1. Applicant Information
1. Company Name
Enscribe by Web3 Labs
2. Website
3. Entity ENS Name
4. Primary Contact
5. Company Overview
Enscribe.xyz provides decentralised smart contract naming services for Ethereum built on ENS.
Whilst ENS names and subdomains can be used to address smart contracts, this functionality is underutilised due to a lack of tooling and the additional steps required to create primary names for smart contracts.
We created Enscribe to address these issues.
6. Requested Amount
Single term, requesting $400,000.
7. Size of the team and commitment
Currently, myself and two full-time back-end engineers are working on Enscribe. If successful, a dedicated front-end developer will be hired. It has been self-funded to date.
Current team members include:
- Founder of Web3 Labs
- Creator of Enscribe and Chainlens Explorer
- Author of Web3j
- Author of The Blockchain Innovator’s Handbook
- 20+ years building in tech (enterprise → fintech → web3)
- Solidity and backend developer with 4+ years of focused expertise in the Ethereum ecosystem.
- Former VMware Blockchain engineer
- Full-stack developer
- 15+ years experience in building and maintaining products as a polyglot programmer
- Previously led a team of 5-8 devs
Web3 Labs is a bootstrapped company and has received zero funding towards Enscribe.
We’re doing this because we’re on a mission to see smart contracts being deployed and configured with ENS names. Users should not see meaningless hex contract addresses anywhere in the web3 user experience.
2. Eligibility Confirmation
1. Company Age & Reputation
Enscribe has been created by Web3 Labs. Web3 Labs was established in 2017 and is a builder of decentralised infrastructure.
The team are responsible for the Web3j Java and Android integration library for Ethereum which has actively supported ENS since 2017, and the Chainlens Explorer which added ENS support last year.
Enscribe was created to address the challenges with smart contract naming using ENS. Web3 Labs has a dedicated team working on the project.
2. Team Experience
Web3 Labs has deep, long-standing expertise in ENS and Ethereum infrastructure, demonstrated by:
7+ Years of ENS Integration & Tooling
Created Web3j, consistently supporting ENS integration since its early days (2017). Web3j has facilitated Ethereum and ENS integration for many organisations who depend upon it.
From Freedom Factory who have integrated it into the EthereumOS for their upcoming dGen1 phone, to wallet providers on the Android platform such as Wallet Connect, to web3 service providers such as Alchemy, and enterprises like Fnality who are launching wholesale digital currencies.
Blockchain Explorer Development
Built the Chainlens Explorer, delivering fast, user-centric EVM blockchain exploration with integrated ENS support, adopted by multiple prominent networks, including Linea, Palm, and Lumia networks. The Web3 Labs team built the entire infrastructure stack, no third-party indexing services are being utilised which is testament to their delivery capabtilities.
3. ENS Token Endorsement Requirement
50k delegated ENS tokens have been secured from scratch.ricmoo.eth via the following Snapshot.
4. OFAC Sanctions Compliance
We, Web3 Labs Ltd, confirm that neither our organization nor any of our employees, contractors, or executive leadership is located in, or a resident of, an OFAC-sanctioned country. We further confirm that none of our business resources are derived from or routed through any country or entity that is subject to sanctions imposed by the United States (OFAC) or equivalent regulatory bodies. We pledge to remain compliant with all applicable sanctions laws and will promptly notify the ENS DAO if our status changes.
3. Open Source Commitment
Enscribe source code is already available in the below MIT-licensed repos
The Enscribe Whitepaper is also freely available.
4. Scope of Work & Budget
1. Basic Scope of Work
Requested amount
$400k
Description
We are building decentralised infrastructure to simplify the naming of contracts using ENS.
This is being achieved with:
- The Enscribe App, where developers can deploy new and easily name existing smart contracts.
- Providing ENS integrations with leading developer tooling used for deploying smart contracts.
- Integrations with verification services for smart contracts such as Sourcify and contract audit platforms, to increase end-user trust in smart contracts.
A breakdown of the specific deliverables to support this follows.
Enscribe App
To minimise friction for users, the Enscribe App currently supports contract naming via two approaches
- Easily name existing contracts by allowing users to create a subname, set forward resolution and a primary name in one place (app) (video demo)
- A bundled deployment approach, where contract deployment and naming take place as a single transaction to simplify UX via CREATE2 (app) (video demo)
It also allows users to choose between naming their contracts with their own 2LD/subname, or a subname provided by Enscribe.
Enscribe App Enhancements
In addition to ongoing UX enhancements to the Enscribe App, the following functionality will be delivered.
Verification Records: Add verifications to contract ENS records from verification service providers (similar to how Dentity provides Profile Verification for ENS):
- Sourcify verification records
- Contract audits (firms/platforms TBC)
- Additional valuable services based on ongoing discussions with wallet providers
Expiry Monitoring: 2LD expiry monitoring in Enscribe app
- Enscribe users need to be able to identify any ENS names they have deployed contracts via which could be expiring in the near future.
- Tools such as ENSAdmin by NameHash Labs will be evaluated to assist with this.
Multi-network contract deployments
- Using Enscribe to deploy an arbitrary number of contract deployments on different networks using ENS Primary Names.
Further Deliverables
Developer Tooling: Developer tool integrations for deployments utilising the most widely used smart contract development frameworks:
- Foundry (draft spec)
- Hardhat (draft spec)
- Remix (TBD)
Network Rollouts
- Mainnet support for Ethereum, Base and Linea (testnets are already supported)
- Namechain support
- Support additional L2 networks where and ENS registry, reverse registrar and public/L2 resolver is deployed
Wallet Collaborations: Ongoing collaborations with wallet providers (Metamask, Phantom, Rainbow, Wallet Connect, etc) to identify how to add additional authenticity to ENS records for contracts.
Subname issuer partnerships
- Where appropriate, we intend to integrate with other ENS service providers for their subname issuance/management infrastructure where their userbase is adopting contract naming practices.
Content: Ongoing content creation and community engagement
- Smart contract developer behaviour needs to evolve such that naming contracts at deployment should become the new norm for developers. It is important that Enscribe creates an engaged community around its mission for this reason.
- To facilitate this, regular high-quality technical content needs to be created and shared in article and video format covering a number of topics including:
- ENS-specific naming mechanics
- Contributions to ENS documentation
- Creating our own high-quality technical documentation and content
- The Enscribe team will be present at Ethereum developer centric events, including EthCC, DevConnect and others.
KPIs / Success Metrics
Beyond specific deliverables, our primary success metric is monitoring the number of contracts being deployed to Ethereum mainnet and ENS-supported L2s with their primary names set.
If this number is not increasing we are failing in our mission.
Our goals for contract naming are as follows:
Short term (1 year): 0.1% of contracts being deployed with ENS names (this would be a huge improvement on where we are now)
Medium term (2-3 years): ~5% of all contract deployments have ENS names (similar to current levels of contract verifications on Etherscan)
Long term (5+ years): >90% of contract deployments have ENS names
Dune Analytics dashboards can be used to publicise these metrics. A prototype has been created here, however, this will need to evolve to track subnames being managed via other means such as off-chain providers.
In addition, Google Analytics metrics can be provided to help track Enscribe user activity.
These metrics can be reported in our quarterly reports.
Budget
$400,000 to cover full-time staff salaries plus travel to developer-focused Ethereum events.
5. Past Achievements & Additional Information
Based on data in Dune Analytics, of the 16,824,884 contracts deployed to the Ethereum Mainnet in the past two years, only 1,265 of these have ENS primary names set via the Reverse Registrar. Of these 424 are Gnosis Safes, leaving 211 being named smart contracts.
We need to change this! Contract naming by developers should become the default behaviour, not an afterthought. Ethereum users should not be exposed to smart contract addresses in transactions, they should be replaced with ENS names. By making it easier to name smart contracts with ENS we will get there.
This is what we are addressing with Enscribe.
Enscribe: Decentralised Contract Naming Infrastructure
- Enscribe App
- Enscribe Docs
- Whitepaper
- GitHub repos
- Overview presented at ENS Service Provider Strategy Forum
- Update presented at ENS Ecosystem Call
Web3j: Java and Android integration library for Ethereum
Chainlens Explorer: Fast and user-friendly EVM chain explorer
6. Video Introduction (≤ 5 minutes)
7. Conflict Of Interest Statement
We have no conflicts of interest.
Web3 Labs is a bootstrapped company, started by myself. It does have some customers that it runs Chainlens for, revenue from these activities is only enough to cover ongoing Chainlens development and support.
Funding for Web3j development is currently covered from a grant received in 2024 from the Ethereum Foundation.
The address csvensson.eth currently has 20K ENS tokens delegated to it.
Thank you for your consideration. 
Let’s get everyone naming their contracts! 