Afnic, which stands for Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération, is the non-profit organization responsible for managing the .fr domain name registry for France and its overseas territories. It was established in 1997 by INRIA and the French government. Afnic's role includes managing domain name registration, ensuring the technical operation of the .fr TLD, and promoting the development of the internet in France.
In recent years, blockchain-based naming systems have emerged as a parallel framework to the traditional Domain Name System (DNS), offering an alternative way to assign human-readable identifiers to web services, wallets, and Web3 applications.