ENS Regains Control Of eth.link Domain

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has regained control of the eth.link domain, according to the project’s Twitter account.

Nick Johnson, the founder of ENS, describes eth.link as a decentralized application (dapp) built on top of ENS which allows the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) to access information stored in ENS. This allows users to create websites linked to their .eth addresses that can be viewed in standard browsers.

For example, vitalik.eth.link resolves to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s blog.

The domain was returned to ENS’ control after a U.S. court granted the company an injunction in its ongoing lawsuit against GoDaddy and Manifold Finance.

ENS Sues GoDaddy and Manifold Finance Over eth.link Sale

Domain Sold To Manifold Finance For $852,000

The Defiant

“With the court’s decision and outcomes users can now resume using eth.link without disruption,” Johnson told The Defiant. “These events further show the value of decentralization of digital identity and the risks associated with centralized entities having total ownership over individuals’ digital property.”

‘Unlawful Sale’

ENS sued domain name registrar and hosting company GoDaddy on Sep. 5, alleging the unlawful sale of the eth.link domain name.

GoDaddy sold eth.link to Dynadot, another domain registrar, on Sep. 3. Dynadot then auctioned eth.link link to Manifold Finance, which offers middleware-based scaling solutions for DeFi protocols.

ENS named both Dynadot and Manifold as plaintiffs in its complaint.

Manifold has stated on Twitter that despite ENS’ announcement, the project doesn’t actually possess eth.link. Rather, ENS has regained control of the account that controls eth.link’s records, according to Manifold.

Sam Bacha, the founder of Manifold, told The Defiant that Dynadot still has control of eth.link, but that ENS has control of the domain’s name servers which can be delegated to a third party like Cloudflare.

Name servers translate domain names into IP addresses, so ENS is currently able to direct eth.link requests to the corresponding IP address.

ENS’ Johnson sees the fight for eth.link as part of a larger struggle for how digital property rights are established. “This is a small battle in a larger movement for decentralized ownership across the internet,” he said.

UPDATED on 9/20 @ 2pm ET to include a comment from Sam Bacha.