How many have you wanted to own the TLDs? Well, when I first started to buy domains in 2003, I researched how could I own one, and that's was impossible for me. First and foremost, i couldn't pay all the fees related to owning a TLD to ICANN; it is quite high. As per ICANN, 'The evaluation fee is US$185,000. Applicants will be required to pay a US$5,000 deposit fee per requested application slot when registering.'. That's just the start; then there are several other quarterly fees. Lastly, the whole process is centralized with ICANN in the centre of the entire episode.
Handshake protocol changes this, at its base Handshake is Decentralized naming and certificate authority. Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol where every peer is validating and in charge of managing the root DNS naming zone to create an alternative to existing Certificate Authorities and naming systems. You can learn more about it on Handshake website since the paragraph is a copy-paste from their website.
Every week dozens of TLDs are auctioned off, you can bid on the name and win it. As simple as that. Handshake has a guide on participating in the name auction, but I prefer using Namebase. Namebase is a top-level domain (TLD) name registrar that operates on the Handshake blockchain. It is easy to bid and manage TLDs with Namebase.
With Namebase, you can sell the TLDs you own in the secondary market. Recently someone paid as much as $900 for the TLD 5g. And yes, you'll need HNS (Handshake coins) to bid on the TLDs. You can either mine or buy the coins. Currently, the coins are cheap $0.087 per coin. You can win most TLDs for 3 to 10 HNS, and for unique and short TLDs, you may have to shell off ~60 to 100 HNS.
As for usability, you can use the TLDs right for developers purpose. Handshake TLDs can be resolved using NextDNS, and you can use it in any browser and device. The TLDs aren't ready for business purposes. We provide hosting for Handshake sub-domains, and soon we plan to sell Handshake sub-domains, with Hostitor you can host unlimited websites (includes free SSL, CDN and Web Optimization, plus 45-days free-trial). If you're already using NextDNS or similar service, you can switch to NextDNS and use your TLD. NextDNS free plan will be sufficient for heavy users, so you needn't worry about that.
Namebase is particularly addictive, actually at first the whole thing of bidding and owning TLD has been addictive. I spent about three weeks searching and bidding when Namebase was launched and to be true it paid off; I own .pours, .x-men, .nbascore, .pissed, .saumya (my first name), .erect (don't know where I'll be using that) and some more. And yes, you can bid on Japanese, Chinese, Korean and some other domains.
Now is an excellent chance for you to own some TLDs since the prices are low for the most part. Namebase is also in talks with Brave browser so sooner, or later this whole thing can take off. Plus, I think it is better to have their TLDs, rather than using .eth or other decentralized TLDs. Nothing against it, I have my .eth TLD, but owning unique TLDs feels excellent.
Handshake Blockchain
Namebase.io
NextDNS
Hostitor
Images hosted with Sia CDN (decentralized Hosting).
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