The aspiration of decentralized frontends is for web interfaces that assure integrity of code, resist censorship from regulators, and provide reasonably easy access to users.
Socially, we need the collective will to move away from the default state of convenient yet centrally maintained frontends. “Just because a protocol is decentralized, doesn’t mean the front-end has to be” was a widely accepted stance just a couple years ago.
Since then, DNS hijacks have lost end user money hundreds of millions of dollars including recent 2022 attacks on Curve, Polygon, and Fantom. But it was this year’s Tornado Cash sanctions and larger regulatory pressure that has seemingly moved the needle socially.
On Bankless this week, Erik Vorhees debated Sam Bankman-Fried on crypto regulation. Vorhees made the case that ceding territory to regulators prematurely is a mistake while SBF seeks a middle ground for compromise. With online pressure aimed at SBF’s approach, he suggested ‘Crypto Twitter, take the wheel’ on digital asset policy.
It’s unclear whether the founder of FTX stepping away from policy talks is good or not for crypto but the Overton Window has clearly shifted. And with that, the likes of Dappnet and Armada are part of a new wave of projects taking novel approaches to connecting DNS and storage layers in order to tackle decentralized frontends.
🤝 What’s Shaking
This Week in Handshake
.RECORDS An expansion on the architecture and vision for the .RECORDS music-centric namespace on Ethereum.
.Stars Stargaze, a Cosmos-based app-chain, is introducing its own namespace. Stargaze Names is designed with DNS compatibility in mind, and looking into integrating with Handshake. We have been told that the owner of .stars on Handshake is in contact with their team.
HandyCon The annual Handshake conference is coming back March 2023.
HeyTx Nole of .TX discusses why Handshake is meaningful to him and a beacon for online freedom.
📈HNS By The Numbers
October Transactions: 1.37M
Around the DWeb
BlueSky opens waitlist for decentralized social media platform
Armada announces new decentralized frontend hosting solution
Browser Extension to pin tweets to IPFS, and more highlights from IPFS Camp
📚 Resource Center
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