2 solutions. In combination with the Namechain and the new ENSv2, the management will be much simpler for the users, while the names will always stay linked to the mainnet Ethereum to ensure their security. Greg Skril, Developer Relations Lead at ENS Labs, disclosed that the combination aims to respond to the increasing need for an easy-to-use and accessible blockchain-based naming service.
Namechain's development aligns with its funding partners at ENS Labs, which aims to decentralize and reduce the cost of blockchain naming systems. While other projects launched within the past year integrated Optimism's OP Stack, ENS Labs chose to develop its layer two based on zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups for additional layers of security and cost-efficiency measures.
ENS Labs Chief Operating Officer Katherine Wu points out that the team is selecting the final zkEVM solution and is ready to scale Namechain without undermining its security. In early 2024, ENS Labs first suggested the possibility of a proprietary layer 2 solution.
The organization expects significant advances in the scalability, integration, and openness of Namechain, which will be launched by the end of the following year. Nick Johnson, co-founder of ENS Labs, believes Namechain will make blockchain-based identities accessible to the average person.
The introduction of Namechain occurred when cryptocurrencies became increasingly popular, but identity theft cases occurred. According to a report from AU10TIX, the crypto industry ranked as the second most exploited for identity theft in Q2 2024, with nearly 29% of cases globally.
Additionally, the newer generation of impersonation bots and deepfakes have amplified threats in blockchain systems, where privacy tends to come with the danger attached. Some recent events have proved that even big personalities such as Elon Musk and Tim Cook have been involved in crypto-related deep fake scams.