ENS (Ethereum Name Service)

ENS (Ethereum Name Service) is a decentralized naming system that maps human-readable names (like vitalik.eth) to Ethereum addresses, content hashes, and other resources. ENS names live entirely on-chain and are managed by smart contracts on Ethereum. They are not part of the traditional DNS and do not resolve in standard browsers without a resolver gateway or browser extension. ENS is a sibling category to tokenized ICANN domains: ENS optimizes for wallet identity and crypto-native use cases, while tokenized domains keep your real .com/.xyz/.io working everywhere on the internet and add a wallet-native ownership layer. Many users hold both — see Tokenized Domain vs Web3 Domain for a side-by-side. Official site: ens.domains.