A homoglyph is a character that looks like another character but isn't the same character. Unicode contains thousands of them: a Cyrillic е renders the same as a Latin e, a small-capital ɴ passes for an n, and a Zero-Width Joiner shows nothing at all.

ENS names are made of Unicode characters. So two names can render identically on screen and be different names, owned by different people, pointing at different wallets. Scammers register homoglyph versions of valuable names and wait for someone to send funds without checking. vita‍lik.eth with an invisible joiner. еns.eth with a Cyrillic first letter.

Nothing on screen tells you which one you're looking at. You have to read the characters.

Every character has a code point, a number that identifies it. The Latin e is U+0065. The Cyrillic е is U+0435. Your screen draws them the same way; the computer treats them as unrelated.

ENS works on the code points, not the picture. ens.eth and еns.eth are two separate registrations. Each has its own owner, its own records, its own wallet address. Neither one knows about the other.

That is the whole attack. There is no bug to fix and nothing to reverse, because the two names were never the same name.

They all rely on Unicode characters that look identical or near-identical to standard letters but use different code points underneath.

A Zero-Width Joiner (ZWJ) is an invisible character designed to combine emoji: that's how ❤️‍🔥 is built from a heart, a variation selector, a ZWJ and a fire emoji. Slipped between the letters of an ENS name, it creates a separate name that renders identically. vita‍lik.eth with a ZWJ between the a and the l is the canonical example.

Run both through an analyser and the difference is plain:

The Latin e (U+0065) and the Cyrillic е (U+0435) look identical in most fonts. Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian and several other scripts carry near-identical twins for common Latin letters. This is the largest family by far.

For a tour of every confusable Unicode tracks, use the Unicode Consortium's Confusables utility and Raffy's ens-normalize confusables tool.

ɴ (U+0274) and ᴍ (U+1D0D) are small-capital forms of n and m. They render like uppercase letters but sit in a separate Unicode block, so a name using them is a different name from the one it imitates.

Arabic numerals (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) and Persian digits (۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹) look identical to most readers but use different code points. Mixed with Latin digits inside one name, they turn up regularly in support tickets.

Variation Selectors are invisible code points that change how the previous character renders, for example turning a black heart into a colour emoji. The ENS App strips them during normalisation, so names containing them are invalid there. A name registered through a contract or a third-party service can still carry one.

Register through the official ENS App at app.ens.domains and normalisation runs in the background:

The catch is where the protection sits. Normalisation stops you from creating an invalid name. It doesn't stop someone else registering a homoglyph directly through a smart contract or a third-party service, then sending you payment instructions that point at it.

So the App protects the names you make. It can't protect the names you're given.

If the analyser shows only plain Latin letters and standard digits, what you see is what you get.

Price. Homoglyph names target high-value names. A name resembling a well-known one and priced far below what the real one would fetch is a warning on its own.

Source. A name sent by DM, comment or unsolicited message gets extra scrutiny. People expecting crypto don't usually send their address by private message.

Branding. A name copying a public figure or project that doesn't appear on their verified channels, such as their X profile, their site or their Discord, is almost certainly fake. Check the channels you already trust, not the one pushing the name at you.

Marketplace flags. These flag names containing unusual Unicode characters. The flag means "unusual characters", not "scam". Check with an analyser before acting either way.