Show HN: Kinetic – an experimental decentralized naming protocol

Show HN: Kinetic – an experimental decentralized naming protocol(github.com)

4 points by saifmukhtar 12 hours ago | 2 comments

Hi HN,

I started this while working on another project. I needed peer-to-peer connections and realized I still depended on domains, so I started wondering if there was another way to do naming.

This became Kinetic. It's an experimental naming protocol written in Rust. The idea is to use VDFs for name registration while libp2p and Kademlia handle discovery. Things are still changing a lot and I'm still testing different ideas.

One thing I'm currently struggling with is the economic side. If users don't pay for names, how does an open protocol sustainably fund long-term development? I'd be interested in hearing different perspectives on that.

I'd appreciate technical feedback on the protocol and any obvious flaws in the design.

d-yoda 11 hours ago |

So it’s basically similar to .onion on Tor Browser, but without requiring a blockchain. The idea sounds interesting. If you can find strong use cases for it, it could be very promising. (Monetizing OSS is always difficult.)

saifmukhtar 11 hours ago | |

I think they're similar in that both avoid traditional DNS, but Kinetic is focused on decentralized naming and identity rather than anonymous routing like Tor.

I'm also experimenting with ways to make premium names contribute back to the network, not just burn CPU cycles.