THORChain Launches THORName Service

2021-06-03 — 3 min read

Overview

The THORName Service (THORNames) is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the THORChain blockchain.

THORName functionality is to map human-readable names like chris.thor to machine-readable identifiers such as cryptocurrency addresses, and metadata. THORName will support ‘reverse resolution’, making it possible to associate metadata such as a Twitter username or canonical names with a ‘home’ THORChain address.

A THORChain address can be assigned one (1) THORName to manage the other addresses associated. For example: the THORName chris can receive $BTC to the chris.btc address, chris.eth to receive $ETH and so forth. Wallet providers will easily be able to integrate to resolve cross-chain addresses for a user.{ "chris" :
{"thor: "thor1egxvam70a86jafa3s0m2g3m7548gcg3kqfmfax",
"btc" : "bc1qq2z2f4gs4nd7t0a9zzjtegu4nczhajjp90y9l9",
"eth" : "0x04c5998ded94f8926e64a99b7dbc9f463370444c",
"bch" : "qz7262r7uufxk89emajqm97vskzwtxrf6yquk7zfwr",
"ltc" : "ltc1qaa064vvv4d6stgrd3tt93fp6jxywnf777j6dl8",
"bnb" : "bnb1pa6hpjs7qv0vkd55n08yw7v7fks5tqa2xtt2gk"}
}

Currently, there are five (5) native L1 chains available on THORChain: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Binance, and Bitcoin Cash.

Purchasing a THORName will cost 10 $RUNE. Once the THORName service is launched, users may bid for and buy a THORName address, or even sell them later to others in a marketplace of names. THORName holders can choose to sell whenever they wish for the price they want.

Registration for THORName service will be rolled out in three phases:

June 4–10: Free registration of Twitter account handles using a sign-up platform

June 11–17: Pre-sale with 50% discount and an affiliate program

July: Public launch*

*tentative schedule

The first phase will invite the THORChain community to register their Twitter handles as their THORName addresses for free. The landing page for free registration will be opened on Friday June 4 ET.

The pre-sale phase from June 11–17 will allow users to pre-order a THORName address with 50% discount (5 $RUNE) to stock up before the public launch.

During the pre-sale phase, users can win more addresses by sharing a dedicated affiliate URL for other people to sign up. When another user signs up with the affiliate URL, the original poster can receive an additional THORName address.

A limit of 1000 THORNames can be pre-ordered, however, restrictions for pre-sale names include:

Someone else’s Twitter account handle (e.g. cz_binance, or elonmusk)
Known brands (e.g. marvel, tesla, etc)
Single-character names x
Emojis ⚡️

Curation will be applied on the pre-sale list, and THORChain will refund anyone who is trying to squat restricted names.

After the pre-sale phase has completed, there will be some cooling time to migrate the data, and integrate the protocol.

The pre-sale funds will be raised for the THORChain treasury, and then issued as a grant for the THORName platform which is community built and managed. It also enables a ratcheting up of the price from free to 5 RUNE to 10 RUNE at launch. There is a cap of 1000 pre-sold names.

Sometime at the beginning of July, the THORNames will open to the public, addresses can be purchased through a bid and auction market, and the pre-sale restrictions will be lifted.