We’re rapidly approaching the first anniversary of the ENS launch, on May 4th 2018. One year old already!

If you bought an ENS name over the past year, you might remember that you can release it for a return of your deposit once a year has passed. You might also be wondering about renewals — what do you need to do if you want to keep the domain?

Releasing your domain

If you don’t want your domain any longer, and it’s been at least a year since you registered it, you can release it back into circulation and get your entire deposit back.

We plan to add a user-interface for doing this soon, but in the meantime the process is a bit manual. Here’s what you have to do:

Go to https://www.mycrypto.com/#contracts In “Select Existing Contract”, choose “ENS: ETH Registrar (Auction)”. Click “Access”. Under “Select a function”, choose “releaseDeed”. Go to https://etherscan.io/ and enter your ENS domain name in the search box. Copy the “labelHash” value and paste it into the “_hash” field in MyCrypto’s interface. Unlock your Ethereum account in MyCrypto using whatever method you usually use. Click “Write”. In the popup, enter 300000 in the “Gas Limit” box and click “Generate Transaction”. Click “Yes, I am sure! Make transaction.” Wait for your transaction to be mined.

Thanks to blurpesec for his Reddit post outlining these steps, too!

If you have any questions about the process, please join our Gitter channel so we can help you out!

Keeping your domain

If you want to keep your ENS name, it’s really simple: you don’t have to do anything at all. Once you’ve registered a name, it’s yours until the next version of the registrar is deployed. The current estimate for that happening is about a year from now. You don’t have to do anything between now and then to keep an ENS name you currently own.

Once the next version of the registrar is deployed — likely around ENS’s second anniversary, you’ll have the option to either migrate your name under the new registrar’s rules, or release your name, and get your deposit back. At that time, after a yet-to-be-determined grace period, your name will be released back into circulation. You’ll be able to recover your deposit from that name after it is released back into circulation.