The way the Handshake blockchain works, anyone can own a top level domain (TLD) by winning an auction on any arbitrary string of alphanumeric characters. When I first started learning about the protocol I immediately jumped for .p101, the TLD that is currently hosting this site. But I also debated over whether or not to open an auction for the full name of the game itself. On the one hand, it is a trademarked name that I could get sued for claiming to be my own. On the flip side, if someone with less than pure intentions got to it first they could effectively hold the name hostage.
This is a potentially sticky situation, so wouldn’t this affect the entire Handshake blockchain? Yes and no. The Handshake experimental protocol was cleverly designed to attempt to avoid this as best it could while also being fair. Before the blockchain launched there was a short sunrise period for trademark owners to claim their trademarked names. In the 90 short days back in 2018 a measly 74 domain names were claimed. After the sunrise period ended, a snapshot of the 100,000 most visited websites was taken and those names were reserved as well. This was done both as an extension of goodwill to those who were not aware of the trademark claim deadline and to make sure the Handshake root zone remained backwards-compatible with the pre-existing internet.
Both search results from DNS.live. The wallet address listed under the Pirate search result is the Namebase wallet address associated with my account currently holding the name.
Unfortunately pirate101/ fell through the cracks. It was not claimed as a trademark nor was it in the Alexa 100k at the time the snapshot was taken. This means that anyone could win pirate101/ and use for squatting, harassment, or even phishing attacks. After I spent all of 2021 working on this project I spread the word on a few Handshake oriented Discord servers. It was then I realized someone who saw my messages could potentially bid on the name in an attempt at extortion. I decided to open the auction myself.
I waited anxiously through the five day long process and miraculously no one else bid on in the auction. That meant I won the name for free! My large lock-up likely scared most people off, and I got lucky in that Namebase had a log jam of transactions such that last-minute bids often did not get included into the block. Either way, I now have custody over the .pirate101 top level domain and am prepared to gift it to KingsIsle as soon as they are ready for it.
