Zcash Name Service (ZNS)
ZNS maps human-readable names like alice.zcash to Zcash shielded addresses. Instead of sharing a long unified address, you share a name.
How it works
Every ZNS operation is a standard Zcash shielded transaction. Names are claimed, bought, sold, and updated by sending transactions with specially formatted memos to the ZNS registry address. A decentralized indexer watches the blockchain, parses these memos, and maintains the registry.
There is no token, no smart contract, and no separate chain. ZNS lives entirely within Zcash's existing shielded memo field.
Key properties
- First-come-first-served — names are assigned by block height
- One name per address — each unified address maps to exactly one name, and vice versa
- Privacy-preserving — all operations use Orchard shielded transactions
- Stateless authentication — admin actions (list, delist, update) are verified with Ed25519 signatures and OTP, no login required
- Marketplace built in — names can be listed for sale and purchased on-chain
Supported suffixes
.zcash.zec