The founders of Namebase criticized social networks and centralized domain name management systems. Let's take a look at the essence of their own initiative and why not everyone is a fan.
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What happened
The campaign for an alternative implementation of the namespace has been actively promoted since last year. Recently, a detailed explanation was released, providing critical assessments, proposals for global decentralization, necessary project requirements, and its potential opportunities.
We analyzed the article and the discussion surrounding it on relevant platforms. Here are the main findings, additional materials, and opinions on this topic.
What are they criticized for
At the companies reference the problem of excessive centralization by 'tech monopolists', national and international organizations — from to social networks.
The founders of Namebase question how rights to freedom of speech and ownership of digital assets like profiles, usernames, and domain names are implemented under such structures (and even governments). In their speeches, they often cases of theft, blocking, and deletion of such 'assets' without due process or explanation.
What proposals are put forward
According to by this topic's enthusiasts to move away from various complexities towards a universal, sustainable, and decentralized namespace will require:
- Ensuring the decentralization of the new system.
- Retaining only key functionalities.
- Ensuring low resource consumption and trustless accessibility.
- Maintaining compatibility with the overall network infrastructure.
- Planning for protocol-level updates.
The first and second requirements can be implemented using a dedicated (which the company called ). Thus, the developers plan to eliminate the risks of system destabilization due to stakeholder actions or any external factors.
In their view, designing based on existing blockchains will not achieve such an effect in the long term, which is a decisive factor for the uninterrupted operation and updates (the fifth requirement) of 'IT standards' at such a level.
In response to the third requirement, the developers propose to store namespace data in so-called , designed specifically to address this task. They serve as an alternative to in Ethereum, but with nodes of 32 (leaf/sibling nodes) and 76 bytes (internal nodes), while the PoW weight here does not exceed a kilobyte even with millions of "leaves."
Thus, the team is trying to optimize the time and resources needed for name resolution. Additionally, they have developed a "lightweight" one in C — it deals exclusively with DNS tasks.
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When it comes to compatibility (the fourth point), according to the founders, the project aims to enhance the capabilities of existing IT standards rather than displacing them. The developers believe that "network users should have more opportunities to retain control and ensure that a particular name indeed belongs to them," and they continue to develop their product (basic information about it — , , ).
They are criticized for
Hacker News provided a link to , based on Handshake, and . However, some expressed , suggesting that the vendor is simply trying to become another registrar operating names in a slightly updated format. The independence of such projects was also questioned, data on the distribution of mining pools.
At one point, the discussion veered off — one of the site residents even the thought of a similar "revival" of the -ecosystem, which could become a decentralized answer to the monopolized social media market. But here — as in the case of Handshake — everything hinged on the question of monetization and the elegance of its resolution. As is known, DNS projects have already attempted , but this process did not go as smoothly as the founders would have liked.
Currently, Handshake and Namebase have several alternatives — from Unstoppable Domains () to Ethereum Name Service (). Whether they can compete with existing approaches to domain name management and become mainstream will be revealed over time.
P.S. Further reading on our Hub blog — .
Source: habr.com
