EIP 181: ENS support for reverse resolution of Ethereum addresses

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: Note: The following is an excerpt from the official Ethereum site. It is provided here as a connivence and is not authoritative. Refer to the original document as the authoritative reference.

Data sheet for ENS support for reverse resolution of Ethereum addresses

Title	ENS support for reverse resolution of Ethereum addresses
Author	Nick Johnson
Status	Final
Created	2016-12-01
Description	http://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-181
Specification	http://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-181#Specification
Category	ERC

Abstract

This EIP specifies a TLD, registrar, and resolver interface for reverse resolution of Ethereum addresses using ENS. This permits associating a human-readable name with any Ethereum blockchain address. Resolvers can be certain that the reverse record was published by the owner of the Ethereum address in question.

Motivation

While name services are mostly used for forward resolution - going from human-readable identifiers to machine-readable ones - there are many use-cases in which reverse resolution is useful as well:Applications that allow users to monitor accounts benefit from showing the name of an account instead of its address, even if it was originally added by address.Attaching metadata such as descriptive information to an address allows retrieving this information regardless of how the address was originally discovered.Anyone can configure a name to resolve to an address, regardless of ownership of that address. Reverse records allow the owner of an address to claim a name as authoritative for that address.