What is ENS and DID?

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a lookup system for the Ethereum blockchain. It functions in a similar fashion to the DNS system on the internet, allowing users to search for websites using names rather than numbers. A decentralized identifier (DID) is a pseudo-anonymous identification for a person, business, item, or other entity.

What is ENS and what can it be used for?

[TL; DR]

1. What is ENS and what can it be used for?
2. Why is ENS rising?
3. Another initiative that might spur adoption is ENS
4. What is DID and it’s Advantages ?
5. Public Key Infrastructure Decentralized (DPKI)
6. Storage that is decentralized
7. Control and manageability

On a technical level, the ENS can leverage Ethereum's current ecosystem, making it extremely customizable and capable of interacting with other smart contracts beyond naming. Aside from that, the decentralized web is being developed in ENS's collaboration with the IPFS file storage system.

You may search a directory of decentralized websites at almonit.eth, which is a good place to start. You can access this site as written with MetaMask enabled, or you can add links to decentralized websites and access them without MetaMask or special browsers owing to their efforts in bridging Web3 and the internet's DNS.

Many developers in the Decentralized Identity Community are already developing Open Source tooling/products and protocols to facilitate trust, privacy, security, and data sovereignty, which will be integrated with the Ethereum ecosystem and vice versa.

Why is ENS rising?


Everyone who has even a passing interest in cryptocurrency has heard of Ethereum, but smaller altcoin observers may have watched something called the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) surge up the market's charts in recent days.
Although its gain has been spectacular, many readers and retail traders may be unsure what it is and why it is rising. Fortunately, this essay will describe the importance of the Ethereum Name Service inside the Ethereum ecosystem, and why this position suggests that ENS will likely soar even higher in the future.

The Ethereum Name Service, as its name suggests, can be used to give names to wallet addresses (from over 100 different blockchains), web domains, hashes, and other machine-readable identifiers. By "names," we mean words like cryptovantage.eth or bitcoin.eth that you or any other semi-literate human being can easily read. Not only that, but the names granted by the service are non-fungible tokens, which means they may be exchanged and transferred after they've been used.

People can transfer you bitcoin without having to copy-paste a long-winded hexadecimal hash and then check, double-check, and triple-check it if you give it a name.
The Ethereum Name Service assigns all names with the ".eth" suffix, making them easier to remember. They can be claimed through an auction: users can go to app.ens.domains, verify the availability of the name they want to claim, and then begin the registration process if the name is available.

Another initiative that might spur adoption is ENS

Many investors continue to complain about how technical and user-unfriendly cryptocurrency is; but, as cryptocurrencies gain popularity, services like the Ethereum Name Service may become more popular.

Anyone who is especially optimistic about the Ethereum Name Service may even claim that it will be one of the essential requirements if cryptocurrency is to become fully widespread.

It goes without saying that this appears to be considerably more enticing — and easier to remember — than an apparently random string of alphanumeric letters. So, while ENS is still fluctuating between higher and lower valuations at the present, it's easy to see it becoming considerably more costly over time. Especially when Ethereum Name Service registrations are increasing at a rate of roughly 220 percent per month and 2,000 percent per year.

What is DID and it’s Advantages ?


A decentralized identifier (DID) is a new form of identifier that allows for verified and decentralized digital identification. A DID is any topic (e.g., a person, organization, item, data model, abstract entity, etc.) as defined by the DID's controller.

A private key protects each DID. Only the owner of a private key may show that they own or control their identity. One individual can have many DIDs, limiting the extent to which they can be monitored throughout their various activities in life.

These credentials are cryptographically signed by their issuers, DID owners can keep them themselves rather than depending on a single profile provider. Non-attested data, such as surfing histories or social media posts, can also be connected with DIDs by the data's owner or controllers, depending on the context and intended purpose.

Users may produce the verified identification in the form of a QR code to confirm their identity and access particular services once it has been matched with a decentralized identity. The service provider confirms the identification by checking the proof of control or ownership of the offered attestation — the attestation was connected with a DID, and the user signed the presentation using the DID's private key. Access is provided if they match.

Regulations such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) enhance identification requirements, which necessitate the use of current identity solutions.

Public Key Infrastructure Decentralized (DPKI)

The Decentralized Identity Key Infrastructure (DPKI) is at the heart of Decentralized Identity. Blockchain allows DPKI by providing a tamper-proof and trustworthy means for the distribution of the identity holders' asymmetric verification and encryption keys. Decentralized Public Key Infrastructure (DPKI) allows anybody to produce or anchor cryptographic keys on the Blockchain in a tamper-proof and chronologically ordered manner. These keys are used to enable others to validate digital signatures or encrypt data for the identity holder.

Storage that is decentralized

Blockchain-anchored identities are fundamentally safer than identities maintained on centralized systems. It is feasible to disintermediate existing centralized data storage systems while retaining trust and data integrity by combining the cryptographically secure Ethereum blockchain with distributed data storage systems such as InterPlanetary FileSystem (IPFS) or OrbitDB.

One of the key components of safe identification data management is decentralized storage. Credentials are often saved directly on the user's device (e.g., smartphone, laptop) or securely held by private identity stores in a decentralized architecture.

Identity hubs, such as uPort's TrustGraph or 3Box, are private identity stores. Identity is deemed self-sovereign when it is solely within the authority of the user. As a result, the user has complete control over access to the data and does not have to worry about access being canceled. Data under the user's control makes information more interoperable, allowing the user to utilize data on many platforms, use the information for varied reasons, and avoid being trapped into a single platform.

Control and manageability

The entity delivering the identification is typically responsible for the security of the identity data in centralized identity systems. Security becomes the user's duty in a decentralized identity framework, and he or she may choose to install his or her own security measures or outsource the effort to a service such as a digital bank vault or a password-manager-like software. Furthermore, blockchain-powered, decentralized identification systems compel hackers to attack individual data stores, which is both costly and inefficient.


Author : Joy A., Gate.io Researcher
This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
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