Sirius is Silent Mode's decentralized domain registry. Register a name without an account, without KYC, without renewal fees — one on-chain transaction, pay once with crypto, keep forever in a wallet you control. No registrar, no ICANN, no DNS root. Resolvers read the chain directly. You can even register your own TLD and sell names under it.
Sirius.X is the sovereign registrar site, served from its own name.
Mirror: silentmode.st/sirius-x/ ·
gateway: navigate.st/bns/sirius.x/ ·
native with a resolver: https://sirius.x/
A minimal Namecoin-style name protocol on Bitcoin Cash. No fork, no sidechain, no new blockchain — three ordinary mechanisms of BCH doing three different jobs.
An immutable NFT whose commitment is the UTF-8 name. Whoever holds the certificate owns the name. Consensus guarantees nobody can mint another output in the same category without spending it.
A tiny JSON payload prefixed BNS1 — the name's
records (URL, inline HTML page, IPv4, cashaddr, Sia bucket, TLS
fingerprint). Total budget: ≤ 200 bytes.
Every protocol transaction pays 600 sat to a
well-known beacon address. Calling get_history
on that address enumerates every registration and update ever made — no
indexer to trust, no server between you and the answer.
Seven record types cover the space between "point at any URL" and
"the whole website lives in this transaction". Records travel in the same
OP_RETURN as the name itself; the total payload stays
inside 200 bytes.
| Record | What it holds | Used for |
|---|---|---|
u | An HTTPS URL | Redirect the name at any existing site |
h | Inline HTML | A tiny website served entirely from the transaction — no host, anywhere |
a | A cashaddr | Payments — the "send to alice.bch" use case |
ip | IPv4 address | Point DNS directly at a server you run for the name |
p | An upstream URL | Reverse-proxy an existing site — address bar stays on the BNS name |
s3 | bucket/key or bucket/prefix/ |
A full multi-file site on the Sia storage network |
tls | SHA-256 of the DER certificate | Pin your server's TLS cert so nobody can MITM the connection |
[a-z0-9-]{1,32}. Any TLD you like —
the chain decides what exists, not a committee. Search availability on the
Sirius.X registration page.BNS1-prefixed OP_RETURN, and pays 600 sat to the
beacon so every resolver can find it. First valid REG
wins.Registration is a normal Bitcoin Cash transaction shape with a small protocol twist: the certificate's identity is derived from the outpoint spent at input 0, so the buyer must choose the coin, not the wallet. Any wallet that can build a transaction to that spec works.
Generated in your browser, seed encrypted with PBKDF2 → AES-GCM in
localStorage, never transmitted. The registration
page can search, quote, sign and broadcast in one flow. Self-custody
throughout — the registrar never touches the certificate.
Pairs the registration page with an external wallet over NIP-17 gift-wrap messages — pass-through signing, so the dApp builds the exact transaction and the wallet's key just signs. Currently: Cashonize v0.9+ on chipnet.
Wallet-orchestrated, not pass-through — the wallet auto-selects UTXOs. That
collides with the genesis-input rule that fixes the certificate's identity
to a specific coin. May return once its bch_executeAction
model ships.
BNS on BCH is deliberately TLD-agnostic — the rightmost label is the registry. There is no pre-existing root; the first registration under a new suffix is what makes that TLD exist. Below is the working set as of today.
| TLD | Note |
|---|---|
.bch | The original TLD; bare on-chain names default to it |
.p2p | Peer-to-peer software and services |
.deviant | The Deviant division's namespace (Silent Mode's parent house) |
.bit | Namecoin's legacy TLD, brought under BNS |
These are actually registered on chipnet, right now, resolving through the relay and every Silent Mode client. Each demonstrates one record type from the list above.
| Name | Backing record |
|---|---|
hello.bch |
h — a page inside the transaction itself |
silentmode.bch |
h — this project's own on-chain demo |
coinspectrum.bch |
ip · p · tls — a full site on an ordinary server, pinned by TLS fingerprint |
coinspectrum.deviant.bch |
s3 — a full multi-file site on the Sia storage network |
siatest.bch |
s3 — earlier Sia test |
argo.bch |
h — the future hosting-pact brand |
theseus.bch |
h — the browser's brand page |
demo.p2p |
Multi-TLD proof — same chain, different rightmost label |
Short version — the full breakdown across GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, ENS, Unstoppable Domains, and Handshake lives on the comparison page.
| What you get | Ordinary registrar | Sirius |
|---|---|---|
| How ownership is proven | A row in the registry's database | A CashTokens NFT in your wallet |
| Who can revoke it | The registrar, the registry, ICANN, a court order to any of them | Nobody — the certificate is an immutable NFT |
| Renewal | Yearly — miss it and the name is auctioned | Never on chipnet BNS1; mainnet BNS2 will have a lifecycle (below) |
| Cost per registration | $8 – $30 / year, forever | Chipnet: worthless test coins. Mainnet BNS2 target: ~$10–20 to register & renew |
| Identity required | Email, sometimes phone, sometimes address, always payment method | A wallet — no email, no phone, no card, no KYC |
| DNS resolution | ICANN → TLD registry → registrar's nameservers → you | Any electrum server reads the chain; your resolver does the rest |
| Web presence | Depends on a hosting provider that can suspend you | Point h at inline HTML, s3 at Sia, or ip/p at any server you run |
On chipnet (the live test network today) the cost is a few test coins — effectively free, used for development. On mainnet, each TLD owner sets their own price in USD on-chain, typically $25 – $500 one-time for a brand-new name under one of the live TLDs (.x, .bch, .p2p, .deviant, .bit, .nav, .test, .coin, .cash). You pay once and keep the name forever — there is no annual renewal.
No. Sirius has no account system, no email signup, no phone verification, no address or payment card. You pay the on-chain fee from a Bitcoin Cash wallet (built-in web wallet, Cashonize, Paytaca, or any WizardConnect-compatible wallet), and the name's ownership certificate lands directly in that wallet. Nothing about who you are is attached to the name.
No. The ownership certificate is a CashTokens NFT that only the private key in your wallet can move. Silent Mode cannot revoke it, ICANN has no jurisdiction over it, no registrar sits between you and the name, and no court order to a company can produce one. The only way the name changes hands is you signing a transaction yourself — or the mainnet BNS2 lifecycle naturally expiring if you let it.
Yes — Sirius is one of the only registries where anyone can mint a top-level domain. Any wallet can register a new TLD by paying the TLD-registry fee; you then own that TLD as an on-chain certificate, set its policy (public, co-sign-approval, or private), set its own name-registration price, and earn the per-name revenue every time someone registers a name under it. See the TLD registry docs.
Not on today's BNS1 chipnet build — a name is yours until the certificate NFT in your wallet moves. The mainnet BNS2 build will introduce an optional lifecycle so abandoned names can be reclaimed, but owners pay only when the name is first minted; there is no yearly renewal to GoDaddy or anyone else.
Yes. Any Sirius name can be listed on the built-in marketplace in one on-chain transaction with no escrow: you sign a partial transaction that pays you when a buyer completes it. Prices can be fixed or USD-pegged. See the Sirius.X marketplace.
Three options, all pointed to by on-chain records on the name itself: inline HTML (h record — the whole page lives in the Bitcoin Cash transaction), a free Sia bucket (s3 record — Silent Mode's Pithos.X gateway hosts a starter quota per name), or your own server (ip + tls records — the TLS certificate's SHA-256 is pinned on-chain, no CA required). The resolver picks whichever is set.
The built-in browser wallet on Sirius.X (PBKDF2 + AES-GCM, keys stay in your browser), any WizardConnect-compatible wallet including Cashonize and Paytaca, or CashConnect for direct connection. All three paths mint the certificate NFT straight to a key you control — nothing is custodial at any point.
Sirius runs on Bitcoin Cash — the same chain that already settles the payment, no separate token to buy, no bridge, no Layer 2. Names are CashTokens NFTs you hold in your own wallet (no smart-contract custody). Resolution is one electrum query against a public beacon address — any device can be a resolver, no gateway required. And anyone can mint their own TLD, not just a fixed set defined at launch.
Yes, two ways. Zero-install: open any name through navigate.st, the public gateway that reads the chain for you. Local, trustless: install the Theseus Navigator (Chromium-based, speaks .bch natively) or the Ariadne Resolver system-wide service, and any browser on your machine opens Sirius names directly.
BNS1 is the chipnet prototype. The mainnet version, BNS2, adds two
consensus-enforced pieces the prototype leaves as indexer policy. Both are
designed on paper — the specs live in
Decentralized.DNS/ — and both wait on the mainnet cutover.
Certificates live in a CashScript covenant that enforces one certificate per name at consensus, not by indexer agreement. Same covenant enforces a lifecycle: ACTIVE → (6–12 months) IDLE → OPEN. The owner's option to reclaim during IDLE is 50–100× cheaper than a stranger's takeover, so the grace period is real: a takeover only ever happens when the owner is genuinely gone.
CMT op)A front-running defence. Publish a hash of your name first (with a 16-byte salt), reveal the name later; the reveal that points at the oldest valid commit wins. An attacker who sees the reveal cannot produce an older commit, because blocks are already written.
Scan-to-sign registration for airgapped SPV wallets: the site builds an unsigned transaction, the wallet signs it on a separate device via QR, the buyer broadcasts. No relay, no connector, no third party at any point.
.bit names registered and
28 in actual use. Names live forever mean the interesting ones get
squatted forever. BNS2's covenant expiry is the design that avoids that trap
without ever letting an active owner lose a name they still use.BNS1 depends on resolvers agreeing that "first valid REG
wins". Consensus does not enforce it yet — that is what the covenant registry
above adds for mainnet.
An observer of the mempool can copy your REG and
race it. Does not matter on chipnet; matters the instant names have value.
The commit-reveal spec above is written; not implemented on chipnet.
BNS1 has no expiry. The covenant registry adds the ACTIVE → IDLE → OPEN lifecycle; BNS1 keeps it flat because the mistake cost on chipnet is zero.
The whole payload including BNS1 prefix and JSON
fits in one OP_RETURN. Enough for URLs, cashaddrs, IPs and Sia keys —
inline HTML (h) is a tiny page, not a full site.
Bigger sites use s3.
Prototype convenience — production would use a keyless constant script so no one can be pressured over the beacon key.
Mainnet migration is a separate transaction and comes after BNS2 lands. All names, coins and mistakes on chipnet are worthless — that is the point of doing it there first.