Ethereum News: ENSv2 Drops Namechain as Ethereum Scaling Changes the Math

The decision was mainstreamed by the recent Ethereum upgrades. The Ethereum news reported that the Fusaka upgrade raised the gas limit to 60 million in 2025, twice the previous limit.

Now, Ethereum developers aim to reach the 200-million-gas limit in 2026, as Wu writes. These rises were accompanied by an estimated 99% drop in ENS registration gas costs last year.

According to ENS contributors, the average gas cost of registering a name has dropped to less than $0.05, down from almost $5 last year. This economic burden decreased the economic justification of running an independent L2 network.

Cost Structure and Operational Tradeoffs

Ethereum news overview of the ENS decision brings out cost and complexity as decisive factors. Wu noted that subsidizing every ENS transaction in 2025 would have cost roughly $10,000 at current gas prices. Even at peak post-Fusaka fees, the estimate rises to about $250,000. Those figures remain below the projected cost of maintaining a dedicated L2.

By comparison, running Namechain would have introduced ongoing operational overhead. ENS contributors also cited additional trust assumptions tied to L2 infrastructure. They include upgradeability and the presence of centralized components involved in block production.

Under the original Namechain plan, most ENS names would have relied on CCIP-Read gateways for resolution. That approach would have added a dependency on external gateway infrastructure. According to ENS contributors, staying on L1 avoids introducing that bottleneck for millions of existing and future names.

Ethereum Name Service contributors stated that aligning ENSv2 with Ethereum L1 provides the same security and liveness guarantees that underpin on-chain finance activity across the network.

Ethereum News: Scaling Shifts ENS Architecture

Vitalik Buterin supported the decision, describing ENS names and records as high-value state central to the Ethereum ecosystem. He noted that ENS functions as a semi-financial application, given the cost of acquiring and holding names and their potential value.

Buterin said Ethereums expanded scaling roadmap makes L1 suitable for identity-related systems that benefit from global accessibility. He added that per-user account and profile data fit well on L1, while simpler, purpose-built L2s can handle user actions elsewhere.

ENS contributors stressed that dropping Namechain does not signal a retreat from multi-chain support. As per Ethereum news, ENSv2 will continue to support resolution across more than 60 blockchains, including Bitcoin and Solana. Wu also noted that upcoming updates will allow users to register .eth names from any EVM chain through a single process, without manual bridging.