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WNS

Chain-abstracted, 3-word ENS alternative to any Web3 address for higher memorability, accuracy and non-ambiquity.

WNS

Created At

ETHGlobal Singapore

Winner of

Metamask - Best Project Deployed on Linea and MetaMask (Optional)

Project Description

WNS is a chain-abstracted, super-charged version of ENS, without the current constraints of having an .eth in the name and serving L1-3, EVM, non-EVM and BTC chains.

Current 0x 256 character long addresses cannot be memorised, making them an easy target for attacks (eg. address poison attacks) Plus they are very scary for a new Web3 user. We wanted to make this foremost data point simpler, easy-to-remember and more secure to use.

WNS allows any L1-3, EVM, non-EVM, BTC chain addresses (in their respective formats) to be 1-to-1 mapped and converted to a unique 3 random English words format. The 3 words style and format has been inspired by a real-world project What3Words.com; where ~500,000 unique English words (without plurals, homophones and similar spelling words) are used to build the 3 word names in the standard format of ///word1.word2.word3.

Just these 3 words opens up a possibility of mapping over 125 Trillions (500K to power of 3). As needed, this range can be enhanced by either adding 1 more word to the name or opening up even other language words to the list.

This standard format, though is different from an ENS where it is not bound by ending in a .eth domain format - making it suitable for almost all possible chains available in the ecosystem.

How it's Made

Step 1: WNS is built using TEE (Phala). The public address is used to build unique word combinations. It is always a 1-1 relationship; where the secret to building the WNS is kept hidden inside a TEE to avoid any reverse engineering/foul play.

Step 2: All WNS is stored in respective chains (the chain from which the request was made). The chains selected for this demo are: Flow, Hedera, Rootstock, Aurora, Morph and Linea. We chose the wide variety of chains to demo the fact that these chains came with a range of address formats and yet were equally represented in a WNS.

Step 3: We have a blacklist voting setup for public to mark any scammer accounts. All vote status is stored in NEAR. We use NEAR's MPC service to attest and verify all votes and become a chain-agnostic reference hash-table, openly accessible from any chain top check the latest blacklist vote status. This status is visually represented besides the WNS in red to alert users during any transaction.

Step 4: The WNS + blacklist status (with or without the underlying 0x address) is now accessible to be used to involve any utility around donations, swaps, bridges etc. For this, we have integrated the service either via Metamask Flask (in form of a Snap) or via directly a web application. We however wish to see WNS be a core service option within the main Metamask application, instead of Snaps.

There is a visual alert alongside all WNS to mark if that address is a wallet address (GREEN), contract address (YELLOW) or Blacklisted (RED). This is an additional layer of visual security to deter any unwanted transactions.

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