Do usernames expire after a period of time (e.g. 1 year)? If so, are we notified that expiration is coming up and what do we need to do to ensure we can retain those xxxx.id “domains”. Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.
Steve
I don’t believe there’s a notification process. But if you go on the Blockstack Explorer you can see what Bitcoin block your ID is set to expire. You have a 5,000 block grace period I believe to renew your name. After that, it goes back out into the open market.
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@steven.skorka Hi Steve,
Usernames expire approximately two years after registration. There are currently no notifications for name renewals, but you can check the status of your name in the explorer: http://explorer.blockstack.org/name/username.id
@Kitsana and @Sebastian Thank you for your response to my post. I really appreciate it. I am not as deep in understanding the Blockchain technology as many on this forum. I did look up my username and the expiration is indicated as a long integer (e.g. 123456). Is that the block ID itself? How do I translate that into knowing when to check as the username is getting close to expiration? I’m intrigued by the decentralized platform and I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Thank you again. … Steve.
Yes, that is the bitcoin block it will expire on. You’d just need to do a little rough math (10 minutes for each bitcoin block) to figure out how much time you have before your .id expires. I’ll use mine as an example, “kitsana.id”.
So the math would be:
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Bitcoin Block .id Expires - Current Bitcoin Block = Difference in Bitcoin Blocks or 622,321 - 527,620 = 94,611 blocks
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Difference in Bitcoin Blocks x 10 minutes per bitcoin block = Minutes before .id expires or 94,611 x 10 = 946,110 minutes
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Minutes before .id expires / 60 minutes = Hours before .id expires or 946,110 / 60 = 15,768 hours
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Hours before .id expires / 24 hours = Days before .id expires or 15,768 / 24 = 657.02 days
In writing this, I just realized I can write a pretty simple function to figure this out for people; it’s harder when you’re just looking at the block number as opposed to days. I’ll have to do that over the weekend. I’ll share it with you when its done.
@Kitsana That’s what happens when you have a few minutes to stop and think! Thanks so much for the lesson. It was extremely helpful.
Adding this into the UI would be supremely helpful. I bought a few IDs as a long term investment in Blockstack and what you’re all building and it gives me some mild anxiety around the lack of info about when to renew, how to renew, etc. As an engineer, I might be interested in contributing to this effort but for the current moment, I’m just looking to make sure I renew on time and don’t lose my IDs
At this time, the only way to renew names is to use the CLI. PRs against the Blockstack Browser that add name renewal would be welcome 
I meant adding an estimated expiration time to the browser, but renewals would definitely be great too
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Yeah, I had something like this up and running but it wasn’t cost efficient to host my own site. I’d be glad to put it in an existing Dapp if it makes sense for that Dapp.
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Kitsana, let me know when/where you post code. Thats great. Loved your CLI tutorial also. Be well
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@josephfoboyle.id Are you saying you’d like to host it on your site? If so I’d prefer to have it on one of the Dapps currently on Blockstack. I’d also like to integrate a Blockstack login feature for it so as soon as people enter the site it’ll list their current Blockstack.id and when it expires. I don’t think that’s a must, but I think it’d be a cool feature.
For example début app.
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Sure. That’d be an option! Would you mind PM’ing me with more details on how you’d like to incorporate it? I’m on Slack and you can also hit me up via here if you’d like.
If I can push back on this, I think it is a must if you want to manage your identity on Blockstack into the future, tbh. I have zackshapiro.id just like I have zackshapiro.com and I never want to give that up; it’s too important to me. I think it makes the most sense to keep in on Blockstack
Something like this: https://cl.ly/ca385c16934a
Forgive the crude mockup
Yes, the more public the place the better. I think ideally it’d be good to actually be incorporated into the Blockstack Browser itself.
Can you send a pull request to add the expiry date somewhere here: https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-browser/blob/master/app/js/profiles/DefaultProfilePage.js#L835
Hi all,
Seeing as though this platform has been created for ordinary people to use a decentralized internet, I find it strange that one has to use a CLI to renew their identity. Just my two cents. Feels like a major oversight that this hasn’t been solved nearly a year since this thread was opened. Maybe I am wrong, has there been progress on this in the last year?
You can renew now in the identity tab of browser.
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Joseph is correct. If you need help please reach out to support at [email protected] That will come straight to me. Thanks!