The wider world · 75 / 86 · 2 min

Name services

A name service points a human name at an address. The name can be stolen, expire, or point somewhere you did not check. The name is not the address.

A worked case

Someone pays a name they have paid before. The name expired and was bought by someone else. The record now points at a new address. The payment was to the new owner. The name looked the same.

The pointer

You pay to rent the name. If you forget the renewal, someone else can take it and receive what people meant for you.

Theft

Phishing sites ask you to sign a change of the name. A support account offers to fix it. The signature was the theft.

Send a small test if the amount matters. Read the address, not only the name.

The name expired. The address did not.

Ethereum Name Service and similar systems point a human name at an address. They are useful, and they expire. A name you paid last year can be bought by someone else when the registration lapses. The name looks the same in the sender's wallet. The record underneath points at a new address. Payments to the name go to the new owner. The chain did what the record said.

Names are also stolen by phishing the registrar account, the same way a website domain is stolen. The address the name used to mean is not informed. People who bookmarked the name instead of the address are the ones who pay.

Check the address on the day you send, not the day you saved the name. The name is a pointer. Pointers are updated by whoever controls them, including a stranger after expiry.

Read it yourself

• ENS docs: what the name service is
• Ethereum white paper, on addresses

These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.

Apply the check

Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.

Check yourself