ENS Labs Develops Namechain: A New Layer 2 Network

ENS Labs, the organization behind the Ethereum Name Service, is developing its own Layer 2 network titled Namechain. ENS offers a decentralized naming system on the Ethereum blockchain that provides human-readable names to crypto addresses.

> “The industry’s success metric for rollups these days is TVL,” said Jeff Lau, co-founder of ENS, during the frENSday event in Bangkok. “We don’t need to prioritize TVL. ENS already has users, and we can really focus on things that other L2s don’t.”

The launch of Namechain is expected around the end of 2025, as communicated by ENS Labs to The Block. Built on zero-knowledge proof technology, Namechain will process and execute transactions off the main Ethereum network while maintaining the full security of Ethereum at lower costs.

The interoperability-focused Namechain will include L2-to-L2 bridging within the protocol. “So you can do things like commit whilst you bridge, and pay from your preferred L2,” Lau stated.

Lau added that Namechain is designed to be L2-agnostic, which aims to lower barriers to entry, allowing users to commence their ENS journey from any L2 network. ENS Labs noted that name registration and management on Namechain will cost 99% less than fees on Layer 1 networks.

> “Deploying onto another public chain makes it harder to build that UX right into the protocol, and controlling the entire stack from protocol to governance means that the rollup is here to serve ENS and naming,” Lau explained at the event.

The upcoming chain has three priorities: fast finality using zkEVM, open source software, and sustaining the decentralized nature of ENS.

Namechain is part of a broader initiative called ENSv2, the second version of ENS launched in May, which aims to extend the naming service onto Ethereum Layer 2 networks to enhance flexibility and affordability.

Lau mentioned that the team has already selected its L2 partners for Namechain but did not reveal their identities.

In September, ENS Labs announced the integration of ENS with PayPal and Venmo. At that time, it was reported that ENS had over 2 million names registered on-chain and more than 4 million names off-chain.