Guest Editorial by Scott Florcsk
8 October 2026
An Introduction from Own The Dot
ICANN’s latest Reveal Day has brought a new wave of proposed top level domains into the spotlight, including .wallet, a name that already exists on the Handshake blockchain.
For Scott Florcsk, owner of the Handshake top level domain; .wallet since 2020, this is familiar territory.
In 2022, Scott found himself defending his interests in the name during a legal dispute with Unstoppable Domains, which had introduced its own .wallet within a competing blockchain naming system.
The dispute reached the US federal courts before concluding in January 2025, without establishing exclusive rights to .wallet across all naming systems.
Now, with .wallet appearing in ICANN’s latest application round, Scott faces another potential challenge involving a name he has already had to defend.
While an application does not guarantee approval or delegation, it raises a broader question about existing Handshake names and their future alongside the conventional DNS.
In this guest editorial, Scott shares his perspective on ICANN’s latest move and challenges the Handshake community to consider its response.
The following article represents Scott Florcsk’s independent views and does not necessarily reflect the position of Own The Dot.
It’s Your Move, Handshake
By Scott Florcsk
Now that Reveal Day has passed, it is time for Handshake stakeholders to conduct an impact analysis.
“Reveal Day” was the day ICANN publicly disclosed the latest round of applications for new generic top level domains and with them, which large corporations and other applicants are seeking a place at the table in the next expansion of the DNS root zone.
Many of ICANN’s top level domains are instantly and internationally recognised, such as .com, .net and .org.
In fact, those names are so well established that when the Handshake blockchain naming system was created, its founders chose to honour the legacy namespace that already existed by reserving existing ICANN names so they would continue to resolve according to the conventional DNS.
By respecting the domain name infrastructure that already existed, Handshake positioned itself as compatible with the established ICANN namespace.
The goal was not to upset the apple cart, but to expand the root zone with names that did not already exist there.
The public responded by registering millions of new top level names on Handshake.
Now, with ICANN’s latest application round revealed, Handshake stakeholders face a new reality: a number of the applied for strings overlap with names that already exist on Handshake.
Not all applications will become delegated top level domains, and not every overlapping string necessarily creates a live conflict today.
But the overlap question is no longer theoretical.
That means Handshake stakeholders need to decide how they want to respond going forward.
The way I see it, there are two options.
1. Do nothing
In this scenario, Handshake remains compatible with legacy ICANN names that were already reserved from the start, while accepting that newer ICANN names may overlap with names already issued on Handshake.
Holders of valuable Handshake names might hope that future DNS operators, brands or applicants decide those blockchain names matter enough to negotiate for them, especially if they want to reduce confusion or avoid future collisions for their users and customers.
Under this approach, the answer to the question “How compatible is Handshake with ICANN going forward?” becomes something like this:
Compatible with the older, established namespace but when it comes to newly applied for strings, it gets complicated.
That may be acceptable to some.
But it is no longer the simple compatibility story Handshake once had.
2. Burn the bridge
In this scenario, Handshake acknowledges that Web2 and Web3 naming systems are separate universes, and that attempts to maintain a one sided bridge between them no longer make sense.
Handshake showed goodwill from the start by respecting ICANN’s existing namespace.
But ICANN has never been under any corresponding obligation to recognise or protect names already in use on Handshake.
Reveal Day makes that reality harder to ignore.
Under the “burn the bridge” option, Handshake would stop treating chain level compatibility with ICANN’s reserved namespace as a foundational rule.
In its strongest form, that could mean a hard fork and the release of previously reserved names for auction.
That would be a major step. It would require broad support, deep technical consideration and a willingness to accept that Handshake and ICANN are not trying to build one shared naming future.
If individual owners later wanted to maintain compatibility or bridge behaviour for the names they control, that could be their choice.
But the assumption of automatic chain level deference to ICANN would be gone.
The bigger point
This is not just about one name.
As the owner of .wallet on Handshake, I have already experienced what it means when the same top level name appears in another naming system.
First it was Unstoppable Domains.
Now, after Reveal Day, .wallet has appeared again this time through ICANN’s application process.
So from where I sit, this is no longer a hypothetical discussion.
ICANN has made its latest move on the chessboard of top level naming.
So Handshake, now it’s your move.♟️
Own The Name | Own The Rules | Own The Dot.