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dotNS

Introduction

dotNS is Polkadot's decentralized name service for Products — the registry that turns a human-readable .dot name like awesome.dot into the published Polkadot Product it points at. It's the lookup every Host runs whenever a user navigates to a .dot address.

If you have used a DNS provider, the role is similar: human-readable names map to content. The differences: dotNS is on-chain (no DNS provider in the middle), name resolution returns a Content Identifier (CID) for a Product bundle (not an IP address), and pricing is tied to Proof of Personhood so spam farming short names is bounded.

Four properties shape how a Product developer interacts with dotNS:

  • The registry lives on Asset Hub: Names, owners, and the content references they point at are stored as contract state on Asset Hub, not on the People Chain or Bulletin Chain.
  • Name resolution is content-addressed at the end: A .dot name resolves to a CID, and the CID points at bytes on the Bulletin Chain (or via an IPFS gateway). See Name Mechanism.
  • Pricing is personhood-gated by PopRules: Short names are free for personhood holders; longer or numerically-suffixed names are open to anyone but require a deposit. See PopRules and Pricing.
  • The architecture is a small set of cooperating contracts: Not a single registrar — a set of contracts each handling a slice of the model. See Architecture.

For the Product-side how-to (registering a name, publishing your bundle), see Register and Publish.

Known gaps

Two operational caveats apply to the current dotNS surface:

  • Self-declared PoP tier: dotNS reads PoP tier from a status the user sets themselves. On-chain verification of PoP tier against the People Chain is a forthcoming integration; until then, treat the tier check as cooperative, not adversarial.
  • Operational runbook gaps: Some operator-side procedures (migration, batch updates, contract upgrade paths) are not yet documented for this build. The reference here covers the developer-facing surface.

Where to Go Next

  • Learn Name Mechanism

    How a .dot name resolves to a Product bundle — namehash derivation, the contenthash → CID mapping, and the IPFS/Bulletin delivery path.

    Reference

  • Learn Architecture

    The contract architecture on Asset Hub that backs the registry — what each contract is responsible for and how they cooperate.

    Reference

  • Learn PopRules and Pricing

    The pricing ladder for name registration: who can register what at what cost, organized by name length and PoP tier.

    Reference

  • Guide Register and Publish

    The Product-side how-to: registering a .dot name, attaching your published Product bundle, and going live.

    Get Started

Last update: June 16, 2026
| Created: June 16, 2026