Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, played a crucial role in enabling the development of the Ethereum Naming Service.

Nick Johnson found uncertainty regarding the capital required to establish Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Upon presenting his figures to the Ethereum Foundation for a grant, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, generously offered double the requested amount.

Speaking exclusively to sources at ETHGlobal in London, Johnson reflected on the evolution of ENS, a project enabling users to create human-readable Web3 addresses serving as both a wallet for cryptocurrencies and NFTs, as well as a domain for decentralized websites.

Formerly employed at Google, Johnson’s introduction to Bitcoin and Ethereum piqued his interest, particularly due to Ethereum’s programmability. Leveraging his expertise in infrastructure, tooling, and libraries, Johnson developed his own Ethereum strings library.

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Strings, a programming data type representing text, are crucial for various software tasks. According to front-end software engineer Jeffrey Jenkinson, string manipulation is among the most complex software tasks.

Hired by the Ethereum Foundation, Johnson embarked on the ENS project while initially working for the EthSwarm team, responsible for decentralized data storage. Recognizing the need for naming across Ethereum’s infrastructure, Johnson transitioned the project to the Go Ethereum (Geth) team as a side project.

Encouraged by the Ethereum Foundation to devote full-time efforts to ENS, Johnson proposed a two-year roadmap with a modest team size. However, Vitalik Buterin stepped in and doubled the grant amount.

Since its launch, ENS has seen over two million registrations. However, Johnson emphasizes other metrics, such as users transitioning to crypto addresses from DNS names. He anticipates continued growth in ENS registrations while focusing on expanding its reach to networks benefiting from Web3 utility.

ENS aims to introduce Ethereum layer-2 infrastructure in the coming years, with Johnson aspiring to enhance the service’s user-friendliness.