1. Bob is an electron application that also is a Handshake resolver and full node - you can find these projects at: http://github.com/handshake-org
2. We're looking for contributors and help of all kinds! Like any other open-source project, bug reports, suggestions, and contributions are very much welcome. Personally, my concerns as an engineer are around the scalability of the UI (electron can be hard to work with) when many (possibly hundreds) of domains are being watched or bid on. This is behaviour I believe is possible to see, from observing early internet domainers.
3. Like many non-custodial 'wallet' projects, it is meant to be a reasonable alternative to exchange custody, but we don't provide any guarantees as the user is responsible for self-custody. We intend to add hardware wallet support in the future. The goal is for the average person to have an easier time working with Handshake and Handshake names, by using Bob instead of a cli.
4. Bob is maintained by Kyokan, and I am the CEO there. It is not maintained by the Handshake team, and there is no Handshake foundation or business that runs the project. Kyokan is a separate software engineering consultancy that is working on multiple projects - we are also not a part of the Handshake team. Our contact info for security disclosures is in the repo.
5. Name Auctions and Airdrop claims on Handshake's mainnet start today (in under 8 hours), so it felt appropriate to share this repo, which we've spent a lot of time and effort working on. One can also find details about this in the repo, but we all hope you have a good time using the software!
Again, we're looking for feedback and suggestions. Even in the process of making this post, I found a few bugs, filed them and made minor improvements to the documentation. Thanks for reading!
I don't know what other links have been posted beside this thread, which a colleague sent to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310604
That said, you are probably right. It doesn't surprise me that there is a lot of Handshake-related activity on HN right now. The project was conceived over two years ago, and today marks its second week of existence and the first day that people can actually try it out. Respectfully, is it possible that most of this is genuine interest/excitement in a new project instead of, as you put it, "PR astroturfing"?
Transfers will be enabled on Block 2016, and blocks are ~every 10 minutes - right now ~1960.
https://hnscan.com/?page=/blocks
If you are reading this on Feb 15th or afterwards, claims and auctions are working. Non-custodial options are Bob and using cli. Namebase is the only custodial option right now.
SSL certificates can be issued by any of the CAs. Multiple CAs can issue SSL certificates for the same namespace. This has led to some activity that has weakened internet security [4].
Handshake gives control of the root zone away from ICANN, a California corporation, to the blockchain and community consensus and strengthens internet security, removing trust from the equation as everything is verifiable on chain. Applying blockchain in this way uniquely solves these problems and gives control over the internet that we all love, back to the people.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/icann-eliminates...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-internet-domain-sale/inte...
[3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/global-ngo-community-d...
[4] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/alrea...
I don't think that means the sponsors of the protocol are entitled to profit: they also took risk by putting up initial capital. The downside is capped in that if the project doesn't go anywhere and the coin goes to 0, FOSS projects that received $10.6mm benefitted.
## Financial Contributors and Pricing - 7.5%
A total of $10,200,00 USD have been allocated to purchasers to price the initial value of the coins for 7.5% of the total supply, with a total valuation of the initial coin supply at $136,000,000.
100% of the dollars raised are being given to non-profits and FOSS projects, and FOSS communities such as hackerspaces. This is effectively a one-way non-destructive "proof-of-burn" on the dollar side to price the coins.
The role of coin purchasers is critical as an initial stakeholder in the growth of the project. The purchasers have been curated to maximize effective change by primarily allocating funds to Venture Capitalists and Token Funds with specialty in the cryptocurrency and decentralized internet ecosystem. Many of these purchasers have been effective in disrupting entire industries and have been involved in large-scale growth of internet services (some even across generations).
The existence of these participants are necessary and fundamental in pricing the tokens, as the distribution event requires real value to be established (a sale of 1% of total initial supply is not credible in pricing the tokens). Additionally, the sale has occurred as close to launch/announcement as possible.
Other projects replicating this mechanism may require greater capital to fund development and/or greater claim to the Pre-Launch Development allocation. This may result in not having a one-way "proof-of-burn", and instead use the capital to fund development of the project.
The role of pricing the coins for distribution is necessary as the coins need to have understood value during the distribution process. While it would ostensibly be ideal to spin-up projects and deploy blockchains without this mechanism, there may be insufficient coordination and ex-ante expectations of value. The role of the high-reputation Venture Capital provides a tastemaker function which provides a signal and Schelling Point for potentially economically and socially valuable projects. These entities are a significant stakeholder in the current ecosystem and a continuing game for project selection and curation may persist as a result ("putting your money where your mouth is"). [1]
brb thinking about how to solve climate change and attempting to solve a problem by turning off my AC give me millions of dollars thanks.
