The Shake: May 1, 2022
A publication on Handshake and the DWeb. Towards a New Internet.
Handshake, by the numbers
On Money + Communication Legos
Cryptoeconomic tools, with their composable and permissionless properties, have been described as money legos. Merged with communication platforms, the added context of rich media can give these money legos new form.
HNS Chat has enabled payments on its messaging platform. It does so by using HIP2, a framework for sending assets directly to Handshake names rather than illegible hexadecimal addresses.
But HNS Chat doesn’t just use HIP2 for direct-to-name payments, it extends it.
(1) Both the sender and receiver become legible. On its own, HIP2 payments are received by Handshake names. With HNS Chat, they are sent by Handshake names too.
(2) Payments are contextualized. On its own, HIP2 payments are sent between wallets while communication regarding the transfer happens elsewhere. With HNS Chat, payments are sent inside a chat alongside (encrypted) messages.
(3) Payments for in-app services. On its own, HIP2 payments are useful for peer-to-peer transfer, but without a more specified use case. With HNS Chat, in-app providers can offer services via usernames that double as payment addresses.
For example, HNSChatBot/ is an aptly named TLD used as a bot for automating services on the HNS Chat platform. The first paid service it offers, creating your own channel, can be completed by paying the bot directly. This all works because the bot’s name is simultaneously a globally resolvable, self-verifiable Handshake domain AND a payment address.
This Week in Handshake
➟ Beacon Browser Desktop version is officially available for download
➟ DNSimple DNS hosting service adds Handshake support
➟ ICANN Research report on Handshake and alternative namespaces
➟ BlockChannel Interview with Jordan Koch of HNS Chat
➟ HNS Chat Guide for setting up your own messaging channel
➟ DCDN DANE teaser for securing .dcdn domains on Media Network
Tweet Check
We've been using HNS and HNS full nodes (not lite clients or explorers) in our stack for Skynet portals for about 2 years.
In that whole period, I think there's been 1 time where HNS was causing bugs/issues, and the HNS devs helped us resolve it in under a day.
Good dependency.
Around The DWeb
➟ Food for thought What new mediums can be manifested on the DWeb?
➟ Amentum The Case for Non Universal Chains
➟ Infura When Infura goes down, people just stop using Ethereum.
Naval @naval
If @elonmusk manages to liberate Twitter, efforts to control free speech will move to the Apple / Google level, and then to the national level.HandyGrants
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