ENS Labs Peaceful With Manifold Finance On Domain Eth.link

ENS, Ethereum Name Service. (Photo; Doc. NFT Evening)

JAKARTA - ENS Labs, an Ethereum-based domain name service developer, Ethereum Name Service, has finally settled a legal dispute with the crypto platform Manifold Finance regarding domain ownership of eth.link. ENS Labs agreed to pay Manifold Finance of IDR 4.69 billion (equivalent to 300,000 US dollars) in compensation, after obtaining approval from DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) which manages the ENS project.

ENS, or Ethereum Name Service, is a service that allows users to give their Ethereum wallet address easy to remember, which is usually a long and complicated series of letters and numbers. This service aims to make it easier for users to interact with Ethereum-based applications and protocols.

However, the finitely ending domain ENS of.eth is not compatible with the traditional Domain Name System (DNS) which is the internet standard. This means that if users type ENS domains in ordinary web browsers, they will not be able to access sites or content related to these domains.

To solve this problem, ENS uses domain eth.link as an intermediary. This domain has two main functions: EthDNS and EthLink. EthDNS allows traditional DNS to retrieve domain diversion information stored in ENS, so users can access data stored on the Ethereum blockchain. EthLink is dedicated to dealing with the.eth domain, so users can visit websites that use the ENS domain via the regular web browser.

The dispute between ENS Labs and Manifold Finance began in mid-2022, when the GoDaddy-listed domain eth.link expired. The owner of the domain at the time was Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum developer who was arrested and imprisoned for being accused of helping North Korea avoid US sanctions using crypto.

GoDaddy, as a domain registration service provider, did not extend the domain of eth.link in Griffith's name, so the domain could be purchased by Manifold Finance on the auction site Dynadot on September 3, 2022. This made ENS Labs lose control of the domain, and filed a lawsuit against the Arizona district court to prevent the domain from being transferred to Manifold Finance.

After months of filing, the lawsuit finally reached a settlement point, after ENS Labs received approval from its DAO to accept a peace offer from Manifold Finance. According to Nick Johnson, founder of ENS, Manifold Finance asked for IDR 4.69 billion (equivalent to 300,000 US dollars) plus a confidentiality clause and a ban on slander so that the case can be closed and ENS Labs still has a domain of eth.link.

Johnson also said that ENS Labs had spent a legal fee of Rp11.74 billion (equivalent to US$750,000) during the lawsuit process, and asked DAO to return the fee. The DAO vote ended on Sunday evening, and the majority of DAO members agreed to both proposals.

With this settlement, ENS Labs can continue its operations without interruption, and continue to provide Ethereum-based domain name services for users. ENS Labs is also still cooperating with GoDaddy, one of the parties involved in the lawsuit, to allow users to connect ENS domains with traditional domains for free.