S15 E51: Mike Carson on Impervious & Spaces Domains on Bitcoin

Read the article: S15 E51: Mike Carson on Impervious, Spaces Protocol & Owning Your Name on Bitcoin

Mike Carson is the CEO of Impervious (and Friendster): a Bitcoin-native ZK proof-native protocol which allows for scalable domain registrations on the Bitcoin blockchain. In this episode, he explains how & why he decided to disrupt ICANN.

Time stamps:

Introduction to the Podcast (00:00:41)

Importance of Digital Identity (00:02:44)

Overview of Spaces (00:05:25)

Development of Spaces (00:06:38)

Historical Context of Domain Names (00:08:38)

Challenges with Namecoin (00:10:02)

Censorship and Domain Ownership (00:12:49)

Technical Limitations of Ethereum (00:13:52)

Value of Impervious Spaces (00:17:27)

Functionality of Spaces (00:18:33)

Auction Mechanism Explained (00:19:58)

Concatenation Opcode Discussion (00:22:26)

Domain Access Query (00:23:29)

Decentralized Naming System Details (00:23:43)

Integration with Existing Systems (00:25:25)

Data Storage Capabilities (00:25:58)

Browser Integration Possibilities (00:27:02)

Redirecting vs. Building (00:28:28)

Squatting Prevention Measures (00:29:33)

Human-Readable Payment Addresses (00:30:35)

General Purpose Naming Integration (00:32:50)

Open Source Development (00:33:22)

Sidechains and Domain Names (00:33:55)

Scaling Bitcoin Discussion (00:35:00)

Self-Custody Consultancy (00:36:08)

Digital Identity Importance (00:37:09)

Potential of Naming Protocols (00:38:03)

Marketplace Potential for Spaces (00:40:00)

Value of Domain Names (00:40:27)

User Interface Development (00:41:07)

Selling Subspaces (00:42:13)

Concerns About Domain Services (00:42:50)

Past Domain Protocols (00:43:26)

Importance of Decentralized Naming (00:44:07)

Challenges of Competing with Established Services (00:48:24)

Community Support for Decentralized Projects (00:49:36)

Bitcoin Address Integration (00:50:59)

Zero Knowledge Proofs for Scalability (00:54:14)

Security and Decentralization of Block Space (00:56:08)

Community Adoption of Spaces Protocol (00:57:19)

Expected Launch Date for Spaces Protocol (00:58:16)

Overview of Other Projects (00:59:42)

Building for Handshake (00:59:46)

Focus on Spaces (01:01:04)

Following Spaces Updates (01:01:09)

Personal Branding and Friendster (01:02:55)

Domain Name Industry Insights (01:03:06)

Bringing Back Friendster (01:04:49)

Friendster's Historical Context (01:06:00)

Nostalgia for MySpace and Hi5 (01:07:15)

Onboarding Users to Bitcoin (01:08:04)

Final Thoughts and Encouragement (01:09:41)

Verify this episode

This is the SHA-256 fingerprint of the MP3 as published here, timestamped in the Bitcoin blockchain with OpenTimestamps. If one byte of the file changes, the fingerprint changes.

How to check it yourself

Download the MP3 and the proof into the same folder.
Run sha256sum 2024-08-22_s15_e51__mike_carson_on_impervious_spaces_domains_on_bitcoin.mp3 (on a Mac: shasum -a 256 2024-08-22_s15_e51__mike_carson_on_impervious_spaces_domains_on_bitcoin.mp3). The result must match the SHA-256 above.
Install the OpenTimestamps client (pip install opentimestamps-client) and run ots verify 2024-08-22_s15_e51__mike_carson_on_impervious_spaces_domains_on_bitcoin.mp3.ots. It hashes the MP3 again and checks the proof against your own Bitcoin node, then prints the block and the date the file existed by. Without a node, ots info 2024-08-22_s15_e51__mike_carson_on_impervious_spaces_domains_on_bitcoin.mp3.ots shows the block height to look up in any block explorer.

Keywords from the feed: Mike Carson, Impervious, Spaces, DNS, Domains, Bitcoin, Friendster

Ask this episode

Verify this episode