Blockstack - something like BitShares DNS but on Bitcoin

[Akado]

It seems they were acquired by Digital Assets and their web page is completely different now. On one day we can do stuff with it and on the next day it all disappears and we're left with a description of what they can do and to contact them...

Edit: My mistake. I accessed blockstack.io and not blockstack.org are they different or the same?

[muneeb]

Nice to see your interest in decentralized DNS! You're absolutely right that integration with DNS resolvers is very important and we're working on it.

I just want to quickly point out that you should check out the Blockstack Community (http://forum.blockstack.org) and the Github (http://github.com/blockstack). This project has the funding, engineering resources, and community support to make decentralized DNS *actually* happen. I'm personally very excited about it.

-- Muneeb | http://muneebali.com

[gamey]

@meda the Blockstack project is indeed a decentralized DNS project. There seem to be some similarities with the BitShares domain name system.

@gamey When you download the CLI you can perform lookups right away. And registrations are simple, all you need to do is send bitcoins to your command line wallet and then you can start registering and managing names, all in the command line.

As far as a DNS resolver goes, we don't have one available yet but that will be released soon. In the meantime, we recommend using the specialized blockstack resolvers that several organizations and developers are running. Here's one example: https://resolver.onename.com/v2/users/fred.

And there shouldn't be anything vague about our documentation. Have you seen "How Blockstack Works" (https://blockstack.org/docs/how-blockstack-works)?

Also, if you read carefully, you'll see that Blockstack only uses bitcoin to store the hashes of data records / zone files. The records themselves are stored outside of the blockchain. By default that's in a DHT but it can be configured to be stored anywhere. And additional nodes sync and backup this data. This makes it highly scalable. Also we chose to use the Bitcoin blockchain because it's the most secure by far.

Also I'd point out that the Blockstack software can be configured to work on any blockchain (using our virtualchain library). It's just that the first and only Blockstack network is currently being operated on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Well as you know there are so many projects on the internet.  When I see a webpage where everything is distilled down to what you want your product to be instead of what it currently is, I like most others, zone out. I reread your frontpage and had the same impression a second time.

That being said, after reading your explanation it seems you've made decent progress. (And thank you for giving a summary)
 
 BitShares DNS refers to a blockchain that was cancelled by Bytemaster after going live that had a several million market cap at the time. I was actually interested in working on it at the time and had actually spend several hundred dollars putting together a Windows dev machine specifically for it. So your project is interesting to me and there is a huge demand for it. I just think that until you have a seamless integration into the DNS system as a whole, it doesn't really bring much value as far as anti-censorship.  Storing data on a blockchain etc is not anything new, but I really hope you continue with your project.

Please come back and keep us informed with any milestones.

[valtr]

Nice work. Congratulations.   

[abit]

@meda the Blockstack project is indeed a decentralized DNS project. There seem to be some similarities with the BitShares domain name system.

@gamey When you download the CLI you can perform lookups right away. And registrations are simple, all you need to do is send bitcoins to your command line wallet and then you can start registering and managing names, all in the command line.

As far as a DNS resolver goes, we don't have one available yet but that will be released soon. In the meantime, we recommend using the specialized blockstack resolvers that several organizations and developers are running. Here's one example: https://resolver.onename.com/v2/users/fred.

And there shouldn't be anything vague about our documentation. Have you seen "How Blockstack Works" (https://blockstack.org/docs/how-blockstack-works)?

Also, if you read carefully, you'll see that Blockstack only uses bitcoin to store the hashes of data records / zone files. The records themselves are stored outside of the blockchain. By default that's in a DHT but it can be configured to be stored anywhere. And additional nodes sync and backup this data. This makes it highly scalable. Also we chose to use the Bitcoin blockchain because it's the most secure by far.

Also I'd point out that the Blockstack software can be configured to work on any blockchain (using our virtualchain library). It's just that the first and only Blockstack network is currently being operated on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Thanks for the info.
So the bold text is the key point: block chain is only used to verify whether a response received from a caching DNS server is correct. I don't think it's enough. Or maybe it even unable to be verified unless get the whole record list?
I believe scale-ability is never an issue with BitShares 2.0.

[shea256]

@meda the Blockstack project is indeed a decentralized DNS project. There seem to be some similarities with the BitShares domain name system.

@gamey When you download the CLI you can perform lookups right away. And registrations are simple, all you need to do is send bitcoins to your command line wallet and then you can start registering and managing names, all in the command line.

As far as a DNS resolver goes, we don't have one available yet but that will be released soon. In the meantime, we recommend using the specialized blockstack resolvers that several organizations and developers are running. Here's one example: https://resolver.onename.com/v2/users/fred.

And there shouldn't be anything vague about our documentation. Have you seen "How Blockstack Works" (https://blockstack.org/docs/how-blockstack-works)?

Also, if you read carefully, you'll see that Blockstack only uses bitcoin to store the hashes of data records / zone files. The records themselves are stored outside of the blockchain. By default that's in a DHT but it can be configured to be stored anywhere. And additional nodes sync and backup this data. This makes it highly scalable. Also we chose to use the Bitcoin blockchain because it's the most secure by far.

Also I'd point out that the Blockstack software can be configured to work on any blockchain (using our virtualchain library). It's just that the first and only Blockstack network is currently being operated on the Bitcoin blockchain.

[gamey]

I read through several pages.  This looks like a far cry from having a working DNS resolver.  They mention it on their frontpage, then tell you to get started, install it and play with it.  After a 2-3 webpages I gave up because it is quite vague.  It also isn't clear it uses Bitcoin?

Ironically something like Factom might work just as well, because it uses Bitcoin but only in an authority type manner, not for data storage. Using BTC as a data store strikes me as a bad idea at this point.

@Thom What was your takeaway that led you to say it is a great find?

[Thom]

Great find!

[valtr]

I found this page and it looks to me as the same project like once BitShares DNS was.
https://blockstack.org/