Learnings from ICANN Hanoi CP Summit

Had the opportunity to join my first ICANN event, which came from Tom Barrett at Encira during our HandyCon mentioning it was coming. A quick trip from Thailand and a good chance to learn more and connect with the ICANN community, I jumped at the chance.

Also, shout out to the dWeb Foundation for reimbursing my travel expenses, it is pending now.

You can also see the “behind the scenes” vlog on my personal blog.

The main 2 days were Tuesday and Wednesday, May 6-7, 2025 (with pre-event networking and post-event Asia focused).

I have to say, I was a bit intimidated coming in - many of the attendees have known each other for years and even decades and I was there on my own. Luckily bumped into Tom rather early and he gave me some intros and tips. Really met a lot of ICANN, Verisign, and Godaddy people - feel almost half of the attendees were from these organizations.

On the first day of the conference, a web3 panel was put together. I was pleasantly surprised and even heard about the lawsuit of Unstoppable Domains vs a Handshake community member .wallet. I had to ask a question and went on stage and asked that web3 is about the community and the people having ownership, power, and getting the benefits.

Once I warmed up to the environment and format, I was more comfortable approaching people and saying I am from SkyInclude, a web3 registrar that sells domains on Namecheap, Encirca, Porkbun, and others. Often got a lot of questions and a lot of various reactions.

Many other web3 companies are coming to ICANN events, from Unstoppable to Freename, to D3 - even organizing side events and other sessions. Feel Handshake was not represented at all and should be there.

My main takeaways:

  • People feel Handshake is not active anymore - those who know about Handshake were surprised I was there thinking that it had gone away / faded.
  • How does Handshake make money? Many asked how it can sustain itself if it gave all the money away it raised and doesn't have a foundation or anything to support development.
  • Development is key - after the web3 panel I spoke to some of the organizers and they had no clue how much had been built on Handshake. They said this is critical for their assessment.
  • Many web3 domain platforms are applying for the ICANN 2026 round - Unstoppable representative said “Money is not a matter and they will win all the extensions they go for”. Others like Nova are going for a lot as well. ENS I heard is also actively going into the auctions. Seems many are really going all in.
  • Verisign - I have some contacts there now and they seem open to discussing claiming their TLD. But they and others there are nervous to claim anything as they feel it may be seen as an endorsement. A lot of conversations about that, and does seem like the ICANN and domain community knew about Handshake earlier on and simply ignored it for fear of legitimizing it.
  • Crypto has a bad name - many are not familiar with even Bitcoin (about 30-50% seem to be aware and open to Bitcoin) and feel many projects in crypto are ponzi, etc.

It makes me wonder - should Handshake apply for a/many TLD in the ICANN round in 2026. There was a lot of support there.

They did treat me like a potential applicant for the new gTLD round in 2026 and I have contact with ICANN reps about it and a lot of research to do. There are various support programs for nonprofits who apply.

All in all, I do see value in having Handshake represented at ICANN events, but being so decentralized and with no foundation, who should go and how would that work?