Glossary
The words you meet when you buy a name.
A .eth name is simple to own and simple to use — but the vocabulary around it is not. Here is every term you are likely to run into, in plain English, with a note on why it matters to you. For the big picture first, read What is a .eth name?
Foundations
- Blockchain
- A shared record that many independent computers keep in sync. Once something is written, no single party can quietly change or delete it. Why it matters: your name's ownership record lives here, not on a company's server that could go away.
- Ethereum
- The specific blockchain that ENS names run on. It can hold balances and run small programs called smart contracts.
- Mainnet
- The real, live Ethereum network where real value moves — as opposed to test networks used by developers. Why it matters: this page reads name records straight from mainnet, so what you see is the current truth.
- Wallet
- An app or device that holds your keys and lets you approve actions on Ethereum — for example MetaMask, Rainbow, or a Ledger hardware wallet. It is your account and your signing tool in one.
- Address 0x-account
- Your public account number on Ethereum — a string beginning
0x. Safe to share; it is where names and funds are sent. Why it matters: a.ethname is really just a friendly label pointing at one of these. - Private key
- The secret that proves an address is yours and authorizes every action from it. Whoever holds it controls the account, fully.
- Seed phrase recovery phrase
- A list of 12–24 words that regenerates your wallet and all its keys. It is the master backup. Why it matters: written on paper, stored offline, never typed into a website. Anyone who reads it owns everything in the wallet.
- Gas
- The network fee you pay to write a change to Ethereum, paid in ETH. It rises and falls with how busy the network is. Why it matters: registering or renewing a name costs the name's price plus a small gas fee.
- Transaction
- A single signed instruction sent to Ethereum — send funds, register a name, update a record. Once confirmed it cannot be reversed.
- Smart contract
- A program that lives on Ethereum and runs exactly as written, with no operator in the middle. ENS is a set of these.
- Token
- A unit of value or ownership tracked by a smart contract. ETH is the network's own currency; other tokens ride on top.
- NFT
- A token that is one-of-a-kind rather than interchangeable. Each
.ethname is an NFT — which is how it can be owned, transferred, and shown in a wallet.
ENS & .eth names
- ENS Ethereum Name Service
- The naming system that maps a readable name like
yourname.ethto an address, a website, and a profile. Think of it as the phone book and the business card together. - .eth name
- A name registered in ENS. It is not a DNS domain — it will not resolve in a normal browser bar without help — but it works across wallets and Web3 apps as your identity.
- Registrar
- The ENS contract that issues
.ethnames and tracks their expiry dates. It is the contract this page queries for a name's status. - Controller
- The ENS contract you actually register and renew through. It quotes the price and takes the payment.
- Resolver
- The contract that answers "what does this name point to?" — the address, the website hash, the profile fields. Changing where your name points means updating your resolver records.
- Records
- The data attached to a name. The address record says which wallet it represents; text records hold your email, URL, avatar, social handles, and a short description. Why it matters: this is your public profile. Filling it in is what turns a name into an identity.
- Contenthash
- A special record that points a name at a website stored on IPFS. Set it, and
yourname.eth.limoloads your site. - Primary name reverse record
- The setting that makes apps display your name instead of your
0x…address. Without it, you own the name but the world still sees the number. - Subname subdomain
- A name issued under one you own —
team.yourname.eth,pay.yourname.eth. You can create as many as you like and hand them out. - NameWrapper
- An upgrade that turns a name into a more capable NFT and lets the owner lock or delegate specific permissions on it and its subnames.
The name's lifecycle
- Registration period
- How long you have paid to hold the name, set in whole years. You can extend it any time by renewing.
- Expiry
- The date your paid term ends. It is not a hard cliff — a grace period follows — but it is the date to act before.
- Grace period
- 90 days after expiry during which only you can renew and no one else can take the name. Miss it and the name goes back on the market. Why it matters: this is the window a reminder system exists to protect.
- Temporary premium
- After the grace period, a released name is auctioned with an extra fee that starts high and halves every day for 21 days, then reaches zero. Anyone can register it during this decay, at the current premium.
- Renewal
- Paying to extend the registration period. Anyone can renew any name for anyone — you do not need to own it to top it up — but only the owner benefits.
- Registrant vs. controller (of a name)
- On an unwrapped name these can differ: the registrant owns the NFT and can sell or transfer it; the controller can only edit its records. A wrapped name merges the two into a single owner.
Websites without a host
- IPFS InterPlanetary File System
- A way of storing files by their content rather than by a server address. Any node holding a copy can serve it, so there is no single host to fail or bill you.
- CID content identifier
- A fingerprint of a specific file or folder on IPFS. Same content, same CID, forever. Your site's CID is what gets written into your name's contenthash record.
- Pinning
- Paying or asking a service to keep a copy of your CID online so it stays reachable. Unpinned content can drift offline once nobody is hosting it. Why it matters: a hosted site needs its pin kept alive — that is the one recurring piece of a Web3 site.
- Gateway
- A bridge that lets a normal browser load IPFS content over the regular web. Run by third parties; if one is down, another still works.
- .eth.limo
- A public gateway that turns any
yourname.ethwith a contenthash into a workingyourname.eth.limoweb address, no plugin required.
Custody & safety
- Custodial
- A service holds your keys for you. Convenient, but you are trusting them, and they can freeze or lose the asset.
- Non-custodial self-custody
- You hold your own keys; no one can move your name or funds without you. Why it matters: every name sold here goes to your wallet. We never hold your keys, and we cannot recover them if you lose them.
- Approval allowance
- Permission you grant a contract to move a specific asset on your behalf — needed for marketplace listings. Review and revoke stale approvals periodically.
- Hot wallet / cold wallet
- A hot wallet is connected to the internet for everyday use. A cold wallet (hardware device, offline) is for holdings you rarely touch. Many people keep valuable names in cold storage.
- Phishing
- Fake sites and messages that trick you into signing a harmful transaction or revealing your seed phrase. Check URLs, never share the phrase, and be suspicious of urgency.
Buying & selling
- Transfer
- Sending the name's NFT from one wallet to another. It is a single on-chain transaction and it is final.
- Escrow
- A neutral hold on funds or the asset until both sides have done their part. Used for higher-value private sales to protect buyer and seller.
- Fixed price vs. best offer
- A name is either listed at a set price you can take immediately, or open to offers the seller can accept, counter, or decline.
- Floor price
- The lowest asking price in a category of names — a rough sense of the market, not a valuation of any specific name.
- Secondary marketplace
- A venue like OpenSea where names already registered are resold between owners, separate from first-time registration through ENS.