TON DNS
TON DNS is a service that allows users to assign a human-readable name to crypto wallets, smart contracts, and websites.
With TON DNS, access to decentralized services is analogous to access to websites on the internet.
Your nickname on a decentralized network
You can create an account on social media and some messenger apps by registering a username, enabling others to find you more easily.
Now you can register a domain name on the TON blockchain and assign it to your crypto wallet. This domain name will be your nickname on The Open Network.
The Tonkeeper, TON Web Wallet, and Tonscan services have already integrated support for TON DNS. Most other TON-based apps also plan to implement support so that nicknames (domain names) can be used across the entirety of the TON ecosystem.
In addition to users registering domain names, developers can also register domain names for the smart contracts of their decentralized services. Now, smart contracts will also have their own nicknames, just like bots in messenger apps.
A simple and convenient blockchain
TON concentrates efforts on making apps and services as simple as possible.
TON has made it its mission to attain mass adoption to the point where even complete beginners will be able to reap the benefits of the network and the security provided by decentralized technologies.
TON developers have recently increased their output to achieve this goal. For example, the @wallet Telegram bot now allows users to send Toncoin to other users directly within chats in the messenger, along with Cryptobot and TonRocket which have more advanced features.
The launch of TON DNS will simplify the payment process via wallet addresses.
A step even closer toward a fully decentralized internet
In Q3 2022, TON Sites and TON Proxy are slated to launch.
This decentralized technology provides more privacy and security to both the users and website owners.
Besides these releases, there will also be tools to facilitate the interaction between blockchain smart contracts and internet resources and vice versa.
Although you can assign a wallet address to a TON DNS, you’ll also be able to assign TON site.
What we see in TON DNS is a welcome alternative to centralized domain registries, which can often block your site’s domain either for arbitrary reasons or erroneously.
“.ton” domain names are NFTs
The domain zone for TON DNS is called “.ton”.
Users will register their domain name like this: “alice.ton”
“.ton” domain names are NFTs.
That means that once you obtain a domain name, you’ll be able to store, gift, or sell it — the same way you’d handle regular NFTs.
Your domain will be stored in your wallet, and you’ll be able to put it up for sale on NFT marketplaces, such as Disintar, which already support TON DNS.
Rules for .ton domain names
The “.ton” domain name must be at least 4 characters and no more than 126 characters.
Registering a domain name with fewer than 4 characters is unavailable to avoid confusion with well-known internet domain names, such as “com”, “org”, “gov”, etc.
The domain must contain English letters, digits, and hyphen.
However, technically, a domain name could depict an emoji, but they’re unavailable because a lot of them look the same — e.g., 😗 and 😙— which scammers would use to trick unsuspecting users easily.
Once per year, the domain’s owner will have to send a nanoton to the domain’s smart contract to extend the domain for a year. If the owner fails to extend their domain, it will go up for auction. Such is to prevent losing a domain forever in the event its owner loses access.
Decentralization
TON DNS is a decentralized domain name system. There is no “administrator” who can block your domain name.
For exceptional cases, it is possible to change the owner or delete the domain by means of network-wide voting. Note that most of the network can change not only DNS, but also any configuration of the blockchain, but since there are several hundred independent validators on the network, then such changes need an exceptionally good reason.
The initial domain name distribution will be an open auction
The initial domain name distribution will be decentralized and with equal conditions for everyone via an auction.
The auction begins on July 30, 2022, on the dns.ton.org website.
The TON Foundation is going to launch the auction a month from now to help spread the word so that more people can prepare themselves for it.
Smart contracts will handle the auction. Coins from the sale of domains will be removed from circulation — they’ll be sent to a smart contract where they’ll remain forever with no possibility of withdrawing them.
You can learn more about the auction process before it goes live on the testnet:
https://dns.ton.org/?testnet=true
Please do not send your real Toncoin on the testnet; otherwise, you’ll lose it forever.
Auction Rules
The domain auction will last one week. In the future, the auction period may be shortened to make the process more convenient for all users.
All users will be able to place bids in Toncoin to win a domain name.
If a bid is placed with less than an hour left in the auction, it will be prolongated by one hour to allow other users to place counterbids.
Every new bid must be at least 5% higher than the previous.
When the auction closes, the user who placed the highest bid will collect their domain name.
The auction rules may be slightly changed by the start time.
Developers
Each domain can store up to 2^256 DNS records where you can store not only your wallet addresses and websites but anything you want also.
You can use this in your products.
A domain can be assigned an arbitrary smart contract responsible for the management of subdomains. It can implement any functionality that can be used to create new mechanics.
TON welcomes the writing of auxiliary services that could simplify user participation in auctions; for example, so that users do not have to wake up early in the morning if the auction is held at an inconvenient time. Also, services could collect a small commission fee in Toncoin for their work.
Conclusion
The TON Foundation is more than happy to announce the launch of TON DNS, the newest major component of the TON ecosystem.
We’ll be expecting you on July 30 at the auction, where you can register TON-based domain names.
I really hope I'm wrong, but this feels like the "time for everyone to get ready" will basically let the most ruthless wealthy investors hire people to build them bots to mass-bid on every DNS that anyone had a bid for (maybe under a certain threshold) 1 hour before the bid's closing time, and then resell them for whatever price they want to all those who did not notice or were unable to bid again.
Since the rules for the bid are still in the making, they may adapt them to prevent such abuses, which would definitely be against the democratization that TON seems to pursue.
However that may go, I'll mark the dates just in case, to try to get a couple of domains if I can. Thanks a lot for the heads up!