Blockchain domains are NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that exist on alternative, decentralized root zones. The three main players are ENS, Unstoppable Domains and Handshake.
Handshake domains are new TLDs based on a distributed and decentralized blockchain, that are not yet compatible with most traditional DNS systems.
Namebase is the main domain registrar for Handshake names, and is also an exchange for Handshake coins (HNS). You can use HNS to buy names in the marketplace, bid in Handshake auctions, and make sellers offers.
Namecheap recently acquired a 51% stake in Namebase, which The Shake substack covered. Namecheap CEO Richard Kikendall confirmed the news on Twitter who gave this answer to why Handshake is important:
Currently, Namecheap offers the following handshake TLDs: .creator, .elite, .ill, .oh, .oo, .oot, .orb, .p, .pgp, .saas, .sox. And there is no transfer in/out supported at the moment for these.
I bought patey.creator, but there are far more “interesting” TLDs available on Gatgeway.io (co-founded by Mike Carson) you can buy a subdomain on, including emoji TLDs.
In order to view these Handshake domains you need to configure them (namebase article, namecheap article) but the easiest way is simply to add https://hns.to/ in front of any HNS domain you want to visit such as https://clay.hns.to/ for Clay Collins (the founder of Leadpages back in the day). Or you can simply use the Brave Browser.
Clay owns the .c/ TLD which according to the web3domains substack:
The .c extension is the shortest and most versatile domain extension ever in the blockchain domain space, and can stand for Corporation, Company, Commerce, Capital, Computer, Crypto, Cloud, Customer, Club, Chip etc.
And as the .c domains twitter page states, it’s the new .com.
Handshake subdomains have renewal fees whereas Unstoppable Domains, such as my richardpatey.crypto does not.
However, when you buy the actual Handshake TLD there are no yearly rental fees.
I may not have been able to buy patey.com (as a really nice Patey Tribe member won’t sell it at any price) but I have been able to buy the decentralized blockchain-based alternative .patey or in HNS speak patey/ on Namebase for a bargain 99 $HNS (about $20).
As such I can set up richard.patey/ and any subdomain I choose – and I can gift (or sell) these subdomains to other Patey Clan members in the future.
On Namebase (run by Tieshun the CEO) you can quickly set up a decentralized website using their dLinks service which I did and can be seen at hns.to/patey
And people are making great add-ons for Handshake, such as HNS Chat by Eskimo, which lets you send messages to other Handshake names, and there’s even a Handshake conference running March 16-18th. Plus a lot of cool other use cases.
It’s interesting to watch the top HNS domain sales on the nbshoutout Twitter account and there are tools such as Shakestats to make blockchain domain trading easier.
I asked on Twitter what the most expensive handshake subdomain (secondary) sale has been so far and got this answer:
Handshake TLDs can in fact be emojis. 🤯 is called ‘exploding head’ and was approved for duty in 2017.
But did you know (I didn’t) that each emoji has it’s own code. Put it into Punycoder and it spits out xn--oq9h. Put that into Namebase domain search and you can see that this TLD (top level domain, i.e. the right of the dot) sold for 2 $HNS tokens in 2020.
Ok so what does that all mean?
Well when mainstream browsers adopt the decentralized root zone and can resolve handshake domains AND this TLD becomes available to buy second-level domains on (SLDs i.e. the left of the dot), a brand would be able to use this in their marketing.
So, for example, rather than Nike using nike.com/gb/w/sale-3yaep (catchy) it could simply use the domain nikesale.🤯
Wait Patey, how do you type that into a search bar on a Macbook? Well just remember that most traffic now is on mobile which has easy access to emojis.
Ok so what has this to do with alternative asset investing? Well if you’re the .🤯/ TLD owner you make money every time someone buys a domain on your name.
And you can access these future TLDs today for a lot less than at least six figures when applying to ICANN.
For example, Clay Collins (from Leadpages back in the day and now Nomics) bought .c/ (i.e. hey.c) for 55K $HNS back in April 2020 which was under $8K USD at the time. Today, he’s on a six-figure run rate of domain registration/renewal fees.
Not a bad ROI so far, but Clay actually spoke at last year’s conference about how these kind of short TLDs on HNS could become billion-dollar assets:
.c/ is already inside the (traditional) top 400 gTLDs (according to nTLDStats):
As a TLD owner, Clay doesn’t have to get involved in domain registration, he just markets his TLDs (he also owns .zen and .1), and he is actually looking for someone to take over this marketing role if anyone reading is interested/suitable.
So how are the other Handshake TLDs doing?
I personally love .degen (owned by .sats on Twitter) as so many words can naturally go left of the dot like coffee.degen.
But the very big news is that the Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall just bought the .s/ domain at auction for $750K:
And it looks to be the case that Handshake TLDs that other people own are about to be offered on Namecheap next month:
As PeepoHNS/ says:
The current default place to sell SLDs on your TLDs is Gateway.io and the .forever TLD is competing with .c/ for sales as can be seen in this tweet. However .forever is very different to the rest.
It’s part of the Handshake decentralized root zone, however it has second-level domain registrations managed via a fork of ENS (.eth domains). They are also ERC-721 (NFT) tokens trading on Opensea.
As such, Forever Domains are decentralized second-level domain names without renewal fees.
They are co-founded by Mike Carson from park.io who originally created a similar Badass Domains project (that wasn’t an NFT) and who wrote a great article on why they didn’t try to secure .badass through ICANN. In a press release he states that:
When you register a .forever domain, you are the only person that can control it, and the domain never expires. You never have to worry about renewal fees, and you never have to worry about anyone seizing or censoring your domain.
The TLD is stored in the Handshake root zone and cannot be modified by anyone, and all SLDs are stored on the Ethereum blockchain, and managed by an ENS smart contract that also cannot be modified. So you truly own your .forever domain.
I bought never.forever, which I at least find amusing. I can use it as a secondary crypto address to my patey.eth ENS one. And talking about ENS, did you know you can actually create as many subdomains as you want with no renewal charge?
And don’t forget about Unstoppable Domains (I previously bought richardpatey.crypto) as they may be about to become a unicorn!
This is a great video to learn more about blockchain domains:
