ANS Available on Testnet
Algorand Name Service (ANS) is now available for beta testing at: algonameservice.com. Hop over to register your .algo name on the Algorand test network. Here’s the link to testnet faucet: https://bank.testnet.algorand.network/
What is ANS?
ANS is a decentralized name service on the Algorand network. Similar to ENS, it allows users to register .algo domain names for wallet addresses. Users are then able to share their .algo names in lieu of wallet addresses for receiving payment and in other interactions.
The journey so far:
Sai Medury and Lalith Medury started building ANS in August 2021 and demonstrated the initial prototype of ANS at Encode Hackathon Finale on October 11, 2021, which was awarded second place! Following the hackathon success, ANS was accepted in to Encode Club accelerator program starting from November 2021. With the support of Encode Club members and Algorand developers, the ANS team continues to iterate and improve the prototype.
How is ANS built?
ANS is designed to be decentralized and cost-effective. There are mainly two components:
1. Registry
An Algorand Stateful smart contract (ASC) is used to build a domain name registry. ASCs have global storage of up to 64 key-value pairs and local storage of up to 16 key-value pairs. Domain-related information such as the domain suffix and metadata are stored in global storage. And each name is an Algorand account that opts into the registry smart contract and stores the owner’s wallet address for future resolution.
2. Name Record
A name record is a standardized Logic Signature program (written in TEAL) with an arbitrary name input variable. For each unique compiled smart signature program there exists a single corresponding Algorand address. This address is used to opt-in to the registry smart contract and store the value of the owner’s wallet address. The logic sig account is subsequently re-keyed to the name owner’s wallet to avoid any unauthorized transactions in the future.
Next steps:
ANS aims to establish a name service for the Algorand community with the maximum degree of decentralization. The ANS smart contracts are currently being peer-reviewed and will be audited for security in the coming days. Additionally, JavaScript SDK and REST API are being developed to support ANS integration with DApps and Wallet Apps. Following successful testing, ANS will be launched on Algorand Mainnet with the current set of features while planned features will be pipelined for upcoming releases.
Get involved:
Join our Discord server to connect with the developers and share feedback. Follow ANS on Twitter to stay on top of future updates and announcements. Smart contract code will be open-sourced soon on GitHub and will be open for community collaboration.
