ONS/LNS/SNS is a naming system used for Session Messenger running in the blockchain. It allows anyone to register a human-readable name and link it to their Session ID.

The problem

While learning about ONS system I realized there was no user-friendly website collecting dehashed names and their history. The only way to look up a name was to either use the Oxen CLI, the Session messenger itself or a third-party Oxen Blockchain Explorer. None of them provded detailed information on a particular name.

The solution

In just one day I built a website consisting of a frontend running Next.js with offline service worker, cache management system based on ETag, local IndexedDB database, periodic automatic background sync, and a backend powered by Bun and Node.js and Fastify that automatically pulls the latest blocks from blockchain, searches for ONS purchases, tries to decode with bruteforcing hashes and stores the results in a SQLite database for instant lookup upon API request. The API and website were completely free to use. The website had no ads and no trackers.

Monetization

In addition to making the API and website free I also created an ONS registration system that allowed anyone to purchase a name for fiat money by paying with card in under 30 seconds. Optionally you could have requested the name to be linked to your wallet so that the website had no theoretical way of controlling the ONS. In its essence it was just a simplified way of purchasing an ONS name in the blockchain.

End of life & open sourcing the code

In 2025 Oxen Foundation announced they were transitioning into Session Foundation and discontinuing ONS in favor of SNS and new crypto token. It was the time I decided to shut down ONS Registry and open source all the code.