Handshake (HNS), a decentralized naming protocol, recently had a soft fork activated on August 28th. The soft fork’s main scope was to end on-chain airdrop claims that were originally delegated towards open source developers. Since Handshake’s launch, 6,548 airdrops were issued. Moving forward, ending the airdrop claims significantly reduces the HNS coin total supply, which will provide more certainty for investors and miners.
The commencement of the soft fork essentially makes Handshake a true proof-of-work (POW) chain, whereby new coin emittance will solely derive from miners. The soft fork’s primary change was the reduction of the HNS total supply by approximately 56%, from 2.04 billion to 888 million coins. With this reduction in the coin supply, an increase of the coin price can result in more profitability for miners.
Handshake is a decentralized implementation of DNS, secured by miners. Some use cases for HNS coin include bidding on HNS domains and updating DNS records. When obtaining a HNS domain through an on-chain auction, the winning bid is burned from the coin supply, thus making the HNS coin deflationary over time.
A HNS domain represents true ownership; there is no one behind the protocol that can censor or repossess the domain. There are several options to obtain on-chain domains, including Namebase (custodial) and Bob Wallet (self-custodial). These domains are irrevocable, which is an important attribute for crypto wallets, websites, and digital identity.
Thunderbolt is a revolutionary peer-to-peer (P2P) communication application that leverages HNS domains for encrypted voice, video, and chat. Through Thunderbolt, HNS names can replace phone numbers and be a secure messaging channel for politicians, journalists, dissidents, and privacy enthusiasts. Built by Spaceship.com, a next-level domain registrar, this is the first time that domains can be used in this manner. HNS domains can also be registered on popular domain registrars like Namecheap, where afterwards the setup process only takes a few minutes with the Thunderbolt app.
About Handshake
After Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto’s second suggested use case for blockchain was DNS. Handshake’s launch in 2020, with no centralized company or foundation, is still the greatest attempt to decentralize the web and ensure freedom online. Learn more at handshake.org.
