90 days after an ENS name has expired, when it exits the Grace Period it will go into a Temporary Premium Auction.

This is a public auction where anyone can buy the name with a Temporary Premium Fee attached to it that lasts for 21 days.

The Temporary Premium Fee starts at $100 million and declines exponentially to $0 over the course of the 21 days.

The starting price of the Temporary Premium Fee was never intended to be one that anyone actually pays for a name. It was chosen to intentionally be out of reach so that names couldn't be instantly bought.

The Temporary Premium Auction is an attempt at solving a problem we've had with ENS names. Where bots or traders would instantly snipe any expiring name.

The bots and traders would sometimes pay thousands of dollars in gas fees alone and up to $10k for the name itself just to make sure they got the name first. This caused a situation where users who didn't use bots were never even to able see or interact with the website before the name had been bought.

Having a start price for the Temporary Premium Auction that's far higher than what anyone would be willing to pay ensures that this doesn't happen again.

If no one buys the name during the 21 days the temporary premium auction is active, the temporary premium fee will become $0 and the name will become available at normal registation fees again.