[ktorvald]

Our company tried to register a TLD with ICANN. ICANN's process was so complicated, when we asked questions, they suggested we hire a law firm to help us. Turns out the partner at the firm was a former ICANN employee so they referred us to their former colleague.

This law firm wanted $250k up front for the application, told us it could take over 2 years, and did not offer any guarantees that the TLD we wanted would be approved. It's a total scam up and down.

I'm no expert on Handshake, but it has a built in open auction system for registering TLDs. It seems to be the best alternative to the ICANN cabal and an actually decent use case for a blockchain. We bought the TLD we wanted on Handshake, and it cost less than $1,000. If we could only get browsers to support it...

https://handshake.org

[philistine]

If browsers supported Handshake just like they do DNS, you can bet you wouldn't have just paid 1000 bucks for a TLD. You'd probably have paid more than what it costs for a TLD under ICANN.