What is NNS (NFT Name Service)

Since the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) sparked a domain craze in 2021, decentralized identity (DID) and domain names have become indispensable services on all public chains. After all, everyone has a wallet address in the Web3 world, yet it is quite hard to memorize a wallet address with lengthy characters. A decentralized domain name is a human-readable one used as a wallet address, such as example.eth, so crypto assets can be received through the domain.

We shared some knowledge about domain services and ENS in What is the ENS (Ethereum Name Service). ENS offers great convenience to users as readable domains make it less likely to transfer crypto assets to a wrong address due to input errors. Moreover, ENS can be associated with personal information, making “.eth” the first domain name adopted by many users in the Web3 world.

But ENS does not necessarily represent the final version of decentralized domain names, and it still has some issues to tackle. First, most users own addresses on multiple chains, but ENS is based only on Ethereum. Such chain-specific domains do not share identity information across chains. For example, if a user wants to own a domain name on both Ethereum and AVAX, he needs to register both ENS and Avvy Domain.

In addition, the design defect of the zero-width joiner (ZWJ) on ENS triggers a security concern among some users. A zero-width joiner is a special character whose width is zero but is counted as a character. It is invisible to the human eye but can be detected by a computer. This brings about several different “.eth” domains that look the same.

Currently, ENS has blocked the use of some ZWJs on the client end. But if you search for vitalik.eth on OpenSea, you can still find some ENS domains that look exactly the same. The second domain name in the figure below uses ZWJs that are invisible to the naked eye. Therefore, OpenSea marks the domain page with an exclamation point to indicate the use of non-ASCII characters.

Source: OpenSea

To solve the problems facing ENS, many developers have started to work on new domain projects and tried to build a complete Web3 DID ecosystem, including NFT Name Service (NNS).

Developed by MetaScan Lab, NNS is a decentralized identity domain aimed to help users associate their personal information and crypto assets and create a completely composable, decentralized social network. Compared with other domain systems, NNS can better highlight its NFT characteristics of Web3 domains with “nft”.

Besides, the R&D team of MetaScan Lab tackled the design defects of ENS and improved the domain system, thus avoiding the security risk caused by human-unreadable issues in domains, such as null characters, ZWJs, invisible characters and similar fonts.

Officially launched in October 2022, NNS currently only supports Ethereum and aims to offer domain services across chains. As shown in the roadmap below, NNS will bridge to BSC in Q1 2023 and continue to support other EVM-compatible chains. In Q4 2023, MetaScan Lab will build the Layerzero chain based on DAG and break the barriers of the DID system.

Source: nft.space

To connect the physical world and the Web3 world, NNS will establish a complete on-chain reputation certificate system in the future. Users can connect NNS with applications such as Link3 and TwitterScan (a Twitter-based crypto sentiment analysis platform launched by MetaScan) to bind the Web3 identity with the Web2 identity. Moreover, NNS’s reputation system will record users’ contributions and achievements based on on-chain data. When other DApps need to use relevant information, it can share information safely by verifying the certificate authority (CA) issued by NNS to users, thus breaking the inter-chain information silo in the Web3 world.

CoinEx Wallet takes the lead in supporting the NNS domain services, allowing users to use the “.nft” instead of lengthy characters and enjoy more convenient transfer. Try it now: https://wallet.coinex.com/

With the advent of the Web3 era, the competition around DID is intensifying. As a secure and convenient multi-chain, multi-cryptocurrency wallet, CoinEx Wallet supports the transfer through decentralized domains, including ENS (.eth), DAS (.bit) and NNS (.nft). In the future, CoinEx Wallet will continue to develop and support more Web3 applications as a bridge connecting users to the future financial world.