Company is latest to propose domain name technology connected to blockchains.
Chinese internet giant Alibaba has filed a U.S. patent application (pdf) for a domain name system connected to blockchain networks.
It’s a bit tricky to disect, but it seems that the idea is to give each blockchain instance a domain name. The abstract states:
Implementations of the present disclosure include obtaining, by a computing system, a unified blockchain domain name (a UBCDN) message of a blockchain instance, wherein the UBCDN message includes a UBCDN of the blockchain instance, a digital signature of an owner of the UBCDN of the blockchain instance (a UBCDN owner) on the UBCDN, and a domain certificate of the UBCDN; verifying whether the domain certificate of the UBCDN is issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) using a public key of the CA; and verifying whether the UBCDN is issued by the UBCDN owner using a public key of the UBCDN owner. The UBCDN message includes a blockchain domain name and a chain identifier of the blockchain instance uniquely corresponding to the blockchain domain name.
Several companies are trying to marry blockchain technology with the concept of domain names. You can listen to one idea, run by Unstoppable Domains, on DNW Podcast #224.
Alibaba owns HiChina, a large domain name registrar.
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