The parent firm of the popular web3 Ethereum Name Service (ENS), True Names Limited, is suing GoDaddy and others for the sale of the eth.link domain. This lawsuit was filed in Arizona, USA, in the past week, striving to stop the sale of eth.link to decentralized finance (DeFi) firm Manifold Finance which acquired the name on September 4 for $851,919.
Today, ENS and its previous owner, Virgil Griffith, are suing GoDaddy, the new owners, Manifold Finance, and the auction sellers, Dynadot. ENS and others are suing GoDaddy for the sale of eth.link
ENS Sues GoDaddy And Others
The confirmation of a lawsuit in Arizona indicates that ENS and Virgil Griffith are serious about getting the eth.link domain back. Nonetheless, it is highly complicated than it appears. GoDaddy can insist that the domain name expired, and when this happened, it needs to automatically go back on sale through the registration pool on September 5, 2022.
Interestingly, on August 25, GoDaddy released a statement that confirmed that the eth.link domain was expiring on September 5. In that context, there are allegations that GoDaddy transferred the eth.link to another registry, Dynadot LLC that put eth.link up for auction.
What Comes Next?
On September 4, Manifold Finance (@foldfinance) tweeted:
“http://eth.link was just sniped by us. Services to be restored once ownership transfer complete.”
Nick.eth, the team leading developer at ENS, was shocked by this announcement and responded:
“Where? It hasn’t actually expired yet; did you bid on a drop-catching site? Want to send me a DM?”
It is still not clear what will come next in the coming weeks between GoDaddy and ENS after this lawsuit’s announcement. As things stand right now, Manifold Finance is the new owner of the eth.link domain. It will be now down to the Arizona legal network to work on the legality of the sale.
Eth.link now provides a service status message and links to Manifold Finance.
Why Is The eth.link name This Important?
The eth.link domain is crucial to the eth.domain names infrastructure. Programmer Virgil Griffith developed it for use as a ‘revolving service’ for .eth domain names. Normally, it works as a link (hence the name), ENS domain names to the web2 domain name system (DNS).
Currently, when you use the eth.link, you will get a message about the current service status and links to Manifold Finance’s website. In the coming weeks, we expect to see how and if the situation between ENS and GoDaddy changes.
