Oct 25•7 min read
Bitcoin Name System (BNS): Accelerating Bitcoin Adoption
Hello, and welcome back to my series on Stacks and the Dapps that will change how we use money and the internet. Today, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite projects on Stacks, and that is BTC.US. I think this project has the potential to significantly hasten the adoption of Bitcoin and make it much simpler for people to interact with Bitcoin and the Stacks ecosystem.
First, let’s start with what the Bitcoin Name Service is. The Bitcoin Name Services or BNS is a decentralized name registry that allows you to create a .btc domain name using smart contracts on the Stacks blockchain. Every .btc name that is registered on Stacks is represented in a hash on Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin Name System is similar to what the Ethereum Name Service does but better, in my opinion, because it is built on the most secure blockchain in existence, Bitcoin. Ethereum is too insecure, as there have been multiple hacks, and is way too centralized to be fully trusted.
What Is The Benefit Of The Bitcoin Name System?
The value proposition of BNS is that it makes sending and receiving Bitcoin easier. As Bitcoiners, we should all want people around the world to learn about Bitcoin and understand what makes it unique in the first place, but we also need to make it easier to interact with.
Right now, if you want to send someone an L1 Bitcoin transaction, you need to know their wallet address, and it something looks like this: bc1q2sy7thucye5qphpr4upz34l99yl5m33ggrtjdl. This is my Bitcoin address if you wanna send me some lol jk. But in all seriousness, who can remember this string of letters and numbers? I know I can’t, and I doubt that no one else can either.
There are ways around this, obviously with copy and paste and QR codes, but this adds additional friction that a sender may not want to go through. Believe it or not, people can be lazy and won’t do something if it’s overly complicated or has too many steps.
As humans, we want quick and easy. There is a reason Apple Pay, Cash App, and Venmo are popular. It’s quick, easy and convenient. If Bitcoin can’t replicate the same experience, it might be relegated to being just a store of value and not a medium of exchange, which is not what Satoshi envisioned. Bitcoin Name Service advances that goal by making sending and receiving Bitcoin easier.
Instead of sending Bitcoin to a string of letters and numbers, you can send Bitcoin to yourname.btc. For example, my .btc name is 21milbtc.btc. Try sending Bitcoin to that address using the Leather wallet; it will work!
Now, isn’t that easier to remember? Not only is it easier to remember a .btc name, but having a personalized .btc name is just cool as hell. People like personalization and customization; it’s part of human creativity. Bitcoin Name System taps into our innate desire for individualism.
Now, let’s dive into how you acquire a .btc name!
Start Here
Before you get your very own .btc name, you have to take two steps. First, you need to acquire some Stacks tokens (STX). This can be purchased from several exchanges, such as
or LNSwap if you prefer a non-custodial way to get some STX.
Once you have your STX, you will want to go ahead and send it over to your Xverse or Leather wallet mentioned above, as this is how you will interact with the BTC.us dapp. Both are high-quality wallets that are easy to use and are the best in the Stacks ecosystem. They are the standard bearers for wallet design and UX.
When everything is good to go, head on over to btc.us. The home screen will look like this:
In the top right corner of the screen, you will see a button that says sign in. Click on that to sign in with your wallet so you can proceed to purchase your .btc name.
Register Your Name
After you are signed in, this is where the fun begins. In the search bar, you can enter the .btc name to which you want people to send Bitcoin. It can be short or as long as you want. Keep in mind that most of the short names have been taken, so you might have to get a little creative with your name. There are no numbers or special characters allowed.
When you come up with a name, hit the claim button to take you to the next page. It should look like this:
As you can see, it is incredibly cheap to purchase a .btc name right now. At the time of writing this, STX is trading at .67 cents right now. This is $1.34 to register your name for FIVE years! You can’t be this. Imagine when Stacks is $10 per token, it’ll cost $20 to register a name. Might as well get on it now while it is cheap!
Hit the button at the bottom of the page, and it will take you here:
As you can see, they give you two options to execute the purchase. There isn’t much difference between the two options; the main issue is the front running of your transaction. Say, for example, you and someone else want the same username as you and conduct a transaction simultaneously; depending on who has the higher transaction fee, they will get the name.
The odds of that happening are low right now, but it’s not zero, especially when BNS gets more popular in the future. The advanced option protects you from the scenario a little better as it hides the name being registered while it’s preordered and reveals it after being registered.
I went ahead with the advanced options so that you can see what it looks like.
At this stage, you have to wait for the transactions to settle on the Stacks protocol.
This is how it should look if you follow the prompts:
Features
The neat thing about the Bitcoin Name System is you can add a lightning address, a link to your website, a Bitcoin L1 address, and a Nostr pubkey! Which I didn’t expect to see, but it is an excellent addition!
As you can see, BNS is positioning itself as a comprehensive all-in-one online Bitcoin identity solution built on Stacks, powered by Bitcoin. I think this is the way of the future and will accelerate the adoption of Bitcoin in the medium to long term!
Get your.btc name today!!
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