What happens to our NIP-05 ID if NostrPlebs disappears?
#### Nostr NIP-05 ID Tips and Experiences
Over the last few days running nostrplebs.com for NIP-05 ID registration and magement, I've had the pleasure of speaking with hundes of plebs and providing many of them with large amounts of tech support. (My DMs are basically on fire.) Here's what I've learned.
**WE ARE EARLY!**
But what does that mean, actually?
Well, it means many features and aspects of Nostr aren't fully baked yet and it's going to take a little extra time accomplish some tasks. Many features are not ready for full scale production, by any means, but they do *work*, if you're patient and know the exact steps to accomplish your task. And yes, there are many steps involved if you want to keep your private key safe.
If you've purchased a NIP-05 ID from nostrplebs.com or no.str.cr or setup set up one yourself, you need to now add this ID to your profile. The safest and best way to do this is to update your [Nostr Metadata](https://metadata.nostr.com) all at once. Here you can update your username, your NIP-05 ID, and even provide a link to your profile picture image.
**But, there's a catch.** You can't just go to this website and login with your private keys. In fact, you DO NOT want to do this. The Nostr Metadata website requires that you use an extension to sign the update transaction. Think of this like your signing device when making a bitcoin transaction. You'll need to use the nos2x extension or the Alby extension. Both are available for Chrome and Firefox. You'll need to install these and do a quick configure, adding your private key to the extension before proceeding to update your NIP-05 ID.
Once the extension is installed and configured, you're ready to get started! Visit https://metadata.nostr.com, activate or authorize the interaction with your private key, fill out all of the information, and hit the submit button.
You're done! Trust me. But here's where the next issue happens. People will immediately head on over to their client application and look for the changes. They don't see it and get worried. It's understandable. It's confusing. Not all client applications will show these changes right away or even at all. Astral.ninja will show these changes eventually. You may need to reload your application, or clear local app storage, and reload everything to see the changes take place. Damus will eventually show these changes too. You'll see a small gray head silhouette with a check mark near your name. Astral.ninja shows a nice orangish yellow checkmark. Nostr.com shows a huge checkmark. They're all different.
What I've been telling people is to visit https://www.nostr.guru and enter their PUBLIC key. You should see an updated NIP-05 ID and profile picture fairly quickly. Once you see the changes live here on this website, you can rest assured, that eventually other clients will show you as much of these changes as they're capable of displaying.
The above is going only to get easier as time moves forward. **WE ARE EARLY**, but we can **SMELL THE POTENTIAL** and **FEEL THE ENERGY**.
Discussion
From what I've seen if the domain is down and the nostr.config file containing the userhandle and pubkey doesn't load, then the 'verified' symbol currently goes away. This would mean having to re-verify using another provider or self-verify using your own domain I guess.
Could another user verify that handle in the meantime? Thanks for the answer.
Since handles are not unique on its own, but pubkeys are, it's possible to have the same handles. However, this means you would need to trust who owns the domain to not assign jason@nostrplebs.com to some other user's pubkey.
If I were to turn the server off right now, no one can register that same NIP-05 ID until they buy the domain after it expires in a year. But as I said, I have no plans on letting either of these things happening :)
We need a decentralized DNS service. Like .eth (on Eth) and .btc (Stacks), but without the need for a shitcoin. Is there anything you’re aware of?
Domain is SAFU
Thank you for the NIP!