Unstoppable Domains - Another Step towards Decentralized Internet

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(Edited)


It is interesting to know, in the very early days of the internet, to visit a website, we had to remember the IP address as there were no domain names like google.com. Even today, if you try http://216.58.221.46 it opens up google.com website.

Domain names provided us with the ease of remembering the web address, instead of trying to remember the digits, we just have to remember words for any specific website. This industry has grown vastly in previous years. Godaddy, Namecheap and many other major players are providing thousands of domain names to the users.

How Domains Works?



When you develop a website, there are two major things involved, Domain name & the server. Domain name forwards the request to the IP address of the server to let you access the website through the DNS system. It's quite simple that you set up a server where you keep your website files and add the server specified DNS to the domain name to complete the setup.

The Centralized system of Domains - The Problem

With this, there is also a problem which needs to be addressed. The service provider has the ability to disable/block Domain name's DNS system at any time providing many reasons, of course, illegal content is one of them. On the other hand, we can't ignore, what happened to Wikileaks.

Since the domain names are being controlled by ICANN as well as the service providers like GoDaddy, Namecheap etc., Freedom of content is also questionable here, As, on a request of the government or any legal authorities, any website's domain can be blocked or made inaccessible.

The same can be done with the servers we rent out, to upload the websites from the same providers. However, there are many servers claim to be anonymous but of course, that is a whole another story.

What is Unstoppable Domains?


Unstoppabledomains.com is providing a decentralized DNS system on their domain names based on blockchain. Which according to their claim and as the name suggest, any domain that we book from this website cannot be blocked or suspended due to any reason.

They have started a new domain extension .zil based on zilliqa blockchain instead of the traditional ones like .com, .org, .net, etc. With the new extension creates new possibilities for us to book the domains which are not available or already purchased by someone else.

The Pricing


You can pre-book a .zil domain name by spending $10, However, this initial purchase will be provided for 2 years, making .zil domain for as cheap as $5 per year.

Currently, their target is to go live with DNS system by next month. After June 2019, anyone would be able to upload a website on their .zil domain.

However, since these domains are based on zilliqa blockchain, we would be able to send and receive cyptocurrency (ETH & Zilliqa) payments as well. Which means yourname.zil will not only open your website but also becomes your wallet address containing your crypto as well as your domain name.

My Conclusion


Spending $5/yr to keep the control your own website with the decentralized DNS system, which also becomes your permanent wallet address, eliminating the need for complicated long strings as a wallet address is an amazing deal, in my opinion. I would encourage everyone, to at least visit the website and have a good look at Unstoppabledomains.com

I would love to know your thoughts on this in the comment section below, do you think $5/yr worth spending on .zil domains?

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The other blockchain based domain is .eth, which can only be purchased through a bid system. NEM also has a similar concept called "namespaces" but is quite different from .eth and .zil in functionality.

Blockchain based domains will have limited use because they are limited to the base currencies (in this case eth and zil), though that will change when atomic swaps become mainstream.

Thanks @bunnychum.

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There is much more to these decentralized names. There is a W3C community group working on decentralized identifiers (DIDs), the DID foundation, the reboot web of trust events,..

You can find 24+ different decentralized identity providers already. See the w3c registry: https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-registry/#the-registry

I would say blockstack.org is one of the leading players in the decentralized domain name system.

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Thanks for the info @friedger. The 24+ DIDs are provisional, which means they are not available yet.

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I completely agree with you @devann

This is just yet another domain name solution based on blockchain. What makes it more interesting that these domains can be used to host a website. other than namecoin, zilliqa has started another DNS system on top of ethereum. Could be a good solution for web developers to handle ETH transactions.

However, using domain names just as a wallet to send and receive payments is something that comes along.

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I have 2 on reserve already! I love the concept and this will hopefully help launch mass adoption by giving the easy to use address structure, will def make it more user friendly. Can't wait to tell people, just send me some coin to thelogicaldude.zil... So you if want to see if it works... LOL

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Yes, DNS servers are a real weakness for censorship. I’ll check this out.

Posted using Partiko iOS

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