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First impression: Great another ICO. Second impression: Not a wildly outlandish idea but im not sure if it's a good idea either. Decentralized and automated re

First impression: Great another ICO. Second impression: Not a wildly outlandish idea but im not sure if it's a good idea either. Decentralized and automated registrar with a concept of renewals. Nifty. I'm not really sure how the economics here work out.. Could I scoop up a few million names early on and then hold them forever? Has that already happened? Could this enable anonymous registration? Would these things make users trust these names more or less?

pinhead26 7y ago
The project raised $10M and then gave 100% of it away to open source projects. They receive some HNS tokens in return. There is a massive airdrop of coins to hundreds of thousands of guthub users, spreading out the money supply to people who might be the most interested in using the system. In other words, this is the least ICO-y new blockchain in a decade. Names roll out over 52 weeks: HashName(name) % 52 = week number that a name is available. So that should attenuate squatting. Also bidding on names locks up coins for something like 2 weeks, so it's hard to bid on too many names.
- jspaetzel 7y ago
  Well. That's a nice publicity stunt. lets see how they get their investment back. It's nice that this project does some good. https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/56c83ca7344def512ef861f452bff91d43bc8f52/lib/protocol/consensus.js#L88 https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/56c83ca7344def512e... So if I read this right Creators get: 102mi coins Sponsors get: 102mi coins they are airdropping about 952mi coins to users on github to the tune of 4,246 per user. So they're collecting about 20% of all coins initially dropped. That's slightly more then some. And at the value listed on https://www.namebase.io/ https://www.namebase.io/ that adds up to some 102,000,000 * $0.44 = $44mi. Ok, so it's not an ICO exactly, instead they raised VC funds which is expecting a return by selling coins. I've just spent a few minutes looking through the website, docs, and a little code. And I have no idea how an end user will use these names. Everything polished about it is for trading coins not real world usage. Sounds like every other crypto coin.
  - SkyMarshal 7y ago
    >how an end user will use these names It’s aimed at open source developers who will be able to figure out how to use the system, not mainstream non-tech normies. As evidenced by the large airdrop to Github.
    - jspaetzel 7y ago
      Most people who own domain names and run websites are mainstream non-tech normies.
troquerre 7y ago
Handshake didn't do an ICO. They raised $10.2m from institutional investors like A16Z, Sequoia, Greylock, and Founders Fund, and then donated all the money they raised to non-profits and open-source projects. Here's a notice from the free software foundation when they received $1m from Handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1-million-from-handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1...
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  Another: > Handshake donates $300,000 USD to Debian [0] [0]: https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329
  - Foxboron 7y ago
    Arch Linux also received 300k USD. We didn't publish any news about this as this was a "no-strings attached" donation. You can however see it as part of the monthly SPI reports; http://spi-inc.org/treasurer/reports/201808/#index3h4 http://spi-inc.org/treasurer/reports/201808/#index3h4
rasengan 7y ago
Anyone participating in the GooSig airdrop [1] can technically register names anonymously as their keys will not be exposed in terms of having received the coins. Additionally, anyone who can obtain HNS anonymously can thus register anonymously. [1] https://github.com/handshake-org/goosig https://github.com/handshake-org/goosig
- troquerre 7y ago
  If you're trying to claim the airdrop, we created this resource to make it easy https://namebase.io/airdrop https://namebase.io/airdrop. It walks you through using https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-airdrop https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-airdrop under the hood but it generates a wallet address for you automatically.

pinhead26 7y ago

The project raised $10M and then gave 100% of it away to open source projects. They receive some HNS tokens in return. There is a massive airdrop of coins to hundreds of thousands of guthub users, spreading out the money supply to people who might be the most interested in using the system. In other words, this is the least ICO-y new blockchain in a decade. Names roll out over 52 weeks: HashName(name) % 52 = week number that a name is available. So that should attenuate squatting. Also bidding on names locks up coins for something like 2 weeks, so it's hard to bid on too many names.

jspaetzel 7y ago
Well. That's a nice publicity stunt. lets see how they get their investment back. It's nice that this project does some good. https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/56c83ca7344def512ef861f452bff91d43bc8f52/lib/protocol/consensus.js#L88 https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/56c83ca7344def512e... So if I read this right Creators get: 102mi coins Sponsors get: 102mi coins they are airdropping about 952mi coins to users on github to the tune of 4,246 per user. So they're collecting about 20% of all coins initially dropped. That's slightly more then some. And at the value listed on https://www.namebase.io/ https://www.namebase.io/ that adds up to some 102,000,000 * $0.44 = $44mi. Ok, so it's not an ICO exactly, instead they raised VC funds which is expecting a return by selling coins. I've just spent a few minutes looking through the website, docs, and a little code. And I have no idea how an end user will use these names. Everything polished about it is for trading coins not real world usage. Sounds like every other crypto coin.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  >how an end user will use these names It’s aimed at open source developers who will be able to figure out how to use the system, not mainstream non-tech normies. As evidenced by the large airdrop to Github.
  - jspaetzel 7y ago
    Most people who own domain names and run websites are mainstream non-tech normies.

troquerre 7y ago

Handshake didn't do an ICO. They raised $10.2m from institutional investors like A16Z, Sequoia, Greylock, and Founders Fund, and then donated all the money they raised to non-profits and open-source projects. Here's a notice from the free software foundation when they received $1m from Handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1-million-from-handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1...

jlgaddis 7y ago
Another: > Handshake donates $300,000 USD to Debian [0] [0]: https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190329
- Foxboron 7y ago
  Arch Linux also received 300k USD. We didn't publish any news about this as this was a "no-strings attached" donation. You can however see it as part of the monthly SPI reports; http://spi-inc.org/treasurer/reports/201808/#index3h4 http://spi-inc.org/treasurer/reports/201808/#index3h4

rasengan 7y ago

Anyone participating in the GooSig airdrop [1] can technically register names anonymously as their keys will not be exposed in terms of having received the coins. Additionally, anyone who can obtain HNS anonymously can thus register anonymously. [1] https://github.com/handshake-org/goosig https://github.com/handshake-org/goosig

troquerre 7y ago
If you're trying to claim the airdrop, we created this resource to make it easy https://namebase.io/airdrop https://namebase.io/airdrop. It walks you through using https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-airdrop https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-airdrop under the hood but it generates a wallet address for you automatically.