A niche bet on decentralized identity; most of its target community names things outside DNS, so demand stays small and specialist.
decentralized-identity and web3 identity projects (wallets, credential platforms, DID-method teams), plus a smaller tail of word-hack buyers using "did" as the English verb
One of 40 strings Starlight Registry (established by registrar Namecheap) applied for in the ICANN 2026 round, reported by Domain Name Wire on 2026-08-19.
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet in shape: take a lowercase internet-standards acronym that only insiders can parse and turn it into an addressable namespace, wagering that the standard itself becomes mainstream enough that its abbreviation reads as a category to ordinary buyers.
Both bet that a new addressing/identifier scheme outside the ordinary web-page model can bootstrap adoption by owning a TLD as its entry point, so the registry's fate is tied to the protocol's uptake rather than to demand for the word.
Both are the bet that a universal identifier system for entities can be turned into a name people register and publish as their canonical handle, though DUNS is a single proprietor's number scheme while a DID namespace would be an open multi-method one.
- Starlight Registry · first recordedDomain Name Wire
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire