We Acquired the Connext TLD!
Our first steps towards decentralized, always-online services.
At Connext, our goal is to build an uncensorable, always-online network for transferring value between chains and L2s.
We’ve hinted in our earlier posts that a big part of realizing this vision is decentralizing the different parts of the Connext stack. This isn’t easy to do — effective p2p networking infrastructure is still being built, and there’s a lot of work that needs to happen before it can work efficiently at scale.
So far, we have identified the following pieces of Connext that are currently centralized that will need to be moved to dWeb systems as soon as possible:
- Naming — how do peers in the network refer to each other?
- Discovery — how do peers in the network find each other?
- Messaging — how do peers in the network communicate with each other?
- Storage — how do peers in the network store state data?
With new public blockchains focused on the decentralized web natively such as Filecoin, and Handshake, as well as continually evolving layer 2 storage systems like Siacoin’s Skynet, we’re constantly researching ways to improve our tech stack to remain aligned with the expansion of the industry.
Our First Step: Naming
To begin our transition, we’ve acquired the .Connext TLD on the Handshake public blockchain.
Connext is using the .Connext TLD currently to resolve to a decentralized linktree (referred to as “dLinks”); this creates a static portal of Connext communities and relevant Github repos. You can check it out at:
https://connext.hns.to/
Longer term, decentralized TLDs give us a chain-agnostic, censorship-resistant naming system for actors in our network and, over time, we can expand to provide routers their own SLDs (second-level domains). Doing this lets us turn Vector router identifiers which look like vector892GMZ3CuUl... into router.arjun.connext.
We’re continuing to keep an eye on more technologies as they develop that can help us remove the need for traditional servers and databases. More soon!
About Connext
Connext is a crosschain routing network that enables seamless communication between the Ethereum mainnet, L2 systems, and shards.
