ENS DAO Newsletter #43 — 09/12/2023

📰 Newsletter Roundup (tl;dr)

☀️ Welcome!

Welcome to the ENS DAO Newsletter:

• 🗓️ New editions — published bi-weekly (Tuesday)

• 📑 Previous editions are archived on the ENS DAO Governance Forum.

• 🗳️ New proposals are broadcasted to Telegram.

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🗓 Calendar

Refer to ENS DAO Calendar for ENS DAO working group calls and other events.

• Calendar: Public Access

• Calendar: Access with Gmail

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🚩 Upcoming Events

• ENS Happy Hour: September 23

• ETHGlobal NYC: September 22-24

• Devconnect: November 13-19

• ETHIstanbul: November 17-19

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🗳️ Recent Proposals

• EP4.1 — Approve further actions and strategies for the Endowment (PASSED)

• Draft — Refund .eth names affected by normalization updates (September vote tentatively scheduled)

• EP 4.x — [Executable] Fund the Endowment (second tranche) (September vote tentatively scheduled)

For details on the ENS DAO proposal process see our Governance Docs.

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ENS Labs Updates

Core Team Transitions

Khori.eth announced a series of team updates for ENS Labs, including new leadership roles and departures. @Leon is now the head of engineering, @Marta is in charge of business development, @Sadaf.eth leads marketing as well as other areas, and @Esk3nder.eth has joined to oversee product and strategy. Core developers Nick, Jeff, and Makoto remain on the team. New additions include @Evanmoyer.eth as community manager and @Ms.Avery as operations associate. Alisha.eth and Vincent (aka Zadok7.eth) have stepped down from the core team, although both have made significant contributions to governance and community engagement.

As ENS Labs moves towards decentralization, Khori.eth noted that the organization will become progressively less involved in the daily operations of ENS DAO, encouraging the community to take a more active role in its leadership. — 09.05.23 

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Crypto Cornerstore @ ETHGlobal NYC

ENS and XMTP have teamed up to offer a tech-savvy experience at this month’s ETHGlobal hackathon in NYC. This partnership extends XMTP’s previous collaboration with Coinbase Wallet at ETH Paris, where users could conveniently order items through ENS and pay with USDC in chats, all without incurring gas fees.

Developers can order a wide range of items, both physical (e.g., Red Bull, pizza, toothpaste) and digital (including Base and Polygon testnet ETH, Lens NFTs, exclusive POAPs, and more), without the need for additional identity or payment information to prevent fraud or misuse. XMTP’s cryptographic signature ensures the authenticity of both the sender and receiver in the chat. This innovative secure wallet messaging system has versatile applications, including the elimination of credit card fees for small international purchases, streamlining in-chat orders and payments. — 09.07.23 

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ENS Development

Integration: dAppling x ENS

The dApplingNetwork has recently introduced support for Ethereum Name Service (ENS) names, streamlining the process of linking your ENS name to your website. The user-friendly feature allows for a quick transition from a GitHub repository to an operational ENS site in just three minutes. Once the app is deployed, users can simply input their ENS name and click “add.” They then select the “set contenthash” option, which initiates a transaction on the ENS contract, setting the contenthash field to their project’s IPNS name. Although this step requires a gas fee, future updates to the site are automatic and gas-free. Any code merged into the main branch will be immediately reflected on the ENS site, ensuring it always showcases the most recent changes. — 08.30.23 

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Tooling: ___.tryENS.eth

Mailchain’s new free tool,  ___.tryENS.eth , allows instant creation of temporary ENS names without Ethereum gas fees. Ideal for events like hackathons, these domain names auto-expire after 48 hours but can be re-registered. The tool is versatile, facilitating easy sharing of Ethereum addresses and enabling user-friendly names for workshops and dApp testing. To get started, visit the website and follow the simple steps to claim your name. — 09.05.23 

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ENS Media Alerts

• Spaces: Interoperable Messaging with dm3 x ENS  — 08.30.23 

• Spaces: Web3 Email with Mailchain  — 09.06.23 

• Spaces: Unlocking the Future: Digital Identity and Web3 with ENS and XGO ID  — 09.10.23 

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Community Updates

Progressive decentralization of identity on ENS

Jefflau.eth is advocating for a progressively decentralized approach to user identity management on ENS. He suggests initially onboarding users with a zero-cost username through EIP-3668 and ENS wildcard to provide a seamless user experience. This strategy is exemplified by farcaster’s fname system, which lets users create a subname that is controlled by a farcaster server, avoiding the need for an on-chain transaction. Users can later switch to their own ENS names or mint their usernames on Layer 2. The goal is to offer a full range of options that ease user onboarding while preserving decentralization and user sovereignty. All of this would be built upon the ENS infrastructure.  — 09.08.23 

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EIP-3668: Cross Chain Interoperability Protocol

Tanrikuli.eth discussed EIP-3668, at DappConn in Berlin. The protocol significantly enhances ENS by providing a unified identity across multiple blockchains. Utilizing CCIP, users can register a domain on a ‘home’ blockchain, which is then automatically propagated to other supported chains. In a hypothetical example, two core smart contracts could be deployed on the home blockchain. These contracts would use CCIP to update other blockchains when a new domain is registered, maintaining a global domain registry. Consequently, all ENS instances across different blockchains stay synchronized, enabling universal name-to-address lookups. Through CCIP, users could have a single, unified identity across the entire Ethereum ecosystem, eliminating the need for multiple registrations or less secure alternatives. — 09.12.23 

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Matoken.eth at YAP Global offsite

During YAP Global’s offsite in France, the team hosted Makoto, where they discussed the “how,” “why,” and history of Ethereum, providing a holistic perspective of the ecosystem. Read the review of Makoto’s talk at YAP Global. — 09.04.23 

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Working Group Bulletin

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ENS DAO Working Group Schedule (Q3/Q4 2023):

• ⚖️ Meta-Governance @ 3PM UTC Tuesday — Google Meet

• ☀️ Public Goods @ 4pm UTC Tuesday — Google Meet

• 🌱 ENS Ecosystem @ 4pm UTC Thursday — Google Meet

Note: Working Group Budgets for Q3/Q4 are linked within each respective row.

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Meta-Governance

The Meta-Governance working group hosted its weekly meetings on August 29th, 2023 and September 5th, 2023:

• Minutes for Weekly Meta-Gov Meeting — August 29th

• Minutes for Weekly Meta-Gov Meeting — September 5th

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Endowment Updates

@Karpatkey delivered the weekly update. The endowment, valued at 28 million dollars, has nearly 100% capital utilization. Their August report is delayed due to a minor bug, but is expected soon. Plans for the second tranche of the endowment are underway, with a vote scheduled for the September DAO Voting Window. Initially fully invested in Lido, the endowment aims to diversify, targeting a short-term 70:30 composition and a long-term 50/30/20 distribution across various pools. — 09.05.23 

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Organizational Updates

@Khori.eth outlined significant core team changes and delved into the organization’s financial status. Leadership transitions included Leon taking over as head of engineering, Sadaf leading in-house marketing and overseeing support and events, Marta stepping into the role of business development, and Eskender leading product and strategy. The team welcomed Evan as the new community manager and Avery as a full-time operations associate while acknowledging the departures of Alisha.eth and Vincent, also known as Zadok7.eth.

Financially, ENS Labs receives an annualized stream of approximately $4.1 million from its governing DAO, with 65% allocated for development compensation. The organization faced higher-than-anticipated legal fees, particularly in efforts to secure the eth.link domain. Due to the sensitive and ongoing nature of these legal matters, limited information could be disclosed. ENS Labs is also exploring insurance options, including director insurance, to manage future legal needs and confirmed that its bookkeeping is on course for the 2023 report, due in June 2024. — 09.05.23 

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Public Goods

The Public Goods working group hosted its weekly meetings on August 29th, 2023 and September 5th, 2023:

• Minutes for Weekly Public Goods Meeting — August 29th

• Minutes for Weekly Public Goods Meeting — September 5th

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Funding: P256 precompile

Discussion on how to support builders developing core Ethereum upgrades are underway. After EIP-7212 Pull Request was successfully merged into Ethereum’s GitHub repository, the primary point of debate has become whether to use a verification method or a recovery interface for its implementation. Core Ethereum developers recommend initially implementing the new EIP in Layer 2 solutions before rolling it out on mainnet.@avsa has stated that this could represent a significant advancement for the Ethereum ecosystem. Beyond financial support, he noted that assistance for the Request for Proposals (RFP) could also extend to mentorship and help in navigating the political and social hurdles of securing EIP approval.

More information can be found within the discussion thread. The authors behind EIP-7212 are Ethylene Studio, and additional discussions on this topic can be found at the Ethereum Magicians Forum under the section dedicated to EIP-7212 for secp256r1 Curve Support. Further insights can also be gleaned from Alex Van de Sande’s tweet, which was posted after the most recent discussion call.  — 08.29.23

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Ecosystem

The Ecosystem working group hosted its weekly meetings on August 31st, 2023 and September 7th, 2023:

• Minutes for Weekly Ecosystem Meeting — August 31st

• Minutes for Weekly Ecosystem Meeting — September 7th

Note: The ENS Ecosystem Working Group offers rolling grants, and applicants can apply anytime. The evaluation process takes around four weeks, and unsuccessful applicants are welcome to reapply in the future.

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Core Updates

Core developers are in the midst of rolling out a significant update to the ownership management feature in their Manager app, with the launch expected in the upcoming weeks. Alongside this, contracts have been successfully deployed on Sepolia, and there is a planned transition to the latest public testnets by September 15th. In a strategic move to improve their testing capabilities, ENS Labs has switched its end-to-end testing framework from Cypress to Playwright.

To accelerate project deployments, the team has introduced a Web 3 starter kit that is built on Next.js and made publicly available on GitHub for community review and use. Ethereum (ETH) has been set as the default payment method for financial transactions during the registration phase. Furthermore, the company has implemented a range of bug fixes and system improvements to elevate the overall performance and user experience. — 09.07.23 

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Unruggable Names

Unruggable Names presented advancements in their project aimed at facilitating more affordable and accessible ENS subname registrations via Layer 2 (L2) solutions, such as Optimism. The technical features highlighted included the implementation of ERC4337, utilization of NameWrapper, and the ETH Reg controller. During a live demo, the team demonstrated how subnames can be registered and configured on Layer 2. Thomas also introduced an ‘ENS Whois’ tool available on ethtools.com for easy viewing of these newly created subnames.

The project aims to make ENS names central to the creation of smart accounts in the future by integrating ENS name registration directly into the smart account creation process. This would streamline user experience by offering a one-click, potentially gasless process. Other technical aspects like cross-chain gateways, L2 compatibility, and rollups were discussed. Additional information and demonstrations can be found on their website optimism-demo.unruggablenames.com and the project’s GitHub repository at GitHub - unruggable-labs/L2-ens. — 09.07.23 

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3DNS.box

3DNS.box announced the company’s objective to integrate existing web domains onto blockchain technology. They aim to provide a seamless user experience to attract traditional domain customers and are also working on specialized solutions for bulk domain management. The operation will feature a dual-system, where an off-chain registrar becomes read-only once a domain has been migrated on-chain. 3DNS.box is addressing challenges related to allowing multiple wallets to manage domains and is working on custom implementations, such as with Gnosis Safe. A beta version is set to launch next week, with existing domains expected to be transferable on-chain shortly after the rollout. — 09.07.23 

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Grant: 1W3

Note: The Ecosystem Working Group offers Term 4 Grants to fund projects that contribute to the ENS ecosystem. Applications are accepted continuously via the DeForm platform. The evaluation period is approximately four weeks, and those not awarded can reapply later.

1W3, a decentralized web platform, has secured a $10,000 USDC grant from the Ecosystem Working Group to advance its work in the ENS ecosystem. Designed as a censorship-resistant alternative to linktree, the platform enables users to build a digital hub for their creations. The grant will support innovations in ENS name use and adoption. Key features include a community-driven “link in bio” builder and IPNS integration for gas-free updates, essentially making 1W3 a decentralized CMS for ENS. The platform automates the linking of the latest IPFS CID to ENS names, simplifying the user experience. 1W3 also allows ENS domain owners to designate “managers” to build and link websites on their behalf. It has also made setting resolvers for ENS names more user-friendly. — 09.02.23 

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Resources

• ENS DAO Basics

• Support Docs

• Governance Docs

• ENS Agora

• Give Feedback

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Thank you very much for reading! Goodbye. 👋🏻