ENS and Manifold Finance Reach Settlement Over eth.link Domain Dispute
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) developer has agreed to settle with Manifold Finance over the ownership of the eth.link domain.
The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) of ENS approved a settlement of $300,000 to be paid to Manifold, while also securing the rights to retain the domain name, according to a vote ending Monday.
Additionally, ENS Labs’ legal costs of $750,000 will be reimbursed, as confirmed by an ENS DAO vote on February 26.
This settlement brings an end to an 18-month legal battle that saw ENS Labs file a lawsuit against Manifold and domain registrars GoDaddy and Dynadot in an Arizona District Court.
ENS Labs had successfully obtained a court order to prevent the transfer of the domain away from their ownership.
The settlement terms proposed by Manifold demanded a payment of $300,000 from ENS Labs, along with confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses.
In exchange, an all-parties settlement would be reached, leading to the dismissal of the case and allowing ENS Labs to retain control of the eth.link domain name.
ENS, an equivalent of the traditional Domain Name System (DNS) on the blockchain, facilitates the translation of domain names, into IP addresses for easier accessibility by browsers.
As the two systems are not directly compatible, ENS utilizes the eth.link domain to enable .eth ENS-based domains to function properly.
The eth.link domain had previously been owned by Virgil Griffith, an early contributor to ENS.
However, due to his incarceration for assisting North Korea in evading sanctions, the domain’s ownership expired in July 2022.
GoDaddy, the registrar of eth.link, allowed it to expire, leading to Manifold acquiring the domain through an auction on Dynadot in
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