Register a name.eth domain for yourself (ENS)

Registar a name.eth domain for yourself.

ENS (Ethereum Name Service) turns long hexadecimal addresses into human-readable names like ‘myname.eth’.
Top-level domains, like ‘.eth’ and ‘.test’ are owned by smart contracts called registrars. Anyone may obtain ownership of a second-level domain for their own use.

How name auctions work

New names are allocated using an auction process based on a “Vickery auction”. Auctions proceed in three stages:

1. First, someone opens an auction for a name they wish to buy, and places a bid. This starts a 3 day timer for other people to place bids on the name. During this period, the details of bids are obscured: nobody can tell how much you bid, or even what name you are bidding on.

2. After the three day auction finishes, a two day “reveal” period begins. During this period, everyone who bid must reveal the details of their bid — if they don’t, they lose their entire bid. If your bid is not the highest, you are refunded your bid, less a 0.5% fee, which is burned.

3. At the end of the two day reveal period, the winner is the person who revealed the highest bid, but they only have to pay the amount of the second-highest bidder. This amount is locked up in a contract for as long as the winning bidder retains control of the name. The winner must send a “finalise” transaction to receive a refund of any extra funds, and to be assigned control of the name in ENS.

Once someone wins an auction, the name is his or hers for at least the duration of the initial registrar. After holding the name for at least a year, however, they can choose to release the name and recover the entire amount of their deposit.

The system is in soft launch so your name may not be available yet. Due to scaling and to prevent a massive land rush on day 1, names are being released for auction on a gradual basis over 8 weeks. Every possible name becomes available at a random time during that period.

In addition, only names that are seven characters or longer may be registered at the present time. This is done in order to make sure that the highly valuable short names are only made available once the system has gained enough attention to ensure they get bid on fairly, and not all grabbed by early movers intending to resell them.

There are several interfaces for buying ENS domains. I use ENS at myetherwallet.com.

First I created a new ether wallet and loaded it with .025 Eth. Minimum bid is 0.01 ETH. You must make a mask bid of a higher amount than your personal bid. There aren’t many people bidding for names yet so just over minimum bid is good for most names. You need enough gas for the transactions and enough to cover your mask bid amount. I couldn’t get it to work under .025 ETH in my wallet.

Go to myetherwallet>ENS

Input the name (7 letters +)

Unlock your wallet to start an auction.

Remember that any time you place a bid, you must reveal it during the 48 hour reveal period, or you will lose the entire bid. Revealing requires access to your account/private key, and additional information as well.
It’s critical that you make sure you safely back up your bid information; otherwise you will be unable to reveal your bid when the time comes and will lose the entire amount of your bid.

Good luck.

http://docs.ens.domains/en/latest/faq.html
https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/27492/ens-guessing-bids-amounts-and-protecting-bid-anonymity
https://medium.com/the-ethereum-name-service/a-beginners-guide-to-buying-an-ens-domain-3ccac2bdc770
https://ens.domains/
https://www.coindesk.com/600k-ethereum-name-thriving-auction-market-underway/