Handshake’s “The Happening”, Preparing For New Year 2024
Celebration - The Happening!
Mike Michelini and Andrew Lee meet up in Taiwan and here’s a short video of their excitement for the happening!
Here’s a tweet from Andrew Lee about this milestone:
I’m very proud to see the Handshake community organize a soft fork (aka The Happening) 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦.
Very few cryptocurrencies meet this bar of decentralization. BTC BCH and HNS are the only cryptocurrencies I can think of where the community continues to update the protocol without funding or direction from founders. Dogecoin, while decentralized, doesn’t update at all.
As one full cycle has passed since launch, it is a good time for a 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 to share the genesis ideas, assess where we are along these core ideas, and discuss together how we can create the next phase of Handshake together.
At the heart of the Handshake experiment were three core ideas:
1. Commit to a fully decentralized system without centralized leadership
2. Build a community of open source developers via an airdrop to Github developers and PGP WoT members
3. Accelerate adoption from internet stakeholders to replace ICANN with a decentralized naming system
The idea of creating a decentralized alternative to ICANN has been widely embraced by the domain community, and significant players like
@Namecheap are supportive of this concept. Despite lacking centralized leadership, the community has made remarkable progress in terms of marketing, development, and network establishment.
However, the actual adoption of the coins and the protocol has been moderate. The airdrop initiative targeted two primary groups: DNS name holders and open-source developers. So far, approximately 5.5% of name holders and 2.9% of developers have claimed their share.
The intention behind the airdrop was to increase developer awareness and alignment, but it has not yielded the desired results, as both developer and name claims have reached a standstill. Similarly the momentum for use of HNS for domains has similarly stalled due to lack of adoption.
Our experience has highlighted a critical learning: simply giving away coins does not necessarily align incentives. It's akin to the challenges of unconditional basic income models, where there's no required reciprocity.
For the next phase of Handshake, I look forward to working together with the community to figure out how to reallocate the unclaimed open source developer airdrop with a few ideas in mind.
With airdrops, the goal is obviously to give away 100 and create value exceeding 100.
Few things to avoid:
1. Lazy DAO that creates bureaucracy, kills fun, and centralizes.
2. Airdrops that don’t require reciprocity.
3. Airdrops to groups that aren’t asking for it.
Areas to explore:
1. Decentralized social networks (e.g. NOSTR, Bluesky)
2. Name space for other cryptocurrency protocols and NFT projects. A single purpose naming protocol is necessary to avoid name collisions on other crypto protocols. Handshake has traction on this idea with .ETH / ENS and Stargaze / Cosmos.
3. Content Creator Communities. I will write more on this idea in a future post, but I believe content creators will eat the world, and their communities are a prime use case for handshake.
Big shout out to @rithvikvibhut @nod3ch @MatthewZipkin for organizing the soft fork. Also special thanks to @weremeow who helped draft an earlier version of this post.
- Andrew Lee
Last Call - The Happening - It is HAPPENING!
TLDR - What is the happening?
The soft fork passed by the miners and goes in effect in about 15 days (early February 2024) - we are discussing now new marketing ways for it -
but one main milestone is reserve domain names unlock - so it is 2 part
1) last call for those who have those reserve domains to claim them (free + some HNS bonus)
2) opportunity for new people to get those domain names (once soft fork is put in effect in 15 days)
so we are thinking of trying to help make sure people in (1) know about this as it is 2 weeks' last chance to get it and they can't complain anymore as they had like 4 years
It is a code name for “HNS soft fork” coined by Nole at HeyTX (read more on Article explaining the upcoming fork: https://heytx.substack.com/p/the-happening-event-for-handshake )
We also discussed it in a previous Skyinclude video here.
Last Call For Reserved Name Domain Holders (Still have time to claim)
Not sure if you qualify - you can enter your domain on various block explorers. One of the easier ones is here:
Check out E.skimo’s http://handshake.rsvp to see if you qualify.
And he also made an easy way to help you claim
Also, Erik mentioned a new explorer
Yo, I would steer folks toward Simon's awesome explorer which is the most expressive and detailed I've seen. Tracks names to be released with filter functionality:
Opera Browser - Please Claim!
Let’s all work together and make a push
I made a copy of Rithvik’s sheet (his original here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DG0kBpLbLB2zKlJW2F7ANkk8SDbADpUa3sQuEY62_Bw/edit#gid=236144083 ) to see if the HNS fam wants to step up and pick some names where they can try to make a last call effort to people/companies who have not yet reserved names and will lose them at this Happening
They only have 15 days from this video!
The spreadsheet is here -if you’d like to contribute let Anne/ or I know and we can add you as an editor
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OXuJnV7EtYCxeM0xUcYlcL8hSaSIyMVxBztuV268rqA/edit#gid=0
HeyTX is having a meetup in Texas to Celebrate
Just Before HandyCon 2024 - March 13 - 15, 2024 online
We are so excited what will happen with the Happening and will have a recap at the HandyCon.xyz or handshake.conference on handshake - online - March 13 - 15, 2024
RSVP free at https://2024.handycon.xyz
Updates - January 4, 2023
Preparing for this soft fork - here are some useful resources:
1. Handshake Twitter / X account announcing fork: https://x.com/HNS/status/1725022206525349944?s=20
2. Article explaining the upcoming fork: https://heytx.substack.com/p/the-happening-event-for-handshake
3. Timeline of major events in the Handshake ecosystem (includes reference to Antminer HS3 selling out in 27 seconds): https://x.com/Hey__tx/status/1729504553173754192?s=20
Updates - August 28, 2023
Version v6.1.0 is now available.
Release: https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/releases/tag/v6.1.0
Release notes: https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/v6.1.0/docs/release-notes/release-notes-6.x.md
Note:
The version v6.0.0 will not break anything but will no longer signal. Kindly update to version v6.1.0.
We’re deep in the bear market, and deep in summer 2023 - and working our way as a Handshake community to bigger and brighter days.
One of those is what has been called “The Happening” (believe Nole.tx made this name) which represents the Soft Fork being discussed.
What is The Happening?
This is a time when Alexa 100k reserved names will be “released into the wild”. Certain names will still remain reserved (believe it is the first 1000 on the Alexa100k) but the majority will move to an “open” state and allow anyone to trigger / start an auction mode.
This is all going to “open” at once. All in early 2024. I was personally thinking about not letting it all release at once and spreading it over a year (like the first year of Main net) but many felt that would just let the whales get them all - by releasing all at the same time - “normal people” can focus on that 1 TLD they are waiting for and not have to fight whales each week.
As Paul Webb and I discussed in our August Handshake.mastermind Twitter spaces, this will be a very interesting event - for the HNS coin as well as the community in general. It should create a spike in demand for the coin in order to bid on these thousands of top quality single word TLDs. It will also re-engage our community who has gotten bored of the lack of interesting names available for auction.
Of course, do you own due diligence on those speculations.
You can check the list of names being released here
https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/pull/828#issuecomment-1663872419
And Rithvik made a new google sheet here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DG0kBpLbLB2zKlJW2F7ANkk8SDbADpUa3sQuEY62_Bw/edit#gid=0
What Needs To Happen For This To Pass?
So one reason I’m even typing this up, is in the Handshake Dev Telegram chat, Rithvik is asking miners to update their code so that this soft fork will be pushed onto production.
If you are mining - or know miners - please ask them to make this update
Hi, hsd (Handshake's node software) released v6.0.0 yesterday (mid August 2023) which includes the ICANN Lockup soft fork.
Soft Fork brief:
Currently, after ~4 years from mainnet genesis (block 210240), all unclaimed reserved names will be allowed to go up for auction. This soft fork prevents auctions for some of these names for another 4 years (till block 419328).
For more info:
- https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/pull/819
- https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/pull/828
- https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/pull/834
After updating, miners who want to support the soft-fork need to start signalling with icannlockup bit. When do you think you folks can update and start signalling?
v6.0.0
Release notes: https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/blob/v6.0.0/docs/release-notes/release-notes-6.x.md
Release: https://github.com/handshake-org/hsd/releases/tag/v6.0.0
When is This Upgrade Due By?
"BIP-9 signalling by miners takes place from 10th August 2023 to 31th December 2023."
So at least by 2 weeks before the end of the year so that it counts for the last window. But to be safe, let's just say by end of November
Reaching Out To Miners
The ones that Rithvik has reached out to are:
F2Pool
- 2023-08-12: Contacted on Telegram
ViaBTC
- 2023-08-12: Contacted on Twitter and Website form
- 2023-08-13: Replied, forwarded to internal technical team
AntPool
- 2023-08-12: Contacted on Website form
DxPool
- 2023-08-12: Contacted on Discord
Mining-Dutch Pools
- 2023-08-12: Contacted on Discord
- 2023-08-12: Replied, will get back to us next week
And I will be reaching out to some on that list too.
Checking The Status of the Soft Fork (Aka “The Happening)
Rithvik made this btw: https://forkwatch.htools.work/
But if you want “The Happening” to happen - then ask miners as well will be the best move you can make.
Looking forward to seeing you at the Happening in early 2024, believe this will be a good turning point for the HNS community.