What does ENS stand for?

Ethereum Name Service. It is the naming system for the Ethereum blockchain.

What can I do with a .eth name?

Point it at a wallet address to receive funds, set it as your primary identity, host a decentralized website, create subnames, and attach an avatar and other metadata.

How much does an ENS name cost?

Longer names cost roughly $5 a year. Short premium names cost more. Names must be renewed to keep them.

No. It is core Ethereum infrastructure, and the ENSv2 upgrade makes it more flexible and cheaper to operate.

What is ENS?

GuideRead time: 5 min

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is the naming system for the Ethereum blockchain. It turns long, unreadable strings like 0x89205A3A3b2A69De6Dbf7f01ED13B2108B2c43e7 into a name you can actually read and remember, like alice.eth.

Why names matter

Every wallet, contract, and identity on Ethereum is technically just a string of characters. That is fine for machines but terrible for people. ENS fixes this by letting you claim a name and point it at any Ethereum address, content hash, or metadata. Instead of asking someone to copy-paste a 42-character address, you can say "send it to alice.eth".

What can you do with a .eth name?

Wallet address - receive funds and connect to apps using your name.
Primary identity - display your name instead of a raw address across apps that support ENS.
Website - point your name at a content hash to host a decentralized site.
Subnames - create team.project.eth, yourname.project.eth and more.
Avatars & metadata - attach an avatar, email, socials, and other records to your name.

How it works, simply

ENS is built from three main parts: a registry that tracks who owns which name, a registrar that handles registration and renewal, and a resolver that translates a name into the address or data it points to. When you send to alice.eth, the network looks up who owns that name, finds the resolver, and returns the address.

What does it cost?

Registration is paid in ETH and scales with name length. As a rough guide: longer names cost around $5 a year, while shorter premium names (3-letter, 4-letter) cost significantly more. The name must be renewed to keep it. There is no one-time permanent ownership.

The key thing to understand: a .eth name is a renewable asset, not a one-time purchase. You must renew to keep it.

Is ENS going away?

No. ENS is core Ethereum infrastructure, and the next major upgrade (ENSv2) makes it more flexible and cheaper to operate. Names you hold continue to work, with migration paths planned.

Next steps

If you are new, start with how to register a .eth name. If you hold names already, read about renewals so you never lose one to expiry.