The Future of Decentralized DNS
The Rise of Decentralized DNS
Since Satoshi created Bitcoin in 2009, a large number of colored coins based on Bitcoin technology have emerged. Some of these projects store the domain name in the block as a key/value, and can expand additional data and trade it as a digital asset. The decentralized blockchain network and computing power guarantee solve the centralization risk that has plagued the DNS system for a long time. At the same time, because it does not require permission and anti-censorship characteristics, it has become an effective way to bypass supervision and once became a popular project in the market. It has also become the top 10 star project by market value.
DNS in Smart Contract
As smart contracts are widely adopted in new projects such as Ethereum and NEO, programmable contract-type DNS have appeared in various projects. DNS contracts generally provide domain name registration, management and query in a standard interface mode. It is a distributed, open source and scalable domain name mapping service. With the addition of contract scalability, specific service entities such as addresses, paths, id, and content that can be marked in the network can be mapped into a set of naming rules to achieve the reachability of ecological services within the network.
Simple contract domain name information:
DNS Dilemma
Although decentralized DNS has solved many central service problems, it is also caught in the predicament of the DNS ecosystem. Since decentralized DNS is used as a path channel, it does not actually have any added value. As a separate blockchain, there has been no ecological model. At the same time, the centralized DNS service as the object of innovation, due to the rise of the mobile Internet, The value of the domain name system has dropped again and again. Although the DNS of the blockchain can map more entities, due to the drastic changes in user access methods, concise and understandable string addresses are not a strong demand in the ecology, and because of the boundary barriers of the blockchain itself , So that DNS cannot radiate to other chains except the chain where it belongs. For example, a set of QQ numbers is valuable, and no one will pay for the alias of this QQ number. In the final analysis, the domain name system is a proxy for resources. The resources themselves gain value because of the strong chain network ecology, and the pronouns only depend on resources. Therefore, most DNS projects gradually lose their ecological vitality and even disappear.
Direction
We mentioned earlier that DNS can effectively guide access traffic in a distributed network environment, shielding the complexity of the underlying network and changes in service addresses. It is an extremely efficient resource addressing method. Although centralized DNS has various problems, the technical transformation of DNS through decentralized ledger and content-centric naming rules may be the future development direction of the domain name system.
Decentralized Ledger
First of all, DNS under smart contracts is still promising. It not only solves most of the security risks, but also greatly improves the timeliness and scalability of service diversion. Through the multi-level DNS ledger, the traditional DNS and the resource entities on the blockchain can be linked, and different information can be pushed for different protocols, different individuals, and different regions. The upper-level application can even extend the contract by itself and customize the mapping required for the service. relationship.
Content-centric Naming Rules
The current Internet architecture is an addressing mode with address as the core, and a network address model based on TCP/IP, which facilitates the addressing of network hardware, but it has become a major drawback in the current network evolution. For example, in the field of mobile communication, content creators quickly traverse different networks, and P2P applications that are separated from the operator's core network cannot continuously address and route specific content. Moreover, different types of participants, such as mobile phones, computers, IOT devices, etc. cannot be distinguished by IP addresses.
Based on the above problems, a content-centric naming rule came into being. By naming, extending, signing, addressing and routing the content, combined with efficient DNS network access methods, the traffic can be quickly and accurately guided.
