Push Notifications have been around for more than a decade now. However, with the launch of the Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS), communication within the decentralised finance (DeFi) space is set to see a huge transformation.

The EPNS project was announced on January 11 and is what founder Harsh Rajat likes to call ‘Web 3 communication primitive’. The project involves various DeFi entities and will allow decentralised protocols to send notifications and messages to users. The first version of the EPNS mainnet, launched on January 11, can now be traded on WazirX and other exchanges.

The protocol aims to be the de-facto communication layer for Web 3.0. It will bring a swath of communication features like channel creation, notification sending, on-chain governance mechanism, wallet-to-wallet chat functionality and much more. It will allow exchanges to create a dedicated channel to distribute news directly to users who opt-in for the service through their wallet addresses.

Also, the protocol itself does not dictate what content can or cannot be delivered to users of service or exchange. It is up to the exchange to decide what they want to communicate with the users.

Decentralised applications (dApps) will use channels to send messages directly to the Ethereum address of users. The messages will be gasless, meaning there will be no transaction cost involved in sending the messages as the notifications are sent with the EIP-712 standard, a method for off-chain data message signing.

The protocol also allows people to send notifications in an open, multichain and platform-agnostic fashion. For example, one can send notifications using any of WazirX's dApp or smart contract to a user's wallet address.

One of the core features being worked on and soon to be launched is the Wallet-to-Wallet Chat feature. The roadmap for the project suggests it will be a one-of-a-kind function that will allow wallet holders to communicate with each other seamlessly.

The project is backed by more than 35 venture capitalists and Web 3.0 Angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan, Binance Labs, Nischal Shetty, Sandeep Nailwal (Co-founder, Polygon), DeFi Dad and more. A Series A fundraise may be announced soon.

Also Read | Explained: Life cycle of smart contracts on a blockchain

According to Rajat, communication has been sorely lacking in DeFi protocols, non-fungible token (NFT) platforms and other web 3.0 infrastructure.

"These things are practically absent for user experience because there's no communication layer to power it," Rajat told CoinDesk in an interview.

"For example, if you're liquidated on a lending platform, you as a wallet address will not know about it, if your governance proposal passed, you won't know about it, if you're into NFTs, you have no way to reach out to someone who bought your NFTs to let them know a new collection is out," he said.