Important news coming for the NEO ecosystem: “NNS: Neo Name Service”

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Ste Liv

5 min readAug 5, 2018

NNS is a decentralized, open source and extensible service of domain names “.neo” developed on the NEO blockchain and developed by NEL — a new community of developers who will devote themselves to the development of different apps on the NEO blockchain and the first will be Neo Name Service .

What NEL wants to do is make NEO addresses simple and readable, so instead of having a very long alphanumeric address we can choose a readable and simple address to remember. The operation is simple, once we have chosen a domain name for example John.neo we will open an auction to which anyone can participate and the best bidder will reserve the domain.

NNS is therefore the equivalent of ENS (Ethereum Name Service) and will work the same way only on the blockchain of NEO and with the difference that NNS will implement several other functions:

subdomains. With this function, for example, a wallet like o3 could allow its users to register a wallet with its own subdomain xxxx.o3.neo
it can be used on decentralized file storage like IPFS.
will support reverse resolution which will become an effective way to verify smart addresses and contracts.

NNS, is also different from ENS in the auction of domain names. ENS user experience is not good, cuz bidders need 2 save the ciphertext and remember the bid revealing time, or one will lose the qualification n bid fund. NNS adopts a transparent auction, which gets rid of these troubles. Furthermore, NNS will issue its own token called Sgas. We will buy domains with Sgas. This is also different from ENS, ENS uses the ether.

Sgas is a Nep-5 token, whose value will be linked to that of NeoGAS. This token can not be sold or purchased but only converted into a 1: 1 ratio in NeoGAS.

Sgas, as i wrote above, can be used by people to bid for domains. The NEO Name Service platform will automatically track available domain names. If the requested domain name is available or currently under auction, you can participate in the bidding process through an “Open bid” or “Bidding” with Sgas. The participant with the highest bit at the conclusion of an auction will win the domain name. The bid of winner will be system’s income. But the system also has another way to get income, in fact, for the people who missed the bid, their 10% of bid price will be deducted. Currently the system’s income is composed by these two parts.

Incomes from domain auctions are not secondary. In fact, this income will be redistributed to NNC holders through Sgas as dividends. There will not be a fixed ratio between the NNCs and Sgas dividends. How many Sgas we will receive will depend on how many NNCs we hold and how much Sgas the system has generated and this means how many Sgas have been spent by people to buy the domains.

NNC is the most important thing in the NNS project. In fact, NNC is the name they gave to their token share and will be the token that will be listed in the exchanges.

FAQ

How do I get NNC tokens?

NNS will not have ICO. The developers, however, have provided other ways to get us the much-loved NNC token:

-The first opportunity was the “Testnet airdrop” (already concluded and lasted about 1 day): for a limited number of people who registered a .test domain this past May, will receive within 1 month, after the launch of the mainnet, 50 NNC as a reward.

-Airdrop for NEO holders (already happened): For all the people who held their NEOs in their wallets they had private keys (Neon, O3, Aphelion etc.) and no exchanges, they already received 0.1 NNC for each NEO.

-NNS Community Building Bounty Program (still in progress): A bounty program designed to raise awareness and publicize NNS and its technology. Each work will be evaluated and rewarded directly by the members of the NEL group. Refer to their official statement for all the details: https://medium.com/neweconolab/nns-community-building-bounty-program-5f6f49d8cefd

-2nd Airdrop (after mainnet launch): Soon there will be a new airdrop and 10% total of NNC will be distributed. The details to be part of it have not yet been released, but it will most likely happen in August. Pay attention on official channels.

When will NNC be listed in exchange?

The team is dealing with different exchanges, but they still do not intend to release information about it.

When will the NNS mainnet come out?

Probably late August early September.

How do I get Sgas token?

Sgas can not be sold or purchased but only converted into a 1: 1 ratio in NeoGAS. It will be possible to convert the NeoGas to Sgas and vice versa directly from the NNS website once the MainNet is active.

Can I try to register a domain?

Yes, the testnet is here: https://testwallet.nel.group/