Ethereum scaling "faster than expected," ENS cancels Namechain L2, shifts to direct L1 new protocol

Ethereum Name Service provider ENS announces that it will officially cancel the originally planned Layer 2 project Namechain in ENSv2 and instead directly release the upgraded protocol on the Ethereum mainnet. ENS lead developer nick.eth stated that the drastic decrease in network fees over the past year has rendered the premise of “going L2 to reduce costs” no longer valid.

In an official blog post, nick.eth pointed out that the gas cost for ENS registration has decreased by approximately 99% in one year, driven by a series of structural changes brought about by Ethereum’s scaling upgrades. The recently launched Fusaka upgrade increased the single-block gas limit to 60 million, twice the goal set for early 2025. He also revealed that Ethereum core developers are aiming to cap the 2026 target at 200 million, which is a threefold increase from the current level, and this plan has not yet factored in any potential incremental benefits from zero-knowledge rollups.

Namechain was first announced in November 2024, positioned as a more affordable and efficient domain registration environment achieved through Rollups. However, nick.eth admits that the ecosystem conditions have fundamentally changed. The previous roadmap assumed limited mainnet scalability, making L2 the inevitable choice. Now, with throughput and cost structures on L1 rapidly improving, building directly on the mainnet has become feasible and simpler.

Although abandoning the independent L2, ENS has not stopped upgrading the protocol. The team will focus on the architectural evolution of ENSv2 itself, including a brand-new registry system, a clearer ownership model, a more reliable expiration handling mechanism, and the flexibility of configuring separate registries for each domain. These changes aim to improve performance, maintainability, and scalability.

nick.eth also emphasized that shifting to L1 does not mean cutting off connections with the L2 ecosystem. ENSv2’s design retains high interoperability, and the new registration process simplifies cross-chain operations, making it easier for domain systems on different networks to collaborate.

Against the backdrop of Ethereum’s ongoing scaling and rapidly decreasing fees, ENS’s shift is seen as an acknowledgment of the mainnet’s long-term adaptability and reflects how infrastructure layers are reshaping the technical decision-making logic at the application layer.