[Now Live on Ethereum Mainnet] Announcing the Ethereum Name Service Relaunch Date!

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) team is pleased to announce the ENS relaunch date. The ENS will be relaunched on May 4, 2017.

Update — ENS is live on Ethereum Mainnet as of 1100 UTC on May 4, 2017.

The ENS team, Nick Johnson and Alex Van Sande and myself as ENS volunteer project manager, believe ENS is ready for relaunch. We’re pleased to announce the relaunch is scheduled to happen on May 4, 2017 at 1100 UTC.

Some History

On March 10, 2017, the community deployed ENS. After two important bugs were found, the root keyholders disabled the registrar and the ENS team went to work to fix the bugs and present a revised ENS registrar to the root keyholders. The root keyholders have approved the revised registrar and the relaunch is scheduled for May 4, 2017.

Progress Since Initial Launch

The team made a lot of progress since the first launch attempt. The team identified, documented and addressed launch issues. You can see the list of issues and their resolution here.

The team will watch the relaunch closely. Contingency plans are in-place to alert the root keyholders of the need, if any, to take further action to address unexpected critical bugs.

How and When to Register a Domain Name

Domain names can be registered when the updated ENS Registrar becomes active on the Ethereum Mainnet.

This will happen on May 4, 2017 at 1100 UTC.

Once active on the Ethereum Mainnet, the ENS Registrar will use an auction process to distribute ENS names on the “.eth” top-level domain. The ENS Registrar uses a blind auction process described in EIP162.

The ENS team proposed a soft launch approach this time, and the root keyholders approved this as part of the relaunch. As a result, not all domain names will be available for bidding at the same time.

Domain names will become available over an 8 week period. Enter the domain name you’d like to register here to find out when it will become available for bidding.

Registering a “.eth” name with the auction registrar is a multi-step process.

There are two ways to register a “.eth” name with the auction registrar -

Option 1 — Using a DApp or Web-Based, User-Friendly Interface

This option only requires you to access a URL via your web3-enabled browser.

Visit http://registrar.ens.domains and follow the instructions. You can also use that link to check when a domain will become available.

(Remember, you won’t actually be able to bid for a name until the name becomes available.)

Option 2 — Using an Ethereum Console on Your Own Linux Server

This option assumes you have access to a Linux server running an Ethereum console. Step-by-step instructions describing this process are available here.

The basic steps are to -

Download and import ensutils.js into your Ethereum console

Start an auction

Place a bid

Reveal a bid

Finalize the auction

Have Questions or Find a Bug Before or After the Launch?

Ask the team questions before or after launch in the ENS Gitter room. The ENS team monitors that room and will respond to questions as they arise.

If you happen to find a bug, report it through the official Ethereum Bug Bounty process. The only way to receive a bounty for a bug find is by reporting it through that process.

Bugs disclosed publicly, e.g. in Gitter or Github, are not eligible to receive bug bounty payouts.

And may the fourth be with you :)