After a record-breaking performance in July, over 2 million domain names have been registered on the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).
Record-Breaking July Numbers
Ethereum Name Service has achieved a record-breaking performance of over 2 million domain name signups in just a little over five years of existence. Furthermore, a significant portion of these domain names was created in the month of July 2022, when the project witnessed the largest monthly rise in revenue. The 2 million domain names are significant because the first million names were registered over five years, and the second million took just 3.5 months to be registered.
According to Dune Analytics, out of the 2 million addresses, a significant 378,804 registrations happened in July, when protocol revenue also climbed above $6.8 million. The July numbers are the highest monthly registration so far, the closest being May (around 365K registration), almost 124% higher than that of April (approximately 163K registrations). The Terra LUNA-related market turmoil had affected the numbers in June, which only witnessed 122K ENS registration. However, the July numbers indicate that the market is recovering.
Domain Renewals Also Increases
Experts believe that the sudden spike in adoption of the ENS is due to the upcoming Merge upgrade when the Ethereum network will transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol and thus lower the network’s gas fees significantly. Furthermore, many celebrities have also bought ENS domains, choosing to flaunt it on Twitter and other social media platforms, inspiring the masses to do the same.
However, it is not just domain name registration that has seen a boost in recent months. The data suggests that more users are choosing to stay within the ENS ecosystem as the number of renewals has also increased. The one-year period from May 2021 through April 2022 witnessed monthly renewals in the four-figure range. However, May 2022 saw around 16.6K ENS domain renewals, with another record-breaking number in July, with 25.8K renewals.
What Is ENS?
The Ethereum-powered naming system allows users to secure ENS domain names, which function as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and can be bought and sold on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. ENS is basically a decentralized Web3 protocol that assigns complex strings of alphanumeric machine-generated character-based information to human-friendly names. The system allows users to create simple usernames for complex wallet addresses and decentralized websites. For example, it can map machine-readable wallet addresses like ‘7g978dn39ji9sx’ to a human-readable name such as 'ABC.eth.' Essentially, ENS is an NFT that can act as an ETH wallet address, a cryptographic hash, or a website URL.
