On the right, you can pre-register with them for the upcoming 3–6 character .eth name reservation process for brands. That process hasn’t officially started yet, but if you register with them, they will act on your behalf and help you through the process.

You’ll notice their fees are higher than if someone registers a .eth name directly on-chain: e.g., $25/year for most names registered through EnCirca vs. $5/year (in ETH) if done on-chain with the official ENS Manager app. The difference is what they are charging for the convenience of not having to interact with the Ethereum blockchain directly.

More about EnCirca

Formed in 2001 in Boston, Massachusetts, EnCirca is an ICANN-accredited registrar with a focus on helping brand owners protect their trademarks on the Internet. It supports all of the top-level domain extensions and is the top ICANN registrar for validated domain extensions, such as .bank, .bot, .pharmacy and .realtor.

EnCirca president Tom Barrett explains his company’s interest in supporting ENS:

“User-friendly domain names for blockchain wallets are the new brand identifiers for trademark owners to secure. We are proud to be the first ICANN Registrar to be accepting registrations for .eth blockchain domains.”

And he explains why customers should trust them with their .eth name registrations:

“Trademark owners can trust EnCirca with managing their blockchain domain names. We are the only SOC2-certified .ETH registrar that is offering secure off-chain management of blockchain domain names.”

Are you a DNS domain registrar interested in supporting .eth names?

Then you’re in luck! We did not have to give EnCirca special permission or credentials in order for them offer this service. This is because ENS is simply a set of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, available to anyone with access to the same.

We have an official Manager app that helps users register and manage names directly on-chain, but anyone can build a UI that helps users do this (and people have). ENS registration apps can also choose to handle the interactions with the Ethereum blockchain on behalf of the user, as is the case with EnCirca.

If you are interested in offering .eth names to your customers, you can find our documentation here, you can ask questions in our Gitter channel, and you can email us at brantly@ens.domains.