HandyCon 2025 | Day 1 - .wallet AMA and simple login with Handshake SLD tokens - YouTube

Transcript:
(00:01) [Music] [Applause] to the next session actually I know there's people excited about this topic is the wallet and we have with us of course the expert ofing web two and web three Tom Barrett from inera to help oh is this I think mod moderate like kind of like a a panel sty and you will talk with Scott about about this so I'll let you to take it away all right cool hi everybody I'm Tom Barrett and I'll introduce myself then let Scott introduce himself I've been involved in the DNS for probably 30 years now I ran two
(00:51) registra even before the formation of Ian and have participated in Ian since its formation I currently run two registra in Circa and name share and we specialize in some of the regulated Industries like Bank Pharmacy CPA but I'm also very active in the blockchain space as working with handshake and ens and some other folks I'll pause there let Scott introduce himself thanks Tom thrilled to have you here on with me and I really just wanted to do a an AMA because for so long we went on where we had a a court case
(01:34) going on over wallet and I didn't really want to talk about it or I was told not to talk about it and finally after all this time I wanted to just kind of let everybody ask me any questions that they had about the case and then you can talk about how any of those things fit into the the whole legal system and the trademark system and etc etc etc all right and and Scott you also we're going to talk about sign in with handshake is that also a project you're working on yes and if we have time at the end I actually have a real quick one
(02:09) minute example of using hns ID tokens to sign into a site I can show cool all right so I see two questions I don't think they're for us so I'll clear those out I'll look at the chat so open open Ed question for you Scott what's your your current attitude or feelings about the situation with wallet wallet is now to the point where we wanted to be originally which is we have a top level domain on a decentralized blockchain and we have decentralized second level domains that function as digital decentralized
(02:54) identities that we are I guess selling and and making available to people all right and and how are they using these names well right now there's limited utility so what we need to do is we need to create and make utility so that's but that's a good place to be I mean it's much better to have that as your your mission and and focal point of work than defending a lawsuit and and how do you coexist with unstoppable wallet we coexist I guess the same way that Delana coexists with polygon or Avalanche we're just another solution I
(03:40) think one of the things that I get asked about a lot can it be can it be trademarked is is was there ever a trademark thing and the one the one point I just want to make like really quick on that is got yeah I'm here I'm just I was I was doing a a screen share and that is have a this was something that it was a patent or a trademark that was applied for back in 2013 this was where somebody applied for the term blockchain they wanted to trademark and it was rejected and the reason that the USPTO rejected it was
(04:20) because they said the term blockchain is not a source identifier for a particular entity rather as evidenced from the attached the term blockchain along with terms such as Bitcoins mining wallet Etc are in the public realm to be used by all who participate in cryptocurrency it is not a term that can be trademarked by one entity so that was that was ugly uh so um that was kind of the the the Central Foundation of our case and you might be able to add to that with with with by expanding on that a little more because I don't have as much knowes you
(05:00) do on that yeah absolutely so there's there's a generic explanation that are more domain name specific one but generically you cannot trademark a something as descriptive of what you're selling so I cannot go get a trademark on the word pizza if I sell pizza and so the that that's not something that you could you could get trademark registrations for I could get a trademark on pizza if I'm selling bicycles I have to be calling them pizza so you can actually if it as as long as you acquire a secondary meaning you can
(05:41) certainly trademark generic terms but if you're intent is to trademark a generic term and use it in its generic sense it's not tradem markable now the US PTO the US trademark office has also specifically said that domain name extensions cannot be trademarked and that was the the defense that Unstoppable tried with DOT wallet they have multiple filings with the US PTO on on a variety of their different extensions all of them have been failed or rejected by the US PTO and this actually brings us around
(06:25) to another topic you know when when IAD launched their round in 20 12 quite a few applicants thought they could get an edge by filing for trademarks for their strings not only were they denied by the USPTO uh but the IAD process itself does not give any particular weight on on the string unless they can prove that it's a a a what they call a DOT brand and has has acquired trademark registration and so coming up next year I is having another round and there will be I would guess a dozen applications for wallet
(07:12) history tells us app had a DOT shop had nine and several of them had billion dooll applicants from Amazon to Google to GMO and so I would expect a dozen applications next year for DOT wallet and both handshake Scott you're free to apply obviously Unstoppable is free to apply but there's no guarantee obviously that either one of you would result not only it's not just submitting the initial 250 or $275,000 but if there's multiple applicants then it goes to an auction so got shop for example ended up selling
(07:56) for over $41 million. web sold for $13 5 million and sot wallet I think similarly will be optioned off at a fairly high price and then the question is what do you do with collisions between the Ian route and these alternative routs either handshake or Unstoppable and what happens to the collisions what happens to existing users we can talk about whether they're given a preference or not but I I'll pause there looking at the the chat 135 million for web absolutely and in fact it's 2025 so 13 years after that
(08:39) application round and it is still not live yet so one of the things about contention sets when there are multiple applications they tend to go into litigation but web is still in litigation it was one by verisign that runs.com andet but has it has yet to to see the light of day so these things can get expensive and it can drag out for years that's a that's a interesting point because one thing I want to stress is when I got into the dot wallet it was never to make money I never had any intention to like I never thought of it
(09:18) as like hey this is how I can get rich it was never about that it was about giving everybody something that they could own for little to nothing and in fact I told the original registar they could keep all the money they didn't have to give me any of it and and so to just sort of I'm all I guess all I'm pointing out is sort of a conflicting methodology or theory of like what this should be about I I understand corporations and I you know what how they view things and I get it but I I hope that everybody I hope
(09:54) one day we don't see wallet names for sale for $1,000 several hundred dollars putting them out of reach of people thanks Scott so do you want so I think one of the key themes I've heard today from from Jihan to Alani was we need to start getting practical I I loved as many of you I love the original principles of handshake but it's it's it's obvious I don't think it's going to replace the ien route anytime soon it it doesn't look like it's rep play repl CA authorities certificate authorities
(10:33) although that's going in a different direction anyway but the real challenge I think is how to Pivot handshake they've they've done some great Innovations and how to make adaptable by a greater Marketplace which may mean somehow as Jan said some other blockchains or other projects I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about your sign in with handshake because I happen to think single sign on from digital wallets is going to be going to be the main use case for for web 3 so I'd love to hear what you're doing there
(11:10) sure I'd love to show that real quick and please forgive me for the few seconds that it's going to look like you're on the Matrix here as I switch As I switch Windows okay thank you very much screen okay so basically what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out how do we how can we give utility to these to these tokens and with something decentralized obviously identities is obviously it's something that's talked about globally and it's something that various places are putting forward solutions to CH to
(11:49) do and I just wanted to show an example of how a project and utilize handshake second level domains or'll call them identities to to create their their brand or not their brand identity but their their customers identities and manage them so here's just a sample site this is not live I mean it is live but this is not like a an in production site this is something I was just working on but the way this would work is you would connect your wallet which is metamask it's going to pop up all the slds all the H&S IDs that you have that you
(12:33) own in your wallet and I don't want anybody to think I'm squatting because I know that's what they're going to think I'm actually holding this for name sheep and they can have it whenever they want it so I can choose which identity I want to be on this site okay now it says I'm scott.
(12:49) wallet okay I can go in and I can maybe participate in chat and I can do some other things I could call somebody else with with with another ID let's say I want to be one identity in one room but maybe when I join like my football fan room I don't want to be scott. wallet I want to be Scott Seahawks fan or whatever I could actually switch and I can become a different identity and now in that chat room I'm going to be that so this is kind of like a Discord telegram I I I I I caught earlier someone mentioned Clubhouse and click house and using doc click you could
(13:28) configure whatever site to only allow people with whatever domain you want identities that are that are minted on that domain to be to be members and that's not a heavy lift I mean this is not a lot of code it's a pretty simple sign in routine so Mama Mia that's great okay yeah yeah so I that's that's just something I wanted to show that there is one use case that is simple to employ simple to build simple to develop I know other people are doing it already and that's great I would say
(14:10) get building let's start getting these things put to use that's great that's great Scot and I I I do think you're on the right track so I happen to think there's a lot there's been a lot been happening recently just this week the folks at freame web United essentially announced that they can tokenize any Ian TLD any Ian domain name so you're starting to see this bluring of of web 2 and web 3 a startup D3 raised $25 million at the end of January again to tokenize existing Ian domain names of
(14:48) course we see Unstoppable also pivoting becoming Ian accredited as a registra like free name and during to tokenize I can names so with with that pivot the advantage they have obviously is that they have a framework that is consumer trusted uh it it holds Bad actors accountable for impersonation and other abusive Behavior so how would you suggest a handshake gain that same sort of trust and hold Bad actors accountable that's a really tough question um and I'm probably the wrong person to ask um not just because I
(15:29) don't really have an answer but because I'm one of those folks that that hopes that the the market will work itself out I'm kind of like the the the 100% non- censorship know person but I understand the the problems that come with that I totally get that it's more like a political thing to me I think okay thanks Scott any other questions from from the audience I mean I'll throw it out is it realistic toay stay rigid about this being uncensorable is that is that going to fly or is that practical given that
(16:06) there's no account for for Bad actors well let's kind of transition that into the earlier discussion about the hns top level domain idea so what happens when I own let's say I own meta on handshake I don't but let's just say I did and let's say I now bridge that to hns I can TLD and so now there is a meta hns and at that point I can steps in and says hey you need to take care of this this is this is not going to fly this is a problem and what now do I lose my handshake name I mean that's not really
(16:57) possible so it means goes to court and now we got another so I don't know well there are a variety of IAD tlds that have done web 3 Integrations and they've they've followed different way they have different ways to do it I'll give you some examples do locker and and the thing to by the way where many of us have been spent a lot of our energy the last few years in in various silos the emergence of of smart contract and nfts on ethereum really produce a lot of innovation I'm actually watching level
(17:36) twos on bitcoin I think they're going to surprise people and I know that Mike Carlson who comes out of handshake is doing a lot on Spaces right now so I like I like quite a bit of what he's doing but but again I think that what you're going to see out of the standards bodies like ietf is what they call responsible DNS integration to web 3 and and you need to synchronize the life cycles between web 2 and web 3 if if you want to avoid both law enforcement and intellectual property uh issues uh there's some folks over on ens who are
(18:14) running a Gateway may be familiar with. limo or e. link run by a pair of brothers down in North Carolina they recently had to go to the ens Dow and ask for sever several hundred th000 in Grant money just to pay their legal fee because they're allowing AMS to be to resolve through e. limo and e.
(18:37) link and so it's a serious problem it's a serious problem for Consumer trust that consumers aren't sold counterfeit Goods fake drugs for example or don't have rug pools happening to them and so that's part of what getting practical I think is all about you need to take some Innovations but back off on on some of idealism if if you want to commercialize what you have that's good advice and also I want to make sure that I get this in I really want to thank and we all should thank name cheep namebase and
(19:14) Richard Kirkendall for funding that that lawsuit um I want to make sure that they get recognized for for doing that we would not be in the enviable and beneficial position we're in today without that so thanks to them yep I I I would agree with that Scott that was a a great Public Service any other questions or thoughts from the crowd you guys hammered me for two years on Twitter like every every day I would go on there and have to answer questions from you all about the the lawsuit and when rug and all those things and now you guys
(19:52) have nothing I think there some of these Twitter people are probably not I know I'm half joking yeah no I get it though but I think somebody said how it affected your life I don't know if Tom passed it it affected it it you can Google my name now just Google my name and the the very first page of results that comes up is all this guy sued so and so I mean know it's type of thing where if I go apply for a job now and they Google me the first thing that's going to pop into their mind is this guy sued a
(20:25) company over a word you know I mean that that understanding they're not going to read into it and you go deep into it that's they that's just a a first assessment but yeah definitely it's it it's not fun I I wouldn't I hope none of you other guys have to go through something like that Tom there's a Q&A tab from Todd the Q&A is empty for me it doesn't show a notification but it's showing all right okay so Todd is asking Scott are you happy with the settlement with unstoppable and do you think think
(20:59) Unstoppable settled in this manner in order to maintain the right to sue other handshake owners in the future yes and yes I'm totally happy all I ever wanted to do was just do my own thing let leave me alone let me do my business you guys do your business and that's where we're at now so happy about that as far as speculating on what their motivations were even though I probably shouldn't probably think that what you suggested is is correct yeah I mean I have my take I actually think Unstoppable is already
(21:33) pivoted they're all they've become an I can accredited red straw uh they're they're going to focus on can compatible tlds if you read their announcements nowadays they did light corn last week every announcement says and we're we're exploring applying for this as an I can till next round and so they have totally pivoted to I think avoid the web 3 only space and focused on bling can domains I I don't so I don't I frankly don't think they'll they'll Sue other handshake tlds
(22:10) they they're going to that's not good business for them they're going to be struggling to to get rights to the tlds they operate now there's going to be a dozen applicants for all their I can compatible tlds they don't they simply don't have the treasury to get them thanks for that Tom seems people are agreeing with that agreeing with that has one I think it's more for Tom but you see that Chad the single letter gtld I think that's not a not right no right there's no single letter till I can is
(22:47) allowed most of the two letters are and even a lot of the three letters are reserved the iso list so like eth is a three-letter ISO code for Ethiopia there's no I can policy to unreserve those strings so eth is not getting a a TLD do eth anytime soon but certainly there's still some three letters available out there and they could always go Afters just like you folks could go after hns you asked what if Ethiopia was it's the answer is too bad it's it's it's not up to Ethiopia I I happen to I happen to
(23:27) wrun a country code AS well the countries have a voice but I can policy in this case the ccnso and the gso decide on the allocation of strings and uh there's nothing inherently specific to Ethiopia mean why should they get rights to. eth what if I want it and so the way Ian policy works is 240 ISO strings both two and threel codes they they spent at least five years in exam everyone before they come up with a policy so we're 5 to 10 years away before something likee would never see the light of day and then it would
(24:09) probably go to auction ethopia doesn't have a prefer preference on getting this drink got it there's more and more questions popping in now I don't know it's not notifying but I see I see some QA why not make a login tool instead of a decentralized web so this is a question for you Scott I think this was I think this is really your I think I love the idea you're talking about which is older Ed users are going to have multiple wallets right and this is actually part of the project that I have
(24:38) underway as well it's not just about crypto but it's different public personas that you want to use online and to the point here is is those different personas I think your intent was that they could they could be a a single sign in to different networks gaming networks or social media is that right Scott that's correct asked you a question about Don H&S said I can for H Jak bridging we can certainly talk about that Irwin I'm off to off to Seattle tomorrow morning in fact I don't know if you attend the Ian
(25:11) meeting meetings at all but there's one in Seattle next week but be a good and I'll be at namescon in the fall you folks are going to head off to Miami then if you're I'll be at CP Summit in Hanoi in May so I'd love to run into some of your folks if you're can CP Summit or names great I'm I'm just checking what the CP one is oh yeah contracted parties Summit okay yeah Hanoi the first week of May okay those are free to attend you just need to register aren's based there she was here earlier okay but thanks
(25:50) thanks both of you helping in in your Specialties to Tom for always being our web our I can and our way STW registry expert always helping us get these answers and insights than you Tom thank you thank you guys thanks Scott thanks Mike and thanks Scott as always for fighting the fight for us and ie I'm glad it's mostly it seems like it's over now and I hope life is back to normal because I know there a lot of stress for you so okay thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this event wouldn't be possible without
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