Tezos could introduce “vanity addresses” thanks to a new initiative from the blockchain community.
Key Takeaways
- Tezos may introduce human-readable addresses in the near future.
- These addresses can be attached to standard wallet addresses.
- Blockchain name services are a major step forward for usability, comparable to email addresses or website domains.
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Drawing inspiration from Ethereum, Tezos may soon support domain names and human-readable addresses thanks to a new proposal from the blockchain community.
How Tezos Domains Work
Miroslav Bodeček, leader of the Tezos Domains project, posted an introductory article this week explaining the project’s goals. As Tezos Domains notes, standard blockchain addresses are an “obstacle for the practical use of Tezos as a currency” because they cannot be easily read, memorized, or communicated. Blockchain name services solve this problem by attaching human-readable wallet addresses to standard addresses.
For example, a user could replace an address like tz1VSU...jcjb with an address like Alice.tez once Tezos names are introduced. Simpler names make it much easier for users to send and receive Tezos tokens. Developers could also attach names to their smart contracts, making it easier for DApps to discover and interact with those contracts.
Further Details
Bodeček has noted that the proposal is still an “early draft.” As such, there is no guarantee that the feature will arrive in Tezos—and if it does, it may change significantly in the meantime.
Some plans have been put forward, though: the project plans to sell names through an “open auction,” where bidding is public and each bid must be larger than the last. Expired domain names will then be sold on a “first-come-first-serve” basis.
The team also has plans to prevent phishing attacks: Tezos names will initially support a limited set of characters that will exclude lookalike characters. Expanded Unicode support may arrive later. In the immediate future, the team will begin to work on a smart contract that coordinates the service, a lightweight indexer, and an in-browser app that allows name lookups.
Other Blockchain Name Services
Several other blockchains have their own name services as well. Most notable is the Ethereum Name Service, which has been integrated with many different services including MetaMask, Opera, and Coinbase Wallet. Right now 274,000 ENS names currently exist.
Other notable blockchain-based name services have been built for Namecoin, Zilliqa, and NEO. Ethereum also supports other name services, such as Unstoppable Domains.
Though blockchain names are challenging to implement, they are an important step forward when it comes to ease of use—on par with email addresses or website domain names in general.
