Naming smart contracts

Smart contracts are a cornerstone of Ethereum's decentralized infrastructure, enabling autonomous applications and protocols. But even as contract capabilities evolve, users and developers still rely on raw hexadecimal addresses to identify and reference these contracts.

Naming smart contracts with Ethereum Name Service (ENS)opens in a new tab improves user experience by eliminating hexadecimal contract addresses and reduces risk from attacks such as address poisoning and spoofing attacks. This guide explains why naming smart contracts matters, how it can be implemented, and tools available such as Enscribeopens in a new tab to simplify the process and help developers adopt the practice.

Why name smart contracts?

Human-readable identifiers

Instead of interacting with opaque contract addresses like 0x8f8e...f9e3, developers and users can use human-readable names like v2.myapp.eth. This simplifies smart contract interactions.

This is made possible by the Ethereum Name Serviceopens in a new tab which provides a decentralized naming service for Ethereum addresses. This is analogous to how the Domain Name Service (DNS) enables users of the internet to access network addresses using a name such as ethereum.org instead of via an IP address such as 104.18.176.152.

Improved security and trust

Named contracts help reduce accidental transactions to the wrong address. They also help users identify contracts tied to specific apps or brands. This adds a layer of reputational trust, especially when names are attached to well-known parent domains like uniswap.eth.

Due to the 42-character length of Ethereum address, it's very hard for users to identify small changes in addresses, where a couple of characters have been modified. For instance an address such as 0x58068646C148E313CB414E85d2Fe89dDc3426870 would normally be truncated to 0x580...870 by user-facing applications such as wallets. A user is unlikely to notice a malicious address where a couple of characters have been altered.

This type of technique is employed by address spoofing and poisoning attacks where users are led to believe they are interacting with or sending funds to the correct address, when in fact the address simply resembles the correct address, but isn't the same.

ENS names for wallets and contracts protect against these types of attacks. Like DNS spoofing attacks, ENS spoofing attacks can also be harboured, however, a user is more likely to notice a misspelling in an ENS name than a small modification to a hexadecimal address.

Better UX for wallets and explorers

When a smart contract has been configured with an ENS name, it is possible for apps such as wallets and blockchain explorers to display ENS names for smart contracts, instead of hexadecimal addresses. This provides a significant user experience (UX) uplift for users.

For instance, when interacting with an app such as Uniswap, users will typically see that the app they are interacting with is hosted on the website uniswap.org, but they would be presented with a hexadecimal contract address if Uniswap has not named their smart contracts with ENS. If the contract is named, instead they could see v4.contracts.uniswap.eth which is far more useful.

Naming at deployment vs. post-deployment

There are two points at which smart contracts can be named:

At deployment time: assigning an ENS name to the contract as it is deployed.
After deployment: mapping an existing contract address to a new ENS name.

Both approaches rely on having owner or manager access to an ENS domain so they can create and set ENS records.

How ENS naming works for contracts

ENS names are stored onchain and resolve to Ethereum addresses via ENS resolvers. To name a smart contract:

Register or control a parent ENS domain (e.g. myapp.eth)
Create a subdomain (e.g. v1.myapp.eth)
Set the address record of the subdomain to the contract address
Set the contract's reverse record to the ENS to allow the name to be found via its address

ENS names are hierarchical and support unlimited sub-names. Setting these records typically involves interacting with the ENS registry and public resolver contracts.

Tools for naming contracts

There are two approaches to naming smart contracts. Either using the ENS Appopens in a new tab with some manual steps, or using Enscribeopens in a new tab. These are outlined below.

Manual ENS setup

Using the ENS Appopens in a new tab, developers can manually create sub-names and set forward address records. However, they cannot set a primary name for a smart contract by setting the reverse record for the name via the ENS app. Manual steps must be taken which are covered in the ENS docsopens in a new tab.

Enscribe

Enscribeopens in a new tab simplifies smart contract naming with ENS, and enhances user trust in smart contracts. It provides:

Atomic deployment and naming: Assign an ENS name when deploying a new contract
Post-deployment naming: Attach names to already-deployed contracts
Multi-chain support: Works across Ethereum and L2 networks where ENS is supported
Contract verification data: Includes contract verification data pulled from multiple sources to increase trust for users

Enscribe supports ENS names provided by users, or its own domains if the user doesn't have an ENS name.

You can access the Enscribe Appopens in a new tab to start naming and viewing smart contracts.

Best practices

Use clear, versioned names like v1.myapp.eth to make contract upgrades transparent
Set reverse records to link contracts to ENS names for visibility in apps such as wallets and blockchain explorers.
Monitor expiries closely if you want to prevent accidental changes in ownership
Verify contract source so users can trust that the named contract behaves as expected

Risks

Naming smart contracts provides significant benefits for users of Ethereum, however, owners of ENS domains must be vigilant with respect to their management. Notable risks include:

Expiry: Just like DNS names, ENS names registrations are of finite duration. Hence it is vital that owners monitor their domains expiry dates and renew them well in advance of their expiry. Both the ENS App and Enscribe provide visual indicators for domain owners when expiry is coming up.
Change in ownership: ENS records are represented as NFTs on Ethereum, where the owner of a specific .eth domain has the associated NFT in their possession. Hence should a different account take ownership of this NFT, the new owner can modify any ENS records as they see fit.

To mitigate against such risks, the owner account for the .eth 2nd level domains (2LD) should be secured via a multi-sig wallet with subdomains being created to manage contract naming. That way in the event of any accidental or malicious changes in ownership at the subdomain level, they can be overridden by the 2LD owner.

Future of contract naming

Contract naming is becoming a best practice for dapp development, similar to how domain names replaced IP addresses on the web. As more infrastructure such as wallets, explorers and dashboards integrate ENS resolution for contracts, named contracts will improve safety and reduce errors across the ecosystem.

By making smart contracts easier to recognize and reason about, naming helps bridge the gap between users and apps on Ethereum, improving both safety and UX for users.