BNS Names & Domains: Balancing Confidentiality & Usability on BChat & BelNet

5 min readMar 24, 2023

BNS names for BChat and BelNet balances confidentiality and usability by making it easier for people to identify themselves within the Beldex ecosystem while concealing their true identity.

What are BNS Names?

BNS stands for Beldex Name service — it can be your social name, a website domain address, or even your Bchat ID. To make it even more understandable, you can think of BNS names as similar to usernames and domain names that exist today. BNS names were created to easily identify, remember and verify the BChat ID, and subsequently, the wallet address of your friends. Because not all of us have photographic memory to remember long and complex BChat IDs.

Beldex Name service is a decentralized name service on the Beldex blockchain. There are two namespaces, one for BChat and one for BelNet.

BNS for BChat is called the BNS Name, because this is the equivalent of a confidential username.
BNS for BelNet is called the BNS domain, since this is the equivalent of a confidential domain

BNS Names

BNS names are simply resolved to your BChat ID. Since they are resolved to your BChat ID, they also make your wallet address easily verifiable. BNS names work within the Beldex ecosystem. It is like your username name or identity in the web3 ecosystem. It helps you easily connect with and find your friends within the Beldex ecosystem.

BNS Domains

A domain name such as Amazon.com is resolved to an IP address. Similarly, a BNS domain is resolved to a BelNet address which is used to host MNApps, the confidential web and mobile apps on BelNet.

BNS for BChat

BChat is the decentralized messaging app where you can send messages anonymously without revealing your identity. It is a dApp created to protect user confidentiality. With BChat, you can also send and receive BDX.

BNS names are tagged to your BChat ID. BNS names make messaging and transactions easier as you only have to remember a user’s BNS name to connect with them. They may be similar to user names in that BNS names make your account easily discoverable. However, the messages you send are still highly encrypted and routed through onion routing. Users can buy BNS names with BDX. BNS for BChat is a decentralized name system offering unique human readable names within the Beldex ecosystem.

Download BChat for your mobile or desktop device.

How does BNS improve usability and user experience in BChat?

BNS, A Confidential Phonebook:

BNS can act as a yellow page or a phonebook but not everyone will know your BNS name unless you share it with them. Once you know your friend’s BNS name, it is easy to find their BChat profile.

The BNS name for the BChat and wallet namespace exist without the .bdx extension.

E.g. John

The above BNS name is mapped to a BChat ID and subsequently, the corresponding wallet address. It follows a ‘buy once and keep forever’ model. This is because it will be impractical for users to change the BNS for the wallets that receive payments.

Why do we need BNS for Bchat?

BNS — the Beldex Name Service gives you a human accessible name for your Bchat ID. So your name will be easy yet strong. Everyone can easily recognise your name. But they can’t send any messages unless you send your personal ID to them.

Your friends, family, and peers will be able to find you on BChat if you’ve given your B-Chat ID — a BNS username.

Anyone who wants to find you or get in touch with you on BChat only needs to search for Elizabeth for your account to appear.

Your level of confidentiality is determined by the username you choose. You could register “your name” as your BNS username if you’re okay with others searching for you using your real name. Otherwise, kindly use an alias.

BNS will have a phonebook lookup system, where all the information about Bchat users will be stored there.

But no one can look into your information unless they know your B-chat ID.

Advantages of BNS on BChat:

✔️BNS names make it easier to identify and verify your friend on BChat

📝BNS names are tagged to BChat IDs

💎You can send and receive BDX using BNS names on BChat

✒️You can set any BNS name of your choice as long as it is available within the BNS registry

BNS for BelNet

BNS for BelNet is a domain name system within BelNet that resolves BNS domains to their corresponding BelNet addresses.

An application is hosted on BelNet using a BelNet address similar to this:

http://675wmqqbzg6nqs688e1n3bti6ter4kt5q4u5bs1c4quutpnyxsxy.bdx/

However, such an address is impractical to remember. That’s where BNS domains for BelNet come in handy.

BNS domains are human readable domains that are resolved to the BelNet addresses. Thus, you can buy the BNS domain explorer.bdx for the above BelNet address.

This will tag explorer.bdx to the address such that whenever a user enters the domain into a browsers URL search bar, they can access the website hosted at http://675wmqqbzg6nqs688e1n3bti6ter4kt5q4u5bs1c4quutpnyxsxy.bdx/

Similarly, you can buy any BNS name such as yourname.bdx or yourorganization.bdx to host your personal or company’s website on BelNet.

You can access an application on BelNet only by connecting to BelNet using a BelNet client.

Accessing an MNApp

Download BelNet on your mobile or desktop device device. Open the application and switch on BelNet.
Open a browser now and enter the .bdx domain (such as beldex.bdx) into the address bar.
You can now access the website hosted at beldex.bdx. Applications hosted on BelNet are called MNApps.

Confidentiality of Decentralized Domain Name System on BelNet

Decentralized domain name systems aren’t owned or managed by a single entity. It is a decentralized registry on the blockchain that resolves domain names to wallet addresses or hash IDs.

In the case of the Beldex network, the BNS domains are resolved to a BelNet address. BelNet addresses themselves conceal any and all information about the IP address of the MNApp operator. Thus, BNS domains have the advantage of confidentiality and do not reveal any information about the host.

Why do we need a Decentralized Domain Name System on BelNet?

The top level domain systems are mostly centralized and they are managed by Internet Assigned Number (IANA) where they hold a monopoly over IP address allocation. They also manage the root servers of the domain system.

But a decentralized domain name system such as the BNS — the Beldex Name Service is based on a confidential blockchain like Beldex. No one will ever be able to see or locate your IP address and therefore, no one can ever know the person or entity operating the BNS domains. While this offers an additional layer of security and confidentiality, it is also highly censorship-resistant.

So your BNS domains are safe and secure on BelNet.

Advantages of BNS on BelNet:

🌎 BNS domains for BelNet help to host confidential and censorship-free apps

📱 Users can host both web and mobile apps on BelNet using a BNS domain

🔗 BNS domains end with the extension .bdx and are hosted on BelNet

🌐 An example of a BNS domain is https://beldex.bdx, which is simple and easy to remember

☁️ Applications hosted on BelNet are called MNApps that are highly confidential and secure

🔒 Users connect to BelNet to access an MNApp