Vows to start selling .wallet Handshake names soon — Namecheap CEO
Fight over dueling blockchain-based naming systems will continue.
Namecheap’s CEO has vowed to start selling .wallet domains in the Handshake protocol soon.
Writing on X, Richard Kirkendall stated, “.wallet handshake domains will be back for sale soon at Namebase. Stay tuned.”
Namecheap owns Namebase, a sort of registry and marketplace for Handshake names. Handshake is a blockchain-based naming system that can be used for cryptocurrency wallets and, in some browsers, for websites.
Gateway Registry began selling .wallet Handshake names in 2022. Unstoppable Domains, a rival blockchain-based naming system with its own .wallet extension, sued Gateway Registry. Gateway Registry promptly shut down.
Scott Florsck, the registrant (essentially, the “TLD owner”) for .wallet, decided to fight, and he got Namecheap to back him financially in the fight.
Unstoppable Domains and Florsck filed dueling lawsuits against each other. Unstoppable Domains later dropped its suit, noting that .wallet Handshake names were no longer being sold.
But Florsck is still asking the court for a declaratory judgment that selling .wallet Handshake domains doesn’t infringe any of Unstoppable Domains’ trademark rights.
With Kirkendall’s notice, it’s clear that this issue isn’t going to simply go away.
So-called name collisions within blockchain naming spaces will continue to be an issue since of the technology’s decentralized nature. There’s nothing technical to stop someone from creating a rival version of the name.
In response to Kirkendall’s tweet, one user responded, “How? There would be 2 different .wallet then?!”
This will also be an issue as ICANN looks to its next round of top level domain names. Some blockchain naming conventions are hoping to block people from getting real DNS TLDs that match blockchain names. While they will likely fail at these frontrunning efforts, they are sure to introduce uncertainty and delays for what will likely be popular top level domains.
