Now that GoDaddy has formally made it free and easy to turn DNS domains into ENS names, I looked at what it was like to do it on other registrars. Namecheap is definitely the second easiest to do it on, but almost all the rest that I tested require a substantially technical second step to implement. That’s because unlike GoDaddy and Namecheap, most other registrars don’t let users activate DNSSEC on their domain unless the domain is not using the registrar’s name servers. This likely suggests that the domain name’s DNS settings are being managed outside of the registrar, which is where:
(1) the ENS TXT record would have to be added.
(2) the DNSSEC data would have to be obtained and then carried over and pasted into the DNSSEC fields on the domain’s registrar. As you will note below, 101Domain is the only registrar I examined for which everything can be done on their site (besides GoDaddy and Namecheap).
| Registrar | FREE DNSSEC | FULL ON-REGISTRAR SETUP |
| GoDaddy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Namecheap | ✓ | ✓ |
| Porkbun | ✓ | ✓ |
| 101Domain | X | ✓ |
| Dynadot | ✓ | X |
| Sav | ✓ | X |
| Hover | ✓ | X |
| Name.com | ✓ | X |
| MrDomain | ✓ | X |
| Encirca | ✓ | X |
If your domain name is on a registrar for which DNSSEC cannot be activated unless you’re using external nameservers, you can sign up to use Cloudflare (for free) and it will give you name servers to use and the DNSSEC info you need to copy over to the registrar. Here’s a video walkthough of me gaslessly importing a DNS domain into ENS using Dynadot and Cloudflare:
Gaslessly importing a domain name into ENS when your domain name registrar doesn't let you use DNSSEC unless you're using external nameservers pic.twitter.com/kCz9okDud4
— Seán Murray | sean3.eth (@financeguy74) February 11, 2024