October 2021 Highlights

Namebase

The easiest way to get started on Handshake

• You can now connect Handshake domains to IPFS websites!

• Our referral program has been updated! Moving forward, you'll earn 50% of the marketplace fees of anyone you refer.

  • This means you'll earn HNS every time your referrals result in a marketplace purchase or sale!

• We've pinned a Tweet with all the resources a newcomer needs to get started on Handshake:

  • Why Handshake exists

  • How to access Handshake names

  • What people are excited to use Handshake for

  • Who created Handshake

  • How to get a Handshake name

  • How to buy HNS coins

  • Visual educational resources

• Did you know Handshake was created to replace Certificate Authorities? Here's a 2 minute explainer video of how.

• Handshake joins the BPSAA (Blockchain Privacy, Security and Adoption Alliance) as its 10th member!

• Tieshun chatted with Okcoin about Facebook's outage, which could've been entirely avoided with Handshake.

• Tieshun joins Dweb Chats with MigsMachine to talk about HNS and Web 3.0!

• We sponsored a DappRadar article to introduce Handshake to their Dapp developers!

• TikTok stars Sam Jarman and Addison Jarman uploaded TikToks where they introduce Handshake!

• The Internet Archive introduces the Wayforward Machine to show what Internet censorship could look like in 25 years. Without Handshake, it could be more like 5-10 years.

• Our community manager went as "Handshake" for Halloween!

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Opportunities to help:

• 2,000 HNS bounty: Create a "Card game" where Handshake names can be used as the cards. Names can have different stats and classes based on what type of names they are (e.g. Tank, Mage, Assassin for Alphabet, Numerical, and Emoji domains).

• 1,000 HNS bounty: Create a Namer News clone where only subdomain owners of a specific TLD can login. This should take advantage of both subdomain gifting and Handshake login (which supports logging in with subdomain gifts).

• 500 HNS bounty: We use this library to render emojis on Namebase. In order for zero-width joiner emojis to be rendered properly on Namebase, this library needs to get updated.

• Open role: "Events Organizer". Our community needs a Namer who can help organize Directors to represent Handshake at their local blockchain events. Main responsibility is researching blockchain events that are happening around the world.

• Ping johnnywu/ in the Namer Community Discord if you're interested in taking on any of these bounties.

dWeb Foundation

A Foundation for the Third Internet Era

• dWeb Foundation is organizing a free privacy and censorship-resistance summit between Handshake and Orchid on November 15th, 2021!

  • Speakers will include: Best-selling author Glenn Greenwald, Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies, Handshake cofounder Chris Jeffrey, and Impervious lead developer Matthew Zipkin

• Submit your Handshake names here to auction off at the summit's premium domain auction!

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  Flamingo Handshake

Premium Live Auctions for Handshake Names

• Preparing a short but sweet auction this coming Nov 3 at 4pm PST

Foci

Email & DNS hosting service with support for Handshake domains

• Primarily focused on admin related issues; research, paperwork, planning, etc.

• Active development towards the closed beta release slowed because of this, though progress towards that end has started to pick back up.

• Goal is to start sending invites to beta testers in early-mid November.

Opportunities to help:

• Thanks to everyone who reached out last month. For those waiting for the beta, sorry for the wait!

• Anyone else interested in participating in the beta test of the DNS service, or is just curious to learn more, can always reach out to me on Twitter @nlydv or by email.

github/handshake-org

A diverse group of contributors that maintain Handshake core software like hsd and hnsd

• This month we released hsd v3.0.0 (which will be included in Bob Wallet v0.9.0). This is a major update that migrates block data to a flat-file format from levelDB, improving data robustness and speed.

• Checkpoints were added to optimize initial blockchain download (IBD) and speed-ups of up to 50% were observed on some systems.

• The root zone authoritative nameserver was updated with better DNSSEC, including more complete proofs of exclusion. These proofs are more compatible with legacy DNS software and protect users from downgrade attacks which are critical since we rely on DNSSEC for https (DANE).

• There are lots more features and bug fixes added in hsd v3.0.0 please see https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md for details and upgrade information

• This update was brought to you by funding from Impervious, Namebase, Kyokan, dWeb Foundation, HNSFund, and others! It's great to see our decentralized community collaborate and produce great software for the network.

Opportunities to help:

• The api docs hosted at https://hsd-dev.org/api-docs/ need lots of updates, which are enumerated in issues at https://github.com/handshake-org/handshake-org.github.io/issues.

• We will assign bounty values to these issues soon but if anyone is interested in learning more about hsd, reviewing and editing the documentation is actually a great way to get started.

• Ask for help in the developer channel: https://t.me/hns_tech. Until we have formal bounties posted, we will accept proposals from community members!

Kyokan

We make decentralized stuff

• Bob Desktop 0.9.0 RC1 is out! This upgrade includes:

  • Name claim wizard: claim your name airdrop easily with this new wizard

  • SPV mode: use an SPV node instead of Fullnode and significantly reduced resources required when using Bob

  • Upgrade to HSD 3.0.1: improved sync time and node perfomance

  • Improved wallet performance: bring back wallet-as-plugin architecture and improve wallet performance

  • For downloads and release notes, check the latest GitHub Release!

Opportunities to help:

• Please help test this release (and the new features) out by upgrading Bob Desktop. Feel free to join the Telegram group / Discord or create an issue on GitHub to report bugs and give feedback.

Shakestats

Make your domain trading life easier

• Hey fam! This month we have been working hard on our biggest auction yet, hoping to bring an experience we haven't seen before. We have decided to lock in the date: 30th of November.

• More details soon. Get excited!

Opportunities to help:

• If you are one of the following and would like to help us with a few tasks, message us directly:

  • Graphic designer

  • Video editor

  • SQL expert

SkyInclude

Education & Services For Building Websites on Handshake

• In alpha testing of a HNS pay plugin for Woocommerce on wordpress. Working but not on the wp repo.

Additional community highlights

• The Shake posted a Tweet thread highlighting other communities and chains using Handshake.

• The CEO and President of ICANN shared their thoughts on Handshake names at ICANN72.

• Clearpool set up their Handshake name at clearpool/

Namer Norms

• Namers are Directors of Handshake. Handshake is controlled by no one and can be enhanced by anyone.

• Namers believe in freedom, transparency, security, and equitable ownership of the internet. Handshake domains can be practically anything, are won through open auctions, are censorship-resistant and private, and can be fully owned by anyone.