Is the Ethereum Name Service losing its homepage?

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) DAO members are currently unable to access their web address at eth.link. The license for the address expired on July 26th and must be renewed by September 5th in order not to expire. The problem: The only person who could extend the license is currently serving a prison sentence – Virgil Griffith.

Former Ethereum developer Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison in April 2022 for attending a crypto conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, and thus aiding and abetting international sanctions violations, according to US lawmakers.

The web address has already expired once, but according to the ENS-DAO it could be extended for 1 year in another way. Now GoDaddy, the domain provider Griffith secured the domain from, says it only allows renewal through regular channels, which poses a problem for the Ethereum Name Service. If an extension does not come about, the eth.link address would be available again for purchase by others from the beginning of September.

Domain names in Web 3.0

The ENS-DAO is a decentralized, autonomous organization that manages the Ethereum domain names. The ENS protocol is known, for example, for the assignment of the .eth abbreviation after the names of some Ethereum community members. Users can buy .eth names and associate them with their wallet address to make receiving and sending Ethereum tokens easier. In addition, due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, anyone can support and extend an ENS domain without owning it.

However, like almost all Internet addresses, the ENS DAO website, eth.link, is registered with a standard domain name service (DNS) and is subject to certain deadlines that only owners of the respective domain can extend.

Until a solution is found, ENS refers to the replacement link eth.limo, which users can use to access the website as usual. According to the service, however, they are in contact with Griffith and his lawyers to gain access to his account and renew the web domain.