Decentral Domains.

The Backbone of the new, decentralized Internet.

 

Disrupting Cyberspace.

Welcome to the New Internet

Currently, domain names are under central control. You can register a domain name, meaning a phrase to the left of the "dot". To the left of extensions like for example .com, .org, .io, .de, or .club. Whatever is to the right of the "dot" is centrally controlled and you are able to rent a domain name on a yearly basis. Every year, you have to renew your rent and pay for it.

Handshake and Namebase.io changed this monopoly of ICANN in 2020.

Handshake is a decentralized naming protocol, where every participant is validating and managing the domain name system. This creates an alternative to existing, centrally managed Certificate Authorities and naming systems. This is made possible by the "blockchain technology", the core technology of Bitcoin, where trust is built into the system and no longer dependent on a central party that we as end users can hopefully trust. If this sounds too technical, don't worry for now. But we do suggest to learn more about what blockchains are and how Bitcoin works. This will give you a much bigger picture of where we are headed with technology and why this is such a disrupting time (by the way, for all areas of our life).

Namebase.io made it possible for anyone to get their own Handshake TLD through a very user-friendly interface. You will, however, need a Namebase account and get some HNS tokens.

The part to the right of the "dot" is called the top-level domain (TLD).
The part to the left of the "dot" is called the second-level domain (SLD).

Organizations with big money are able to apply for their own TLD through the central governing body ICANN. This way, they can become a "domain registry" and market and sell domains on their TLD. But to do this, an organization would need to pay enourmous sums of money.

Own Your Name on the New Internet

This disruption to the Internet now makes it possible to own your own name. You can now get domain extensions like ".yourname", which you can then utilize further with "linkedin.yourname", "email.yourname", "paypal.yourname", "bitcoin.yourname" etc. Think of this as your username on the new internet; a way to own your own identity on the internet - all engraved in the blockchain.

If you're not familiar with the technology of blockchains, this might help for now:
 

• Our world is based on "unverifiable trust". We trust the news we hear, we trust our government, we trust our bank statement, etc.

• The blockchain technology has introduced a technological shift - "trustless verifiability". Since everything is transparently und unchangeably stored on the blockchain, every party can instantly verify. No need to trust a third-party.

Handshake is a decentralized naming protocol, where every participant is validating and managing the domain name system on this blockchain technology. This creates an alternative to existing, centrally managed Certificate Authorities and naming systems based on unverifiable trust.

The blockchain technology is the core technology of Bitcoin, where trust is built into the system and no longer dependent on a central party (like central banks) that we as end users are expected to unquestionably trust. (We highly suggest to learn more about what blockchains are and how Bitcoin works if you're new to this concept. This will give you a much bigger picture of where we are headed with technology and why this is such a disrupting time for all areas of our life. And most importantly, on how you can protect yourself and your family, your wealth, your freedom of speech etc.

Namebase.io made it possible for anyone to get their own Handshake TLD practically for free through a very user-friendly interface. You will, however, need a Namebase account and get some HNS tokens.

Relevant and Human Readable Names

It is interesting to note that even Google is starting to move some of their domains off of the ".com" extension and onto their own ".google" extension (see about.google.com). If we think about it, this also makes a lot of sense, since the extension ".com" does not give us any valuable information about the domain, whereas the extension ".google" or ".yourname" already tell us that the domain has a relevance to Google or in the case of .yourname, you as a person or your company.

Compare the URLs 

The ".new" extension is an example from the traditional domain name space, but by opening up access to domain extensions, Handshake enables limitless possibilities for creative ways to use the browser search bar for all of us.

Which one would you prefer?

Again, if we look at what Google is doing, we see that these domains can also open up new possibilities by executing lines of code:
 

• The URL "doc.new" opens up a new document.
   

• The URL "playlist.new" creates a new Spotify playlist.

Endless Possibilities

Did you know that you can also have Emoji TLDs?

Try it out by going to the URL of the Handshake 🤝 Emoji. Copy and paste the Handshake Emoji into your browser like this:

If your browser does not yet support the decentralized internet, you can add a ".hns.to" to the end:

Is that cool or is that cool?

The same is true for character sets of other languages. The way this works is that the emojis or special characters are translated to something called a "punycode". Punycode is a special encoding used to convert these special characters including emojis. So for our Handshake example:

Handshake Emoji

=

Punycode for Handshake Emoji

Other examples:

"Chinese" in Chinese

"Russian" in Russian

"Greek" in Greek

Fair Auction Mechanism

Handshake TLDs are obtained through Vickrey-style auctions, whereby the highest bidder wins the name but only pays the 2nd highest bid. This means that you will receive a TLD for free, if there are no other bidders for that name. This makes getting your own domain extension very accessible withouth the application fee of $185,000 that would be required through ICANN, the central regulating body for the traditional TLD extensions.

If you want to secure your top-level domain name or identity on the internet, the easiest way to start and bid on your Handshake domain auction is through Namebase, which can be reached through the URLs

(decentralized Handshake domain)

(centralized ICANN domain)

Accessing the New Decentralized Internet...

...is quick and simple!

While most browsers do not yet support the decentralized domain name extensions on the Handshake blockchain per default, you can easily configure your browser in a few seconds to point to HDNS server addresses. This will also increase your privacy, since the HDNS servers do not store any personal information - no even your full IP address, through which you can be identified on the standard DNS servers in your browser.

 One-time setup instructions 

No technical skill or special software required!

For reference, the HDNS server addresses are:

103.196.38.38
103.196.38.39

For a much deeper dive on the Handshake blockchain, you'll want to visit the Namebase Learning Center at learn.nb and read about how Handshake was built to improve privacy and resist censorship on the internet, and how it strengthens internet security by replacing Certificate Authorities.

Domain names are just the beginning!

🤝

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No central control. No censorship. No yearly fee. Your own top-level domain (like a .com). Own your own namespace on the internet. Use second-level domains as you like. Yours and only yours. Burned into the blockchain. You decide what to do with it.