What is Move Name Service | Project description & Future vision

5 min readSep 8, 2022

MNS is a naming system based on the Aptos blockchain.
MNS maps human-readable names like “satoshi.move” to a machine-readable identifiers such as Aptos address.

MNS will be a lighthouse of the Aptos & Move ecosystem.

How to Use

Connect your wallet.

2. Search for your favorite name in our service. Then, click search button.

3. If your favorite name is not acquired by anyone else, our service tell you it’s available.

4. Click “buy now” button to mint the name NFT.

By the way above, you can get your MNS name, and MNS maps the human-readable name you got to your Aptos address.
When someone else send token to your address, they will be able to enter the name you obtained in the recipient field of their wallet.

At this point of time, we are thinking of adding three more functions to MNS.

Hosting your website on IPFS with MNS name as a site domain
Creating sub-domains
Enabling users to use MNS names on other chains on the Move ecosystem

Three values that MNS brings to the ecosystem

Mapping Human-readable names to the Aptos address
Decentralizing websites
Providing IDs that can be used throughout the entire Move ecosystem

1. Mapping Human-readable names to the Aptos address

By MNS, users can buy and manage their own names, so secure transactions can take place without having to deal with long and complex addresses. It reduces the likelihood of any input errors when typing out the recipient’s address to send funds. MNS enables Aptos users to interact with each other very smoothly and the Aptos ecosystem can be used easily not only by crypto users, but also by a lot of people who are not familiar with crypto industry.

2. Decentralizing websites

The MNS function of decentralizing websites help the Aptos ecosystem widely spread into a huge number of users on the Internet. Websites will be more censorship-resistant, more privacy-protected, and more secure.

MNS names is going to be used also as website URLs. You can host your website on IPFS using MNS name like “aptoslabs.move” as a website URL. This is a fully decentralized website ,and this architecture of our naming system can solve many problems that the traditional DNS system currently has.

Three problems of DNS which MNS will be solve

censorship
espionage and privacy breach
security concerns

The first problem is censorship. Websites are being increasingly censored and banned from the internet around the world. For instance, journalistic websites that speak up against existing regimes are banned in several countries. Similarly, several users are denied access to social media. These censorship that traditional DNS enables is a major threat to freedom of information and expression.
On the other hand, MNS domains point to a distributed registry. Since there is no central data location, it’s impossible to censor MNS domains. Only the website owner can control MNS domain and the website itself.

The second problem of traditional DNS is espionage and privacy breach. By analyzing the user’s interactions with DNS servers, authorities can monitor their browsing activities. MNS domains enhance the privacy. Espionage is theoretically impossible with MNS domains since interactions are P2P and encrypted.

The third problem is security concerns of DNS attacks. The traditional DNS architecture is prone to attacks like DNS poisoning. Attackers falsify the data of a DNS server, and consequently users are directed to a fake website instead of the real one. On the other hand, MNS domains are not controlled by a single entity, so it’s much more secure and resistant to cyber attacks.

By offering solutions to these three problems of DNS, MNS aims to become a widely used domain system throughout the world.

3. Providing IDs that can be used throughout the entire Move ecosystem

MNS names plans to go beyond the Aptos chain in the future, and become IDs that can be used on other blockchains on the Move language. This will not only increase the value of MNS names as a widely used ID, but will also increase the presence of the Move ecosystem itself, increasing the number of developers in the Move ecosystem and helping the ecosystem to flourish.