Ownership of the Ethereum Name Service domain surpassed 1.8 million names, with 378,000 new .eth registrations in July alone, according to ENS Domains.

The surge in signups comes as the Ethereum community prepares for the merger coming next month, which will take the best blockchain for dapps, DAOs and NFTs from a proof-of-work consensus algorithm to proof. of stake.

In the tweet announcing the record number of registrations, ENS Domains said it saw 5,400 ETH (about $8.8 million) in revenue and 48,000 new Ethereum accounts using at least one ENS name, plus more than 99% of the volume of domain sales on OpenSea last month. .

While the merger may play a role in the increase in activity, Khori Whittaker, executive director of True Names Limited, the company behind ENS Domains, believes the increase is more organic.

“There is an extremely active and passionate ecosystem of ENS advocates, and they are independently and organically building sub-communities and spreading the word about what’s possible with ENS domains,” Whittaker said. Decrypt in an email.

Whittaker says we wouldn’t see the increase in enrollment without the efforts of independent developers in the ecosystem creating marketplaces and other ENS-related apps and groups like the “999 club”, the “10k club”, the “TLC” club and the “100k Club”, among others.

Another factor that Whittaker said added to the spike was lower gas fees for Ethereum transactions. “We’ve noticed that when gas costs go down, domain registration activity goes up,” he said.

According to Whittaker, the company has also begun to see an increase in the presence of non-English speaking communities in the ENS ecosystem, including Arabic and Spanish speaking communities.

The Ethereum Name Service or ENS manages the issuance and renewal of .eth domain names built on Ethereum. These domains can be sold as non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs, cryptographically unique tokens tied to digital (and sometimes physical) content, providing proof of ownership.

ENS domains can also be linked to its cryptocurrency wallet. Instead of proving a sender with a long Ethereum address, users can give their .eth domain name and receive a transaction.

Other crypto-related domain name providers have also entered the market, offering .sol (Solana), .bitcoin, and .zil (Zilliqa) domains, among others. These types of domains have also become popular ways to show that you “belong” to Web3.

In June, legendary actor Anthony Hopkins added an .eth domain to his name on his official Twitter account, asking fellow Web3 celebrities Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Fallon and Reese Witherspoon for recommendations on which NFT Hopkins should buy first.

“People are looking for quality projects and quality protocols that last,” Whittaker said. “There are many interesting and fun projects in Web3, and the Ethereum name service is definitely one of the biggest.”