Notable Transaction: Handshake’s .sats TLD sold to Unstoppable Domains

Kicking off September with some interesting news and insights - the owned of .sats on Handshake, John Harrison, has sold the .sats TLD to Unstoppable Domains.

Very interesting, the first HNS TLD that I am aware of being sold / owned by UD (Unstoppable Domains).

Lets dive in:

Unstoppable Domains Announces It Acquired “Another Blockchain” .sats TLD

News first became public when Unstoppable Domains tweeted it has acquired .sats on “another blockchain” on Twitter

https://twitter.com/unstoppableweb/status/1699837155844190276

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And as text

Unstoppable.x @unstoppableweb
The .sats we bought is a TLD launched on another blockchain (not bitcoin).

We did this to protect the integrity of .sats on ordinals and to make sure apps are comfortable integrating it.

Nothing changes with .sats on ordinals.
12:28 AM · Sep 8, 2023 7,896 Views

Which many of the Handshake community clarified - that other blockchain is “HNS / Handshake”.

But many were surprised not to hear anything from @dotsats - John’s account on the deal.

After some time, @dotsats confirmed the transaction with this Twitter thread

https://twitter.com/dotsats/status/1700064703202861223?s=19

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Dotsats @dotsats
I no longer own .sats

Here's why:

1. I have no desire to spend any energy, time, or money fighting court battles

2. .sats does not reflect handshake's mission:

- .sats is in centralised namebase
- owned by centralised namecheap
- names are in centralised registrar's
3:33 PM · Sep 8, 2023 8,147 Views

3. .sats was stuck in namebase/namecheap.

I'll concentrate on $hns and my tlds not in the SLD programme

If you bought a .sats domain:

As part of the sale, Unstoppable will offer refunds to $hns .sats holders.

It's not simple though, so bear with me. As the registry, I don't own customer data. That's all with the registrars.

I'll work to understand who owns what.

Curious How the SLD (Domains) sold on the Handshake .sats will be redeemed?

It seems somehow Unstoppable Domains will find a way to allow the HNS .sats domain customers to turn in their domain for credits? Maybe somehow they will have to contact / prove to Unstoppable Domains (maybe a .txt record on the domain) to prove ownership.

Just speculating, but the way this deal looks Unstoppable Domains will use the .sats on Bitcoin ordinals protocol, not on the Handshake protocol.

Many are also curious how much this transaction was done for, but no one has yet disclosed this.

Many in Handshake Felt This Was Not Ideal, But I Have A Different Perspective.

Some felt this is “selling out” and giving up.

And you can spin that angle into it.

But I feel differently.

This was .sats owners OWN CHOICE.

It isn’t up to “Handshake foundation” or Dao, or Namebase, or Namecheap, or anyone.

The decision is up to the HNS TLD owner, John, which is the owner and final decision maker of the transaction.

Isn’t that beautiful!

Sure, the Handshake .wallet owner Scott isn’t going this route, and others with choices to sell or stake or hold can also do as they please.

This is why I have always like Handshake protocol.

We are all our own business, we are all are own boss, and we are all directors of Handshake.

Seems John is sticking around in Handshake, and looking at other ways of staking the TLD. No one can stop up, but I support him.

Just hope there is a fair way for .sats SLD domain owners (I’m one of them).

Definitely never boring in the wild, wild west of blockchain domains!