We’re excited to announce that the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) short name auction will be conducted on OpenSea, starting on September 1. (That’s less than 4 hours from this post!)

For those who aren’t already familiar, ENS is an open naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain. In some ways, it’s similar to DNS, the system that makes it possible to type “google.com” or “facebook.com” into your web browser and reach the relevant web page.

ENS turns human-readable names like “alice.eth” into identifiers such as Ethereum addresses, content hashes, and metadata. For example, instead of sending tokens (or an NFT) to a complicated, impossible-to-remember hash, you can simply send things to an easy-to-remember name.

OpenSea currently powers a marketplace for ENS names, allowing owners to buy and sell these names in a variety of formats, including eBay-style auctions, Dutch auctions, and bundle sales. But today we’re excited to tell you about the initial sale of brand new ENS names on OpenSea!

Introducing Short Names

The ENS team is releasing 3–6 character names (like “bob.eth” or “hello.eth”) through English auctions (similar to eBay) on OpenSea. Interested bidders will bid for a period of time, and the final and highest winning bid will win the name. The exact details on how these auctions will work and details on how to participate can be found here.

We’ve long admired the work the ENS team has done pioneering open standards on the Ethereum blockchain. We’re incredibly excited and honored to be working with the team — and to help get ENS in the hands of more users and developers!

Auctions will kick off September 1 at 00:00 UTC here. Happy bidding!