OVERVIEW
The Wallet Name System is our proposal to build a decentralized network of servers that communicate with the cardano blockchain to register and query details associated with wallet addresses - it works like the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) but for wallets.
This video presentation explains the details:
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VALUE PROPOSITION
Essentially WNS servers will use the cardano blockchain to allow any cryptocurrency user to assign human readable names and associated information (such as email, phone, business addresses, etc) to their wallets: if you own multiple wallets, for multiple cryptocurrencies, all of them would be accessible under your registered name.
The basic functions of this system revolve around a simple API which allows:
wallet owners to register their details with their preferred WNS provider users and application developers to query all names and associated information registered, to obtain the corresponding wallet addresses for a given blockchain
The idea is to support applications, such as wallets, to enable their users to query payees by name and transfer funds to the wallet assigned to that name.
How it will work:
For example, you can assign "John" to a wallet address, and then other people can send money to "John" without having to know what is his current wallet. John can update his details at will.
Constraints can be assigned to addresses so wallets and software that uses this service can notify users that they are sending insufficient funds for example.
All registrations are transactions on the cardano blockchain, so all WNS server providers will be able to see all registrations made by other WNS servers.
A WNS can curate addresses and mark them as potential scam addresses. Using the earlier example, if John is a scammer, users can be notified that they are sending funds to a scam address.
Lastly, a WNS can accept the registration of wallet addresses of any blockchain. We want to incentivize other blockchains to interact with cardano through the utility we provide as an ecosystem.
EXPECTATIONS
Our goal is to provide a super simple to use server infrastructure that leverages the cardano blockchain, and to provide an open API that makes the life of software developers incredibly easy. For end users, it will be cheap and with no recurring costs to keep their registration available - you only pay a minimum of 1 ADA per registration or update plus transaction fees.
We will build the server infrastructure code which WNS providers can run, plus client libraries to facilitate the interaction with the webservices it provides. Everything will be open-sourced. We will also build registration and query pages that can be used as the basis to help other WNS operators to build their own independent registration websites.
IP/COPYRIGHT
The entire source code of this project will be available on github under the GPL V2.0 license and we hope other community developers can build on top of this to create even better solutions in the future.
PROPOSED LAUNCH
Within 2 months
PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY
Anyone can run their own WNS server and we plan to run a WNS ourselves and allow users to register with us. The registration fees collected should help to keep our operation going.
METRICS
Code activity can be measured from commits on github.
COMPETITION
There are other projects around which attempt to address the same problem, but none of these allow you register more than a name and a wallet and the cost is high. Also none provide an open querying API that anyone can use to find names and addresses for any given blockchain. What's out there are very limited solutions compared to what we are proposing to build. FIO, for example, uses its own blockchain, and it charges recurring fees for renewals. UnstoppableDomains is another similar solution which is expensive and as centralized as it can get.