Namecheap nnounced on June 10, 2026 that their upstream provider for Handshake TLDs is winding down. No more new registrations, renewals, or transfers on most of them. Existing sites keep running for now, but the writing’s on the wall for a chunk of these.
Quick reminder of what Handshake domains actually are: blockchain-based TLDs, no ICANN, no central gatekeeper. Cool idea on paper. Problem is they were never natively visible in a normal browser. You needed a bridge, something like what Namecheap was quietly providing, to make a .oo or a .pgp site resolve like a normal web address for regular visitors.
That bridge is exactly what’s going away.
Lesson buried in here for anyone building online: infrastructure you don’t own is infrastructure you’re borrowing. Doesn’t matter how clever or decentralized the underlying tech is if the last mile to an actual browser depends on one company’s goodwill and business case. Worth remembering next time something new and shiny promises to route around the old gatekeepers. Often it just adds a new one.