[READY TO VOTE] Scale ENS to Optimism

Delegate Mission Request Summary

The top priority for ENS in 2024 is scaling. To scale ENS to Optimism, we need dedicated Optimism production-ready gateways as well as documentation, sample code and support, ready to assist any teams that want to set up their own subname registrars on Optimism to offer subnames such as tim.opcommunity.eth.

S5 Intent
Intent 3: Improve the Consumer Experience

Proposing Delegate: Jack Anorak

Proposal Tier:

Fledgling Tier

Baseline grant amount:

150K OP

Should this Foundation Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants: Multiple

Submit by: To be set by Grants Council

Selection by: To be set by Grants Council

Completion date: Aug 1, 2024

Specification

How will this Delegate Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

Scaling ENS to Optimism improves users’ security and trust. The most basic use of ENS is to turn 0x addresses like 0x06109ff24C5c9759F8Ff01E6485a3c1544D70075 into human-readable addresses like jane.verro.eth, reducing the likelihood of errors and making onboarding smoother for new users.

ENS domains also enhance security by providing users with secure and verifiable named contracts, such as router.xyzswap.eth, and decentralized front ends for dapps, such as dapp.xzyswap.eth.limo. The incorporation of ENS domains is not just a technical enhancement but an overall usability upgrade, delivering a higher-quality user experience.

What is required to execute this Delegate Mission Request?

Currently the majority of ENS names, such as vitalik.eth, are registered on L1 Ethereum, which has very high gas costs, often more than $30 for a $5/y name. To solve this problem it is possible to use Optimism mainnet to register ENS names, starting with ENS subnames, i.e. tim.opcommunity.eth. With the recent introduction of the EVM Gateway, GitHub - ensdomains/evmgateway: This repository implements a generic CCIP-Read gateway for fetching state proofs of data on other EVM chains. The intended use is for contracts on L1 to be able to fetch and verify data from contracts on L2 in a read context., it is possible to provably resolve ENS names via L1 Ethereum that are registered and maintained on Optimism mainnet. Recently Vitalik Buterin posted on X,

“All L2s should be working on (trustless, merkle-proof-based) CCIP resolvers, so that we can have ENS subdomains registerable, updateable and readable directly on L2s.

“ENS is super-important, it needs to be affordable!”

While some of the basic building blocks to make this possible have recently been built, e.g., the EVM Gateway, there is still a lot of work to be done in order to make the process of launching an ENS subname project on Optimism mainnet easy and affordable. As ENS scales it will become increasingly dependent on gateway servers, which are tasked with fetching data from L2s and verifying the date on L1 using proofs. Similar to DNS, which has decentralization and redundancy built into the design of DNS servers, ENS also needs to have multiple independent providers of trustless gateways. Establishing an independent dedicated production-ready Gateway service that is supported and can be used for free by Optimism developers is a vital infrastructure component. It is also necessary to provide documentation on how the service can be used, as well as provide access to all the code components necessary to create an Optimism based subname registrar. It should also be possible for this to be completed as a weekend hackathon project, with the support of the service provider of the gateway and documentation.

The deliverables for this execution path include:

  1. Establish a dedicated Optimism production gateway service.
  2. Create documentation and audited demo code on setting up an ENS subname registrar.
  3. Offer a free tier of gateway services.
  4. Maintain a support channel, e.g. Discord, for developers to receive free support.

How should the Token House measure progress towards this Mission?

  • These measures should focus on progress towards completion. Including expected completion dates for each is recommended
  • Please be as specific as possible in defining measures of progress so that Token House delegates can accurately track execution
  1. Establishing a dedicated Optimism ENS gateway service – 90 days
  2. Documentation and demo code – 150 days
  3. Launch the public gateway service for OP Mainnet and OP Sepolia, i.e. to hackathon participants – 180 days
  4. Setup and support a support channel, i.e. Discord – 180
  5. Continue to support teams working on ENS subname projects – Ongoing beyond conclusion of project

How should badgeholders measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

  • These measures should be focused on performance and may be used by badgeholders to assess your Misson’s impact in the next round of RetroPGF
  • Please be as specific as possible in defining measures of impact so that Citizens’ House badgeholders can accurately measure the grant’s impact

The goal of the mission is to directly serve developers and teams that want to set up and run ENS subname registrars on Optimism. The first measure of success will be to objectively meet all the milestones by the completion dates, with easy to use code and documentation, as well as reliable gateway services and support. In addition, it is possible to determine the impact through objective measures, including real use of the gateway API service, hackathon projects using the sample code, and support.

*Have you engaged a Grant-as-a-service provider for this Mission Request? If so, please disclose the details of this arrangement, to the extent possible:

No

*Has anyone other than the Proposing Delegate contributed to this Mission Request? If so, who, and what parts of this application did they contribute to?

The original draft was made by premm.eth from Unruggable.com

Application Instructions:

To be defined by the Grants Council in accordance with their internal operating procedures.

42 Likes

Yes, please!

I’m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

13 Likes

I am one of the Synthetix Ambassadors, and a Optimism Badgeholder. I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #65 by mastermojo ] with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

5 Likes

Fully supporting the request for ENS scaling on Optimism. The proposed measures of progress and impact are well-defined, offering a clear roadmap for success. Excited to witness the positive outcomes of this initiative.

5 Likes

I am so excited to see ENS on Optimism!

I’m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote!

chuck noris

6 Likes

Looking forward to see how it goes on Op chain:)
As a big fun/ user of both chain and also feeling difficulties for these high cost of ETH, that’ll be much appreciated for most of the communities.

3 Likes

I represent Layer3 and we are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

6 Likes

That’s a great proposal.
Optimism has a large community and is generally very focused on its growth.
So I think the ENS scaling on Optimism is very useful for the whole community.
Let’s support it.

2 Likes

I’ve been waiting for this. Optimism x ENS are 2 of the biggest innovators in this space. I owe my onboarding in blockchain to both of these projects, so this is much needed.

This sounds great! As an ENS service provider, delegate, and contributor, I would love to see and get involved in ENS scaling through Optimism.

3 Likes

I represent Polynomial and we are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

As someone who builds on ENS protocol, I can say that this is of utmost importance for Web3. And it would be amazing to see Optimism lead the way and set the standard for other L2s adopting ENS because sooner or later it needs to be (and will be) implemented everywhere. Fully support this initiative and the team behind it. :saluting_face:

2 Likes

Super excited for possibilities of this! I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

1 Like

Very excited to see ENS on OP!

2 Likes

I’m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

2 Likes

I am an Optimism delegate [Agora - OP Voter] with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

2 Likes

Huge fan of ENS and you already have enough delegate support but please help me with couple of points.

  1. Do you have a cost breakdown ?

there is still a lot of work to be done in order to make the process of"

is this work covered under devliverables or you are still investigating. ?

Good question. I defer to @nxt3d on this.

I’m developing Opti.domains and sharing my view about the process

To accomplish Scale ENS to Optimism, each team needs to develop

  1. Resolver contract on L2 that has a deterministic storage structure
  2. CCIP Gateway server
  3. Resolver contract on L1 that verifies storage proof of L2 resolver
  4. User interface for pointing resolver to L2
  5. User interface for managing resolver records
  6. Open source user interface for subdomain registration
  7. A secure contract for subdomain registration on L2

While some of the basic building blocks to make this possible have recently been built, e.g., the EVM Gateway, there is still a lot of work to be done in order to make the process of launching an ENS subname project on Optimism mainnet easy and affordable.

It’s 4,5,6,7 that I have highlighted above plus extra work to generalize the resolver on both sides.

  • ENS Provided code only resolves addr, text, and contenthash record. It would need works to develop support of more record types and best to able to support new without redeploying the resolver contract.
  • Gateway server stability and latency optimization
  • Access control mechanism (Current implementation allow DelegatableResolver owner to set records of any names on L2 including one that isn’t owned by that wallet and guarded by L1 resolver pointing mechanism which is not friendly for building registrar on L2)
  • Adoption driving

The mission has highlighted an opportunity to drive adoption using hackathons which need a healthy ecosystem that can match projects with related hackathon organizers.

Otherwise, it would be really hard to drive adoption even though ENS develops this itself.

2 Likes

The work is well understood at this point. There have been multiple one-off projects demonstrating registering ENS subnames on Optimism, such as https://optinames.xyz/ and https://optimism-demo.unruggablenames.com/, however there is a need for reliable production ready gateway services, tooling and support, in order to make setting up an ENS subname registrar easy enough and reliable enough for any Optimism community to do it.

It is possible to break up the deliverables into three parts with a budget of 50K OP for each part.

  1. Establishing a dedicated Optimism ENS gateway service – 50K
  2. Documentation and audited demo code – 50K
  3. Setup and support a support channel, i.e. Discord, + hackathons (6 months) – 50K

It is also possible to more fully detail each of these three deliverables, which I expect will happen when teams apply for the funding.

1 Like