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Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Proposes Migration to Its Own Layer 2

Web3 Station

27 May 2024 — 3 min read

ENS Labs has unveiled a proposal to upgrade to ENSv2 aimed at reducing gas fees, enhancing service scalability, and migrating integrations to a Layer 2 network.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Proposes Migration to Its Own Layer 2

In an announcement on the evening of May 28, 2024, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) introduced a new upgrade proposal for their service, dubbed ENSv2.

The development team at ENS Labs stated that ENSv2 aims to improve scalability and reduce gas fees by moving core functions from the Ethereum mainnet to a Layer 2 chain. If approved, users will benefit from:

Introducing ENSv2: The Next Generation of ENS 🎉🎉🎉

ENS Labs is excited to announce our proposal to extend the ENS protocol to a Layer 2 network. This move isn't just about migrating parts of the protocol; we're re-envisioning the architecture from the ground up! pic.twitter.com/3xM6owTpKk
— ens.eth (@ensdomains) May 28, 2024

Lower gas fees and faster transaction speeds for managing .eth domains.

A new hierarchical registration system to efficiently manage .eth domains, providing domain owners access to a single registration ledger where they can manage subdomains and resolution configurations.

Enhanced multi-chain interaction: With ENS appearing on Layer 2 networks, users' .eth domains will seamlessly integrate across various blockchains through a combination of CCIP and compatible resolution mechanisms.

Discussing the proposal to migrate to Layer 2 chains, Eskender Abebe, Product and Strategy Director at ENS Labs, shared:

"The release of EIP-4844 has made Layer 2 networks on Ethereum cheaper and more scalable through blob transactions, a critical factor in ENS's upgrade proposal."

EIP-4844 is among the significant proposals following the successful Ethereum Dencun upgrade in March 2024. This proposal introduces a new block structure called "blob" to store transaction data from Ethereum Layer 2s, thereby reducing the burden of data transfer to the mainnet and significantly lowering gas fees on these platforms.

Before Dencun, Ethereum witnessed skyrocketing gas fees, significantly impacting user experience. Post-Dencun, gas fees on many Ethereum Layer 2s have decreased by orders of magnitude.

Beyond the benefits of reduced gas fees and increased transaction speeds, extending ENS to use an L2 opens the door for us to re-architect ENS based on the last 7 years of our experience building at the frontier.

Check the technical design doc here: https://t.co/pfxveWoCCX
— ens.eth (@ensdomains) May 28, 2024

While ENS Labs has not officially announced the choice of development stack or Layer 2 network for migration, CEO Khori Whittaker hinted in an exclusive interview with CoinDesk at leaning towards using the ZK Stack from Matter Labs - the developers behind the zkSync Layer 2 network - due to priorities on privacy and security from Zero-Knowledge Proof technology. This contradicts earlier plans for an independent Layer 2, as shared by the project's Senior Director in February.

According to data from Dune Analytics, the project has recorded over 2 million ENS domains minted with 886,373 unique owners, marking growth of over 5.7% since the launch of the ENS wallet balance lookup feature on Google. Following the news, ENS is trading around $27 USD, up approximately 6% in the last 24 hours and over 95% in the past month.