So you’ve heard about the ENS launch and want to buy a .eth domain for yourself?Here’s what you need to know.ENS eliminates the need to copy — and worse, type — long hexadecimal addresses.With ENS, you’ll be able to send money to your friend at ‘aardvark.eth’ instead of ‘0x4cbe58c50480…’, interact with your favorite contract at ‘mycontract.eth’, or visit a Swarm-hosted site at ‘swarmsite.eth’.Once you own an ENS domain, you can point it to whatever resources you choose, as well as creating subdomains and assigning them as you wish.ENS is an entirely decentralised system.Handing out new domains under the “.eth” top-level-domain (eg, ‘yourname.eth’) is handled by an auction process that runs on the Ethereum blockchain, and anyone can participate in the auction process to reserve a domain for themselves.New names are allocated using an auction process based on a “Vickery auction”.Auctions proceed in three stages:Once someone wins an auction, the name is theirs for at least the duration of the initial registrar.

After holding the name for at least a year, however, they can choose to release the name and recover the entire amount of their deposit.Not all names in ENS are available immediately for bidding.In order to provide ample time for finding and fixing any bugs as the system scales up, and to prevent a massive land rush on day 1, names are being released for auction on a gradual basis over 8 weeks.Every possible name becomes available at a random time during that period.You can find out when the name you want becomes available by entering it into one of the apps described below.In addition, only names that are seven characters or longer may be registered at the present time.This is done in order to make sure that the highly valuable short names are only made available once the system has gained enough attention to ensure they get bid on fairly, and not all grabbed by early movers intending to resell them.There are now several user-friendly interfaces for buying ENS domains:Remember that any time you place a bid, you must reveal it during the 48 hour reveal period, or you will lose the entire bid.

Revealing requires access to your account/private key, and additional information as well.When using the official app, this information is stored in your browser’s local storage, and can be backed up to a JSON file.MEW provides you with the information and expects you to take a screenshot and reenter it when revealing, while ETHTools’ solution stores the information for you on the server side.It’s critical that you make sure you safely back up your bid information if your solution-of-choice requires you to do this; otherwise you will be unable to reveal your bid when the time comes, and lose the entire amount of your bid.Codetract provide an excellent dashboard for tracking the process of ENS and seeing metrics on bids and auctions.Etherscan provides tools for looking up domains and auctions, and seeing the latest auction activity.The official ENS site has more information on ENS, and the documentation provides resources for developers and an FAQ.After a shaky start this spring, a project called the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) appears to be attracting serious capital.

Thousands of people are vying for a new set of ethereum names being auctioned off by the leaderless domain service, with some putting in bids for upwards of $1m.bitcoin joseph leeEven though bid amounts are more like deposits (which you can get back after a year, if you chose to relinquish the name), what still comes as a surprise is how much people are willing to put toward more popular names.bitcoin sec etf newsSo far, exchange.eth was claimed for 6660 ETH ($609,000), foundation.eth went for 300 ETH ($27,000), and weather.eth was auctioned for 101 ETH ($9,000).bitcoin par smsIn case you missed our launch coverage, ENS works similar to the domain name server (DNS) system we know today, creating human-readable names to use in place of machine names.bitcoin inner circle

But instead of pointing to websites on the internet, ethereum names point to ethereum resources, like wallets, content on its decentralized storage system Swarm, and more.jack liu bitcoinAlso, ENS itself is decentralized, running on smart contracts.litecoin price in inrOn the first day of the relaunch, auctions began opening up at a trickle, but that pace quickly accelerated as the week wore on.At press time, 27,800 auctions have been initiated, with thousands more opening each day.More unusual names included ones like ethereumclassic.eth, winklevoss.eth and donaltrump.eth.So, you may be wondering how the bidding works.When you open an auction, you enter a single bid for the most you are willing to pay for a name.But, you only pay up to the amount of the second highest bidder, or if nobody bids against you, you only pay the minimum of 0.01 ether.

Note, that you only get one chance to bid on a name.Further, all bids are sealed, so anyone who bids against you does so blindly.They put in a bid for the most they are willing to pay, and whomever comes out on top, wins.Because there is no central trusted service to hold on to the bids – smart contracts cannot hold secrets – users have to reveal their bids themselves.(Nick Johnson, one of the Ethereum Foundation employees leading the project, recommends people set a calendar date, and then reveal a name right away, so they don't forget and lose their bid.)Still there were some minor bumps in the first week of the ENS launch, including a couple of bugs Johnson called "low impact".For instance, one bug caused users to bid on the wrong version of a domain when they entered a name with mixed capital letters.But that was remedied, and the program now automatically lowers the case.Also, Johnson explained, a few people lost the opportunity to reveal their bids because, after they bid, they reset their browsers (clearing the data) before backing up their data to a JSON file first.

You have a 48-hour window to reveal bids manually after the three-day bidding period, otherwise, any ether you put up are burnt.Now, the system prompts you immediately to download your bids, so people do have a reminder.Further, since the launch, third parties have stepped into the game, giving users more options for how to manage their auctions.Initially, if you wanted to bid on an ethereum name, your only choice was to use the official dapp, which requires a blockchain-enabled browser, or the command line., which will step you through the process. has integrated with ENS, as well.However, Johnson says, just like most users on the internet don't buy their own domain names, it's likely most ENS users won't go through the process of buying their own ethereum names either.Instead, he believes users will go to their favorite wallet, and the wallet will instantly give them a name, like alice.myetherwallet.eth, which they can use."I think we’ll see the real take off for usage once the wallets start giving their own domain names and they can set up that system.

Then anyone can claim their own payments address instantly.And suddenly, it will be possible for anyone to have a name without going through the whole auction process."As the ENS team moves forward, the plan is to focus on getting more wallets to integrate and support the software.Johnson said he also wants to expand the capabilities of ENS and add more standardized components."One of the things we would like to do is add proper support for DNS records.We could then use one of the alternate DNS hierarchies to offer .eth as a top level domain," he said."You could actually host your website with a .eth domain, though not on the global internet for now, because we have to talk to ICANN about all of that."Right now, ENS is releasing names over an eight-week period as part of its slow launch.And in two years, a planned upgrade will move ENS to a more permanent system, at which point, people will be able to auction for shorter names less than seven characters.Auction gavel image via Shutterstock The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.