Another powerful feature is on the horizon!

Join our sneak peek into the eCash Alias development and get ready to say goodbye to complicated crypto addresses

And say hi to customizable & tradable usernames for your eCash transactions

Crypto has always had a UX problem.

Cryptography is complicated. It's important to design systems where the user has total control of their funds. But it's also important to make the user experience as accessible as possible.

For now, the most user-friendly crypto products tend to be custodial. The most secure options are often too complicated for new users.

Crypto addresses in particular are a big problem because they're meant for machines, making them difficult to read, remember, and use.

Usernames & passwords are a growing hassle. Credit cards remain the go-to option for internet payments, despite often requiring private info.

Imagine how difficult it would be to use the internet — filling out forms, registering for services... — if email addresses were required to be byzantine cryptographic strings like '0x6eA158159...', they probably wouldn't have become the dominant username of the internet.

Crypto can improve both of these experiences with the right UI/UX tools.

Ethereum's ENS has done this successfully, allowing users to register a handle like they would a domain or address. Similar efforts on bitcoin were throttled by on-chain scaling challenges.

eCash aliases offer the best of ENS, with a roadmap to fully customizable and tradable aliases.

Unlike ENS, phase 1 alias registrations last forever - there is no annual maintenance fee.

Full feature parity with ENS will take additional tools and protocol work, so we're launching in phases.

In phase one, users will be able to register an alias for a fee based on length. In later phases, we plan to support tradeable, NFT-based aliases.

So, how will Phase 1 Aliases work?

The eCash Alias system uses an eCash transaction to register an alias to an address on-chain. Because the blockchain is permanent, registrations cannot be reversed. If you buy an alias, it's yours (unless & until you decide to sell it).

The specs can be found at: https://github.com/Bitcoin-ABC/bitcoin-abc/blob/master/doc/standards/ecash-alias.md 

An open-source reference indexer (Chronik) is being built out to support the easy implementation of aliases for eCash wallets.

Cashtab wallet will support registering and using aliases as soon as the protocol is live.

To claim your alias, you will simply visit the new "Alias" page in Cashtab, type in your desired alias, & click "register".

If the alias hasn't been taken yet, it's yours. Because the alias is stored on the blockchain, it's yours everywhere on the web — not just in Cashtab.

What's next?

Moving forward, eCash will match popular features of ENS, like an Alias marketplace. To prioritize a professional, permanent feature, we will launch phase 1 before introducing a user-friendly interface for trading aliases.

UTXO chains like eCash are capable of matching many ETH-like features, in addition to reaching world scale without the need for Layer 2 solutions.

eCash Aliases is only the first of many apps and smart contract like features that will be built out on eCash!

Phase 1 of eCash Aliases could have been released a few months ago. However, taking the time to evaluate the spec and build out the supporting app infrastructure — while ensuring no introduction of technical debt — is the right way to do it.

⚙️ Up next, we need to build an API for the alias-server to best support implementing wallets. This was completed already for an earlier version of the spec, so no major roadblocks are expected.

We're already able to register Alias txs according to the spec, although the price schedule has not been finalized.

"We could get it out this month if we rushed it, but we aren't going to rush it." - Cashtab lead dev Joey King

So as always no ETA, but #Soon

For more XECiting info on developments, check out our Chronik Development Sneak Peek, and don’t forget to join our official communities!

➡️ http://ecash.community

Follow dev progress:

➡️ https://reviews.bitcoinabc.org/feed/