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160 sats \ 2 replies \ @ursuscamp OP 23 May 2023 \ on: Nomen: a protocol for globally unique names using Bitcoin and Nostr bitcoin
Whelp, here is the thing I've been working on for the past few months.
I wanted to build a way to have a kind of 'decentralized DNS' that didn't involve some sidechain, and once Nostr came along the last piece kind of clicked into place for me.
A quick summary: You can register a name by publishing claim to a name on the blockchain (it's a simple OP_RETURN, not an inscription, if you're curious). All of the data propagation (records, etc) happen on Nostr. There was no need to cram everything on the chain, or design new propagation protocol for records data.
The data in the OP_RETURN is only a hash of ownership data, basically. The name, and the public key of the owner are hashed as a unique identifier. An indexer can take the claim on chain and link it up to published Nostr events of a certain kind, signed by the same public key, and voila, you have a valid name.
Interesting project. It's great to see people thinking about how to use Nostr and Bitcoin to solve problems.
My main question is, how do you handle the case where a domain is registered in this way, but then another person publishes an OP_RETURN and note claiming the same name? Obviously Bitcoin miners won't enforce any rules from your system so you must have some kind of protocol-based way to adjudicate.
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First come, first serve. You are correct that the miners do not enforce it. The protocol establishes that the first to publish the claim is the recognized.
Some people won’t like that, but Inscriptions, BRC-20 and others have shown the power of network effects and social consensus, even without a blockchain to enforce the rules.
One interesting and positive side effect of this is the potential for the protocol the ability to include exceptions. For instance, one possible future extension to the protocol I have considered is the ability for an indexer to subscribe to lists of scammers and squatters in order to ignore illegitimate claims.
Let’s say that someone squats on Amazon, or uses registers amaz0n in order to trick people. People running indexers (for themselves or for the public) could subscribe to Nostr events from trusted individuals or organizations who maintain lists of “scammers and spammers” whose claims can be safely ignored by indexers. The real possibility of having their claims ignored, plus the very real cost of mining a transaction to claim a name, might provide a very simple, neat and decentralized deterrent for scammers and squatters.
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