I built a free, stateless naming system to replace DNS

Right now, owning a piece of the internet is a privilege.

If you want a traditional DNS domain, you have to rent it from giant central corporations. If you want a Web3 domain, you have to pay expensive cryptocurrency gas fees just to register your name.

This means that millions of developers and users in developing nations are completely priced out of owning a true digital identity. I wanted to fix this.

So, I built Kinetic.

What is Kinetic?

Kinetic is the world's first stateless, zero-fee, peer-to-peer naming system. It allows absolutely anyone in the world to claim a decentralized domain name securely, without needing a bank account, a credit card, or any cryptocurrency at all.

Instead of relying on central servers or heavy blockchains that require you to pay transaction fees to miners, Kinetic runs entirely through a lightweight browser extension.

See it in action:

Here is a quick look at how seamless it is to claim a domain and use it directly from the browser:

Under the Hood: How it Works

Since Kinetic is stateless and has no "miners", how do we secure the network and prevent someone from just spamming and stealing every name?

We use a combination of Proof of Time via Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) and Proof of Burn.
To claim a name on the Kinetic network, your browser has to perform a small, sequential cryptographic computation. You don't pay with money—you pay with a few seconds of your computer's time.

Here is the tech stack I used to build it:

• Core Protocol (Rust): The entire cryptographic engine and VDF logic is written in Rust for maximum speed and security.
• WebAssembly (Wasm): We compile the Rust code to Wasm so that your browser can execute the cryptography locally at near-native speeds.
• The Client (TypeScript & React): The user interface is a cross-browser extension (Chrome, Firefox, Opera) built with React, TailwindCSS, and bundled entirely with Vite.

By pushing all the cryptography to Wasm running locally in the extension, the network remains incredibly lightweight. You don't need to sync a massive blockchain to use it.

Try it out & Contribute!

Kinetic is 100% open-source. I would love for you to try it out, read the whitepapers, and let me know what you think of the architecture!

If you find the project interesting, a ⭐️ on GitHub would mean the world to me and helps the project grow.

saifmukhtar / kinetic

⚡ The Kinetic Protocol

A stateless, Sybil-resistant naming system secured purely by math and time.

Watch the 50-node Kinetic Network live simulation in action

Kinetic is a fundamentally new paradigm for internet identity and domain resolution. It replaces the centralized registrars of DNS and the perpetual rent-seeking fees of blockchain-based naming systems (like ENS) with sequential computational friction (Verifiable Delay Functions).

If you are a lone developer, registering a .kin domain is completely free and permanent. If you are a squatter trying to steal 10,000 domains, it will computationally bankrupt you.

✨ Key Features

• Zero Blockchains, Zero Fees: No gas, no tokens, no renewal fees. Ever.
• VDF Proof-of-Time: Secures names against front-running and theft using Chia's repeated squarings ($x^{2^T}$) anchored to the global drand beacon, rigorously hardened against concurrency and edge-case exploits.
• Immunological DHT: A highly adversarial, 64KB-limited Kademlia DHT that natively rejects poisoned records and resolves…

View on GitHub

saifmukhtar / kinetic-client

Kinetic Client Ecosystem

The official mobile, browser, and desktop clients for the Kinetic Decentralized Network.

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This repository houses all user-facing clients for the Kinetic Network. By utilizing Flutter for UI and Rust FFI for cryptographic heavy lifting, the client apps provide a unified, extremely performant experience across all major platforms.

📦 Repository Structure

• mobile/: The primary Flutter application. Compiles to native iOS and Android apps, allowing users to register .kin domains, manage their wallet, and interact with the network natively.
• kinetic-ffi/: The Rust core for the clients. It bridges the native kinetic-daemon and kinetic-core logic to Flutter and WebAssembly using flutter_rust_bridge.
• extension/: (WIP) The browser extension for Chrome/Firefox to natively intercept and resolve .kin domains right in the browser URL bar.

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📱 Mobile Client (mobile/)

The mobile client brings decentralized DNS to your smartphone. It runs a Light Client version of the Kinetic protocol…

View on GitHub

I'm actively looking for feedback from the developer community. What do you think about replacing financial fees with computational time for digital identity? Let me know in the comments!