Existing TLDs and over 100,000 Alexa websites are reserved on the Handshake blockchain. Upon removing collisions, generic, and exclusions (e.g. 1 or 2 character names), approximately 80,000 names remain. Using the root key and DNSSEC, domain owners can cryptographically prove ownership to the Handshake blockchain to claim names. 100,000 was chosen as a number which the ownership is clear and has already gone through policy and process.
Reserved domains were able to be claimed for 4 years after the launch of Handshake. This deadline has passed. Rather than let all the domains be registered by anyone after this deadline passed (how the original code was written), Handshake did a soft fork to stop the top 10,000 domains from being registered. If any of these 10,000 domains want to be claimed, Handshake will need to do a hard fork to re-enable claims.
All existing ICANN TLDs (ccTLDs, gTLDS, rTLD) are reserved and can't be opened at auction.
The Handshake blockchain pre-reserves the top ~100,000 domain names from the Alexa top 1 million domain names. Since the Handshake blockchain only thinks in terms of top-level domains, existing domains on the Alexa top 1 million are "converted" to TLDs.
For example:
google.com -> google
bbc.co.uk -> bbc
In order to have your domain pre-reserved, there are a few rules implemented in generate.js that it must conform to:
google.com would lose to google.google.co.uk would lose to google.com. Only the owner of the higher-ranked domain is able to redeem it.bbc.co.uk will work, but jeffs-blog.wordpress.com will not.The following list is permanently reserved:
exampleinvalidlocallocalhosttestNames which were added after the final snapshot:
charity - A new gTLD added on ICANN's system.inc - A new gTLD added on ICANN's system.ss - ccTLD for South Sudan.xn--mgbah1a3hjkrd - iccTLD for Mauritania.cpa - A new gTLD added on ICANN's system.gay - A new gTLD added on ICANN's system.xn--qxa6a - iccTLD for .eu in Greek.llp - A new gTLD added on ICANN's system.Names which were removed after the final snapshot:
goodhands - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.jlc - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.panerai - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.spiegel - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.statoil - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.telecity - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.vista - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.epost - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.zippo - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.blanco - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.active - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.bnl - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.cartier - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.chrysler - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.dodge - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.doha - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.duns - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.everbank - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.honeywell - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.iselect - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.ladbrokes - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.mobily - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.mopar - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.piaget - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.srt - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.starhub - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.uconnect - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.warman - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.xn--mgbb9fbpob - An iccTLD removed from ICANN's system.lancome - A gTLD removed from ICANN's system.