The Shake: Mar. 27, 2022

Mar 27

A publication on Handshake and the Decentralized Web. Towards a New Internet.

On HIP-2: The well-known directory for wallet addresses

HIP-2, the Handshake Improvement Proposal for wallet naming, lets you tie any Handshake domain OR traditional domain to any Handshake address OR other crypto address. For Handshake, human-readable addresses makes sending assets on the network easier (with the privacy capabilities of using HIP-2 Servers). For other crypto networks and beyond, Handshake as an offchain named address solution is a better identity system for many use cases. Making the case for HIP-2, Mark Tyneway puts it plainly:

Mark Tyneway 🔴 @tyneslol

Onchain named address resolution is a privacy nightmare and is worse than the existing system. Don't go backwards

As support for the the wallet naming convention grows, the identity capabilities Handshake can extend across all of crypto grow with it. HIP-2 is being integrated throughout the Handshake ecosystem today:

Name wallet addresses with Sinpapeles
Check named addresses with HIP-2 Checker
HIP-2 support coming to Bob Wallet
HIP-2 payments enabled on HNS Chat
SLDs gain wallet naming for configured TLDs on HNS Chat

This last bullet point is worth digging into. Once HIP-2 is set up for a TLD on HNS Chat, each subdomain on the platform gains out-of-the-box support for wallet naming without any further work required.

For TLDs as public registrars, abstracting the technical details of adding name records broadens the user base of HIP-2 wallet naming and, at the same time, serves as a competitive feature TLDs can offer to their users. The choice between two ICANN TLDs (subdomain.xyz vs subdomain.io) as domain extensions has primarily been an aesthetic one. Handshake-native features will increasingly make this a functional choice — i.e. Does your TLD natively support HIP-2?

Remember last November, when ICANN warned of Handshake domains, “Buyer Beware: Not All Names Are Created Equal”. That’s exactly right, ICANN. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

For TLDs as private namespaces, you could imagine a protocol-specific TLD (i.e .connext) where a one-time HIP-2 configuration enables naming for every contract or node within its network (i.e. router.arjun.connext). Coincidently, Connext articulated exactly this use case when they acquired .connext last year.

As wallet naming and other Handshake concepts get put into practice, the vision for Handshake as a universal root namespace comes further into focus.

This Week in Handshake

↳ Namebase Post-acquisition outline of priorities and focus for the year

↳ Namecheap Soon you’ll be able to buy any products on Namecheap in HNS

↳ https://x/piring An expiring names indexer from Matthew Zipkin

↳ HNS Chat Beyond HIP-2 support, other new features this week include: notifications, Bob Wallet sign in, color customizations, user list search, punycode confirmation, and more. Outside of everything HNS Chat has been shipping lately, a community-member built a chrome extension demo that you can see here and check the repo here. Decentralized community building FTW.

↳ HIP-5 Luke Burns demo-ed HIP-5 protocols for dynamic zone storage and trustless subdomains at HandyCon using IPFS, Hyperzone, and TLD aliases. Eventually, creation and resolution of HIP-5 SLDs will be wrapped up in a nice, neat bow.

Luke Burns @lukeburns

@handshakecon All that sound like a lot of gobbledygook? No worries. Once we're ready for prime time, we'll package all this stuff up into an app that you can just download and use.

↳ HandyCon Sessions Missed any of this year’s HandyCon talks? The full set of video recordings from the three-day virtual Handshake conference are available.

↳ Niami zwj-name-converter Converts any name to ascii or unicode. It respects the zero width joiner and the Handshake protocol domain format. Compare the rendering of this TLD on Namebase (🧑🏼🚀) and Niami (🧑🏼‍🚀). This means that emojis that have skin tones or modifiers will be displayed correctly — for a more inclusive HNS community, it’s the little things that make a difference.

Stats

Tweet Check

Richard Kirkendall @NamecheapCEO

@DIDtoken @TieshunR @dotsats Namecheap token = hns

Latest HandyGrants

- 2500 in $HNS to Eskimo for HNS Chat HIP-2 support
- 100,000 in $DVPN to Pat Santiago for essays and podcasts
- 333,333 in $DVPN to Luke Burns for HIP-R
- 50,000 in $DVPN to Tim Courtney for Bay Area DWeb meetups

The Shake