The rise of Web3 functionality has been a boon for decentralized domain name services over the past two years, with millions of blockchain-based domains registered to date. Challenging market conditions may have hampered exponential growth, but industry leaders believe that utility-driven adoption will continue in the future. Web3 is fundamentally changing how businesses, brands and retailers serve customers, who are taking full control of their data, wallets and online identity courtesy of blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum. Decentralized domain names are proving to be valuable tools for users and businesses to integrate with Web3 functionality. From providing human-readable names that replace …

A particular topic of interest in the blockchain space is the emergence of blockchain-related projects in the domain name system (DNS) and domain ecosystem. Handshake, in particular, has been gaining attention among decentralized technology enthusiasts for its potential to revolutionize how people think about and interact with domains, especially in the context of Web3. What is a handshake (HNS) domain? Handshake (HNS) is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol that allows for peer-to-peer communication and provides an accessible alternative to centrally managed domain names, such as .com, country-code domains and other generic domains. As a decentralized peer-to-peer domain naming protocol, Handshake …

Interoperability protocol Celer Network (CELR) has asked its users to revoke the approval for several contracts after shutting down its cBridge over a suspected DNS hijacking. According to the project's initial analysis, there was some suspicious DNS activity at around 7 PM (UTC) on Aug. 17. However, the platform is still trying to investigate and know more about the issue at the time of writing. Meanwhile, as the platform continues to pinpoint the problem, the team has shut down the cBridge as an initial way to avoid any more mishaps and protect their users. In addition to shutting down the …

2022 has been a lucrative year for hackers preying on the nascent Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) spaces, with more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency fleeced in several high-profile hacks to date. Cross-chain protocols have been particularly hard hit, with Axie Infinity’s $650 million Ronin Bridge hack accounting for a significant portion of stolen funds this year. The pillaging continued into the second half of 2022 as cross-chain platform Nomad saw $190 million drained from wallets. The Solana ecosystem was the next target, with hackers gaining access to private keys of some 8000 wallets that resulted in $5 million …

The Open Network (TON) Foundation is the latest cryptocurrency company to upgrade its ecosystem with Ethereum Name Service (ENS)-like domain names. The TON Foundation on Thursday announced the launch of TON DNS, a new service that allows users to assign human-readable names to crypto wallets, smart contracts and websites. Similar to other popular crypto-related domain names like “.eth” or “.crypto” the domain zone for TON DNS is “.ton” and will enable users to access decentralized applications in a simple way. With TON DNS, users will be able to use simple and short domain names instead of typing in a long …

The cryptocurrency market is abuzz on Oct. 25 as the sight of multiple altcoins hitting new all-time highs and Bitcoin's (BTC) return to $63,000 has traders looking for a resumption of the bullish uptrend. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were PARSIQ (PRQ), Handshake (HNS) and NEAR Protocol (NEAR). PARSIQ advocates for interoperability between networks PARSIQ is a blockchain-based analytics platform that specializes in connecting blockchain activity to real-world applications. According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for PRQ have been favorable for some time. The VORTECS™ …

Cloudlfare, an internet service provider responsible for various functions, went down Sunday morning, taking down many websites, including some crypto sites. The company confirmed in a tweet it experienced issues around 9:24 am Eastern time caused by a third-party transit provider. Network stability returned around 11 am though Cloudflare said it is still monitoring for other potential problems. In a statement emailed to Cointelegraph, Cloudflare chief technology officer John Graham-Cumming said: “Today we saw a widespread Internet outage online that impacted many multiple providers. This was not a Cloudflare-specific outage. Level 3/CenturyLink was responsible for an outage that affected many …

Cloudflare, a major company responsible for running an array of functions for websites across the internet, suffered downtime on July 17, affecting a large number of websites' functionality. The downtime ultimately caused a drop in Bitcoin (BTC) transactions. "The Cloudflare DNS [Domain Name System] outage can be seen reflected in the rate of Bitcoin transactions broadcast, presumably because popular web wallets became inaccessible," Bitcoin engineer and expert, Jameson Lopp, said in a July 17 tweet. Lopp's tweet included a chart showing a noticeable drop in Bitcoin's transactions per second. Cloudflare went down Cloudflare posted a note on its website at …

CloudCoin announced the launch of its cloud-based digital currency on July 15. With no blockchain, public ledger, accounts or encryption, CloudCoin claims it is the most private digital currency ever created. It uses technology adapted from the internet’s Domain Name Service, or DNS, to enable secure email-to-email or email-to-wallet transactions. CloudCoin says that it eliminates systemic risk of theft by not requiring private keys which can be stolen, and that lost CloudCoins can even be recovered. Not Bitcoin, not blockchain Since the release of the Bitcoin white paper back in 2008, cryptocurrencies have been inextricably linked with the blockchain technology …

Put the word "blockchain" together with the acronym "DNS" and what do you get? Just like that 1980s commercial in which chocolate collides with peanut butter, you get a result that's really quite remarkable — blockchain-based domain names. This new hybrid could change the way the system works in important ways. The term "blockchain" refers to the underlying technology that powers Bitcoin, a distributed data store that achieves a state of consensus. Every node on the network will agree about the historical facts, with minimal reliance on trusting central authorities. The Domain Name System (DNS) is used every time you …

Cryptostorm, the VPN (virtual private network) service providers, revealed to Cointelegraph that they’ve been using Bitcoin and Namecoin to power their portal to the Darknet for months, announcing native access to Tor, I2P and .bit websites. The company, also known as “Cstorm,” has been providing VPN services since 2006. In an interview with CT, they said they have been looking into blockchain technologies since 2012, around the time they began accepting Bitcoin as payment. During our conversation, they officially announced their native integration of Namecoin’s .bit domains into their services, alongside their tunnels to .onion and .i2p websites, which allows …