I was also able to make use of a unique feature of ENS names: they have two levels of authority, the Registrant and the Controller.

The Registrant is the ultimate owner of the name and has the ability to set who the Controller is. The Controller is who is able to set the records of the name (e.g. set which cryptocurrency addresses to which the name resolves). Most of the time, the Registrant and the Controller are the same person. But it’s useful to have these powers separated in case you want to keep ownership of a name but allow someone else to temporarily manage its records for you.

In this case, I was able to transfer the Registrant power over to the Rocket LP DAO multisig wallet but keep myself as the Controller. This means that while Rocket LP DAO now owns the name and could remove me as the Controller if I default on the loan, in the mean time I can continue to manage and use the name. This is akin to how when you buy a car with a loan, the bank holds the title but still lets you use the car while you’re paying it off.

The terms of the loan

The technology is what is most interesting in all of this, but you might still be wondering what the terms of the loan were: I received 6.5 wETH (~$1000), and I will need to repay the loan in full plus 15% (7.475 wETH in total) in 90 days (by July 14, 2020).

As I mentioned earlier, I put up the ENS name brantly.eth as collateral. Brantly is my first name and has great personal value to me, so I have a strong incentive to repay the loan; and first names are generally valuable .ETH names since they’re short, and there can only be one owner per name.

These terms were themselves fittingly immortalized on the Ethereum blockchain as an NFT.