Introducing: disentangle, the IOTA Name Service
Your web3 domain for the Shimmer and IOTA networks
Cryptographically-enabled decentralized technologies are often hailed as one of the most exciting human developments from past years. The principles behind them establish a uniquely powerful backbone that provides the means for mass cooperation and trust at an unprecedented level of global dependability.
Having begun as a relatively simple trustless payment system, distributed ledger technologies have rapidly grown to be on track to fundamentally revolutionize a multitude of sectors all across the board: from the core financial system to supply chain management, agriculture, renewable energies, real estate, smart cities, internet of things, digital identity, gaming, political and corporate governance, and more. In recent years the crypto ecosystem gave birth to the concept of web3, this idea of a next-generation internet that — in line with Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision — evens the playing field by placing power back into the hands of individuals, creating a never-before-seen permissionless landscape which is accessible to anyone and everyone; where trust is no longer completely dependent on the fallible nature of humans, but is rather placed into the hands of reliable, immutable code systems.
While these ambitions give vivid hope for a better future, the web3 space currently faces some obstacles to overcome on its way towards reaching worldwide mainstream adoption. First and foremost, managing crypto wallets continues to rank as a major hurdle for new users entering the space. The struggle of getting familiar with the idiosyncratic complexities of navigating the crypto landscape is exacerbated by the need to constantly deal with random computer-generated strings of meaningless numbers and letters such as “0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045” as the ultimate means to store assets and transact with other users and services. This is a human-unfriendly approach, and without doubt an outstanding hindrance on the way to mass adoption.
The fact that this seemingly random string of characters further remains a user’s sole identity within the web3 landscape underlines its shortcomings. Individuals need identity. This simple truth remains valid within the web3 context, yet due to the nature of the underlying technology, most current solutions fail in properly addressing this core need.
It is at this point where Web3 Name Services come into play, allowing you to specifically choose your own preferred identity over a burdensome computer-generated crypto address. Putting this decentralized domain at the forefront, you can leave many of the technicalities where they belong — in the background — while navigating the Web3 space (dApps, wallets, websites) in a seamless, human-centric manner using your own personal name(s), avatar(s), and other desired pieces of meaningful information.
Sounds interesting? In this and future blog posts we will be delving deeper into how the disentangle IOTA Name Service will fundamentally improve user experience across the entire ecosystem. Let’s dive in!
What is the disentangle IOTA Name Service?
Inspired by the work set out by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and the traditional Domain Name System (DNS), the disentangle IOTA Name Service introduces personalized domain names for both the IOTA & Shimmer ecosystems. Leveraging IOTA’s Tangle allows building on the benefits of a feeless and interoperable base layer destined to become ‘layer zero’, while providing unparalleled scalability and a level of eco-friendliness our planet deserves.
In a nutshell, the disentangle protocol maps human-readable names like “hans.iota” to IOTA- and/or Shimmer-native addresses, as well as other bits of data such as:
- cryptocurrency wallets
- website addresses
- personal information
- dApp integrations
- decentralized identities
- and more to come in the future…
As previously mentioned, the most vital and straightforward use case for a web3 name service is replacing the ubiquitous need for machine-oriented cryptocurrency addresses. By registering a domain, the IOTA Name Service grants you the ability to connect a specific Shimmer and/or IOTA address to your registered human-friendly domain. When using wallets, dApps, and other services that will have integrated disentangle’s INS functionality, simply inputting your personalized domain will tell the application all it needs to know to safely route your funds to your address on the IOTA or Shimmer ledger. The INS smart contract takes care of everything in the background, keeping an immutable, phone book-like record of domain names and their corresponding addresses.
Yet linking wallet addresses is only the first of numerous use cases. The disentangle protocol not only allows users to send and receive SMR, IOTA and all other tokens in the IOTA ecosystem without the inherent drawbacks of traditional cryptocurrency wallets, but it also opens the door for a large number of utilities that are uniquely enabled — or significantly improved — by the ownership of personal domains. No matter if you’re looking to send funds from your wallet, build a censorship-resistant website, proudly display your decentralized identity on Twitter, or chase the best yields on DeFi applications: disentangle will allow you to effortlessly navigate around the Tangleverse. Over the next series of blog posts we will examine in deeper detail all the currently existing domain use cases — as well as some exciting prospects for the future!
It is also important to note that owning a “.iota” domain automatically grants you ownership over all its corresponding subdomains. Let’s look at an example:
Wanting to start your own music events project within the crypto space, you register the second-level domain “festival.iota”, which you then use to introduce curious visitors to your main website. Yet owning this root domain also allows you to create an unlimited number of nested subdomains. You can use this feature not only to set up different decentralized websites like “tickets.festival.iota” and “merchandise.festival.iota”, but you are also free to assign unique subdomains to link the public profiles and/or wallets from each of your team members as in “dom.festival.iota” or “angelo.business.festival.iota”, and even assign the subdomain’s ownership to each person individually. The sky truly is the limit!
Now, what if one wants to change the data associated with any domain? Fret not: every data field within an IOTA domain can always be modified, allowing for complete control and full flexibility over the course of time.
How will disentangle benefit the ecosystem?
By using their own personal domain name from the disentangle IOTA Name Service, individual users are freed from the burden of needing to look up their lengthy and human-unfriendly address, which then needs to be carefully copy-pasted and double-checked every time they want to receive a payment or NFT from a friend, service, crypto exchange, community, or follower base. Unique .iota domains are instead easily memorable, less prone to errors, and — most will agree — simply a little more fashionable!
Businesses, crypto projects, and other public entities within the IOTA landscape can further leverage the benefits of INS and their unique .iota domain to increase their brand visibility and recognizability, thereby boosting their own outreach and digital presence.
On top of these benefits for the individual come the broader collective advantages to the ecosystem as a whole. The vibrant and ever-growing IOTA community has always been a cornerstone of the IOTA ecosystem and a key pillar in its development discourse. Disentangle‘s IOTA Name Service enables all of us to leverage the power of our personalized .iota domains to showcase the true size, passion and commitment of the IOTA community to the broader crypto space.
Why build the IOTA Name Service?
We believe that the current state of cryptocurrency addresses, coupled with the risk of mistyping, misunderstanding or miscopying pose a significant entry barrier, especially for novice users who have little to no previous exposure to decentralized applications.
Disentangle was born out of a shared innate desire to enable an arguably much needed step forward for the global web3 landscape, in our case specifically built upon the Tangle technology so that the disentangle protocol will enrich the IOTA and Shimmer ecosystems with impeccable timing from the very beginning. As such, the disentangle IOTA Name Service aims to bring IOTA one step closer to mainstream adoption by significantly streamlining various aspects of the end-user experience, from seamless cryptocurrency transactions to personalized dApp integrations and censorship-resistant IOTA-branded websites.
Having been closely in touch with the IOTA Foundation to follow their progress and begin our active development with the latest version of the Shimmer protocol, we truly cannot wait to finally see our work from the past months come to fruition and unveil the Name Service that the IOTA community has been patiently waiting for.
IOTA was created to fully reap the groundbreaking benefits of distributed ledger technologies and deliver sustainable real-world impact. Our team is more than excited to launch what we believe to be a true catalyst for ecosystem growth and an immense leap for user experience. Over the course of the next 10 weeks we will keep progressively unveiling more about what you can expect from the IOTA Name Service, from general information to product features, vision/roadmap, and an early participation opportunity even before the Shimmer mainnet will launch. The time is not long until you will be able to register your personal domain — join us in proudly embracing IOTA, and fostering a disentangled future we can all be proud of.
Join us on your favorite platforms and be among the first to get your own personalized .iota domain!
- Website: disentangle.domains
- Twitter: twitter.com/disentangleINS
- Discord: discord.gg/FW9pRzdpDV
- Blog: disentangle.medium.com
- Soonaverse: soonaverse.com/space/disentangleINS
And do let us know your thoughts, suggestions, and feature requests! ❄️
