1. Applicant Information
1. Team Name: NameStone
2. Website/Other: namestone.com
3. Entity ENS Name.eth: namestone.com (DNS imported)
4. Primary Contact(s): slobo.eth
5. Company Overview:
NameStone aims to be the premier subname provider of ENS. We build with purpose, producing and refining first-to-market subname solutions that solve specific customer needs. Everything NameStone does supports our end goal: to make creating and managing ENS subnames easy.
Our current suite of tools targets businesses, developers, and everyday users:
- NameStone API: (For Businesses and Developers) a gasless REST API for easy ENS subname issuance and management. Clients use our no-code admin dashboard to manage domains and subdomains.
- Durin.dev: (For Developers) issue ENS subdomains on an L2 via factory and template contracts
- ENSPro.xyz: (For everyday users) an offchain ENS subname management platform
6. Requested Amount:
- Requesting $800,000
- Yes we intend to apply for the 2 year stream.
7. Size of team and commitment:
- We have four core team members. Additionally, we’ve contracted with six talented builders to make NameStone’s products great.
2. Eligibility Confirmation
1. Company Age & Reputation: The NameStone team has been working together since 2021, and NameStone has been live for years. We are powering 25k+ gasless subnames via our API—trusted by top Web3 projects like POAP, Dynamic, and Burner Wallet.
2. Team Experience: We have created products in crypto used by tens of thousands. Our expertise lies in delivering products quickly and then effectively iterating based on community feedback.
Our Core Member Bios
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slobo.eth – ENS Ecosystem Steward, ENSIP author, and long-time ENS Delegate. A proven leader with 10+ years of experience building and leading high-impact teams, with deep expertise in product management, marketing, and front-end development.
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darianb.eth – Web3 founder, tech lead, and system architect. The driving force behind the architecture of NameStone, ENSPro, Durin, and NftyChat (13k+ users). Specializes in full-stack development, Solidity, and product design.
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churina.eth – UI/UX designer specializing in intuitive Web3 experiences, with 3+ years of design expertise. Created distinctive brand identities for 10+ products, including NameStone, ENSPro, and Durin.
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builtbyeden.eth – Full-stack developer with experience at Oracle and Google building large-scale systems.
3. ENS Token Endorsement Requirement
slobo.eth endorses this application with 50k+ delegated ENS.
4. OFAC Sanctions Compliance
- We, NameStone, 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.
5. Multi Year Stream Eligibility
- Prior year compliance and participation in the SPP: Season 1 Application
- Season one quarterly updates: Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4
3. Open Source Commitment
Our work is and will continue to be MIT Licensed.
GitHub: namestonehq
Product Specific Repos:
- NameStone – Issue ENS subdomains through an easy-to-use REST API.
- Durin – ENS devkit for issuing L2 subdomains.
- ENSPro – No-code portal for managing ENS subdomains.
4. Scope of Work & Budget
4.1 Scope of Work
Requested amount: $800k/yr
Description: We want to build the premier subname provider of ENS. Our aim is to improve and innovate on our existing products to better serve our target personas. To make ENS subnames easy to issue and use, we will deliver the following.
Season 2 Deliverables & KPIs:
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Deliver at least one of the following improvements to durin.dev each quarter:
- Support trust-minimized records and subnames via EVM Gateway
- Provide a reference resolver and gateway starter kit for easy deployment and forking
- Add support for L2 Primary Names within 100 days of their mainnet release
- Upgrade contracts to implement ERC-6492 signature validation for predeploy contracts (an improvement for gas-subsidized workflows)
- Create a signature-based workflow enabling hackers or companies to subsidize minting and editing of Durin records
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Improve enspro.xyz
- Add support for L2 Primary Names within 100 days of their mainnet release by ENS Labs
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- Maintain 99%+ uptime for the NameStone API viewable here
- Add the ability to create L2 primary names via API call for NameStone’s API
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Create a backend service to facilitate the sponsored setting of L2 Primary Names across multiple chains by collecting a user signature and submitting transactions to the relevant networks
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We will report on:
- Domains using our resolvers
- Subnames minted
- L2 primary names set on our names or via NameStone’s products
Product Philosophy
NameStone evaluates and builds products through the lens of three core personas:
OG Olga
Olga has been in Web3 for years. She owns an ENS name and displays it across her socials. She wants to organize her public addresses but finds ENS too expensive. Her ENS profile has outdated links because updating them costs money. She’s looking for a free, easy way to manage socials and subnames.
Newcomer Nancy
Nancy is new to Web3. She’s attended a few events and heard people talk about their .eth names. When she explores ENS, she finds a name she likes—but the checkout experience is confusing, and the price discourages her.
Company Carl
Carl works on improving UX for his community, company, or protocol. He knows ENS subnames would benefit his users but lacks time and resources. Whether he’s a startup founder, a DAO contributor, or a solo hacker at a weekend hackathon, he’s looking for a fast, off-the-shelf solution to enable namespacing without getting bogged down in contracts and infrastructure.
These personas guide our product direction and help us stay responsive in a fast-moving space. For example, at the start of Season 1, we didn’t plan to build Durin.dev. But through engagement with the ENS ecosystem, the need for an opinionated framework for issuing subnames became clear. We launched Durin in November, and it’s already proven useful—over 150 registries have been deployed by developers. Durin is now featured in the official ENS docs alongside NameStone’s API.
- Budget
$800k/yr
[Optional] 4.3 Second Year Stream Scope of Work
- We will work to make NameStone API, durin.dev, and enspro.xyz first class citizens on NameChain.
- Continue to develop products that become relevant with the launch of NameChain using the personas outlined above as the guiding light.
5. Past Achievements & Additional Information
Highlight #1: Onboarding 200+ domains
NameStone’s mission is to make subnames simple, and we’ve been doing just that. We’ve onboarded over 200 domains into our API. We are especially proud of who we’re serving:
Burner — The hardware wallet and internet sensation that trusts us to support their viral growth.
Dynamic — The suite of industry-leading wallet and authentication tools that broadened our surface area through deep integration.
POAP — Ongoing collaboration with one of Ethereum’s core social protocols.
Highlight #2: Durin.dev
We were proud to launch durin.dev late last year. Durin is quickly becoming THE standard way to issue L2 subnames by hackers.
Durin Features:
- A frontend to handle deploying and configuring registries & registrars
- An open source repo with deploy scripts
- A default gateway to enable ENS name resolution on Sepolia & mainnet
- Supports Scroll, Linea, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base
Highlight #3: Relationship with Columbia Business School
Lastly, we want to highlight something we’re especially proud of. Both crypto and ENS still have a long road ahead in onboarding the uninitiated, and educating future leaders is one of the highest-leverage ways to accelerate that mission.
Over the past three semesters, we’ve had the opportunity to work closely with Columbia Business School professor Omid Malekan to help bring his students onchain. Through our project cu-cypherpunk, more than 150 students—many of whom will go on to lead major companies—have gained hands-on experience with ENS by claiming their own L2 subnames.
We’d like to share a quote from Professor Omid:
Additional Accomplishments:
- Enabled platforms to programmatically generate white-labeled API keys, making full integration with NameStone seamless and invisible to end users
- Introduced Sepolia support for NameStone API
- Enabled Gasless DNS Subnames for NameStone API
- Launched ENSPro: an offchain subname management tool created to make adding and editing subnames easy for everyone. Used by avsa.eth and other stewards in ENS.
- Issued 25k+ subnames and counting
- Upgraded teamnick.xyz to trust-minimized EVM gateway via unruggable gateways (thanks Unruggable)
- Developed custom, open source contracts to bring ENS subdomains to Polygon via gon.id—over 650 names registered
- Created a Quickstart SDK for NameStone’s API
- Enabled subname handouts for SheFi Summit attendees
- NameStone’s API helped hackers at ETHBrussels, ETHRome and ETHBangkok
This list is not exhaustive, but it reflects our goal to make ENS subnames as easy as possible.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to serve ENS. We will continue to serve and deliver the premier subname experience.
6. Video Introduction (≤ 5 minutes)
7. Conflict Of Interest Statement
The founder of NameStone is slobo.eth, who is an ENS delegate and a Steward of the ENS Ecosystem Working Group. In all cases where funding requests involving service providers were submitted to the Ecosystem Working Group, slobo.eth recused himself from the decision-making process. In his absence, the remaining two Ecosystem Stewards worked with the Meta-Governance Stewards to evaluate proposals and make funding decisions, ensuring impartiality and a clear separation of responsibilities. This process will continue moving forward.