One of the fastest growing ethereum project appears to be the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) which uniquely secures almost 2 million eth currently valued at just above $420 million.

It does so through a smart contract that operates on ethereum’s blockchain, making it one of the first to create an autonomous working organization that fully replaces intermediaries such as domain name registrars.

The ENS has become, in just weeks, the biggest ethereum project, with its value higher than any other, while the way it utilizes the ethereum network is somewhat similar to the Slockit DAO, making it very unique in this space.

That is because unlike many token sales which in some ways are similar to traditional crowdfunding, the ENS is what can be called a decentralized, autonomous, organization, a DAO.

Through simple rules that the entire ethereum network verifies, the ENS is able to hold auctions to determine who gets what name. The way it does so is through a bidding process, with the highest bidder having to put forward as a reserve the amount bid by the second highest bidder.

That reserve is held in a deed smart contract, and is locked for one year, with the bidder able to release the name and receive his eth afterwards if he/she so wishes.

Almost 200,000 auctions have started so far, with nearly 100,000 bids put forward, including a bid of nearly 200,000 eth, worth around $50 million, for a name not yet quite known.

But a known eth name is openmarket, which went for $6.5 million, banking.eth, which went for nearly a million, and identity.eth at nearly half a million, with many more others we have previously mentioned, such as exchange.eth.

An interesting name that no one seems to want is bitcoin. That is now available, but it has no bids. Perhaps because the auction still has around four days to run, but maybe the market is wondering of what use is bitcoin.eth.

Well, an easy one is a service which converts your bitcoin to ethereum, especially since many bitcoiners seem very keen to do so recently, but if bitcoin does really become MySpace maybe it would be a very short term reserve.

We joke, because we can’t help notice just how nice ethereans are since none of them has bid for Coinbase. That is now available and has only two more days to go, so perhaps Coinbase should get on with claiming it before someone loses their patience.

Although, the exchange does really deserve it. They opened the dollar market for eth last year, and while other bitcoin businesses stood on the sidelines, they had the foresight to see just what ethereum is.

Liberty. That’s another interesting eth name that is about to run out in just two hours or so. Ethereans appear to think it is worth “only” around $10,000, presumably because none of them is keen to put forward Montesquieu’s thesis on how liberty can be preserved.

“Kingship, the earliest government, inevitably becomes corrupt and passes into tyranny. The best men in the community then unseat the tyrant and institute an aristocracy. But their descendants are corrupted by the opportunity to gratify their desires and so become oligarchs. Thereupon the community overthrows the oligarchy and institutes a democracy. Next, the people are debauched by evil leaders, and the collapse of the society brings in a monarch once more.”

So said the ancients, with Montesquieu seemingly providing a solution around three centuries ago by stating his theory of the separation of powers:

“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty… there is no liberty if the powers of judging is not separated from the legislative and executive… there would be an end to everything, if the same man or the same body… were to exercise those three powers.”

That applies to blockchains too. If power is concentrated in developers, miners, or exchanges/businesses, there can be no liberty. The power to merge/execute code must be different from the power to implement/judge it and the power to legislate/offer the option. With both three branches requiring respect of each other and each other’s jurisdiction if they are to avoid chaos.

But, you don’t need liberty.eth to express that, so on reflection perhaps $10,000 is reasonable, especially since the eth community appears to be far more pragmatically minded, rather than philosophical or ideological.

Although, reality.eth is going for more than $20,000. We wonder what that can be used for, if not esoteric rubbish musings on how Rick and Morty are right about the many timelines despite not being able to suggest how any such timelines came to be if they were not always here.

Fine, we’ll play and wonder whether it is in our timeline that a bug is somehow found in this smart contract which has such an awesome bounty of nearly half a billion, or whether it is in a different time line.

We hope the latter, but at the rate this is going, it won’t be long until it holds a billion, or maybe even ten billion, meaning it must be as secure as blockchains, which have now existed for nearly a decade.

Whether they are so we are not qualified to say, nor is really anyone, for only time can establish such confidence. Time which, for the ENS, runs in mere weeks.

So we pray this second venture at the DAO concept is bullet proof and can bring back that idea of decentralized autonomous organizations, by showing it operate in action.