Claiming a namespace

A namespace gives you a top-level name such as nova, under which you can issue names such as alice.nova. To claim one publicly, you pay an upfront fee, wait through its objection window and complete the award on chain.

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Pay upfront into escrow

Review the fee quote and set your maximum network fee before signing. Your announce transaction transfers the exact namespace fee into the Allocator contract, where it stays in escrow while the claim is pending. Stellar transaction and resource fees are separate. The fee’s token, amount and recipient come from the Allocator’s on-chain policy. The app checks that policy again before signing. Public claims cannot proceed without a configured policy, and the Allocator’s governance address cannot act as the claimant. Receiving namespace fees does not itself grant a fee exemption.

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The claim window

1. Announce: sign the claim and fund its escrow.
2. Wait: the current testnet objection window is one day. An eligible third party can submit a bond and evidence during this window. An objection pauses the claim for governance to decide.
3. Execute: once the unopposed claim is ready, anyone can submit execute to award the namespace through Registry. Confirm the transaction; reaching zero on a countdown does not complete the award.

The deployed contract also limits how long a claim can remain pending. Read its current state for the applicable deadlines. Contract-upgrade delays and namespace claim windows are separate. After the award, the recorded owner controls the namespace. The Allocator cannot reassign an already owned Registry node. The owner can still transfer the namespace.

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Fee outcomes

For 80% refunds, the contract rounds down to whole token base units and gives the remainder to the recipient. Qualifying stuck recovery takes precedence over expiry or withdrawal. A stuck claim is still announced or objected, but Registry already has an owner for that namespace. It can no longer award the name. The permissionless cancel_stuck call checks this condition and also returns any outstanding objection bond in full. A slow network, active objection or missed deadline alone does not qualify. Settlement attempts to pay each party. If a transfer fails, the amount remains available as a protected pull credit. Anyone can retry delivery to the recorded payee. Check the credit as well as the settlement receipt: the receipt records what is owed, even when delivery is pending. Fee reserves and credits cannot be swept as surplus.

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Objection outcomes

Only the Allocator’s configured governance address can decide an objection. Its case-specific ruling method records the reviewed evidence and a public explanation on chain. A namespace owner or application login does not confer ruling authority.

• An upheld objection rejects the claim, returns its fee in full and refunds the objector’s bond.
• A dismissed objection resumes the existing claim; it does not charge the claim fee again. The objection bond is burned under the Allocator’s rules.
• An adjudication timeout lets anyone trigger recovery and resume the claim under the timeout rules. It does not trigger the rejected-claim fee refund.
• Rejected claims have separate cooldown and reopening rules. Rejection does not permanently reserve the label for the objector.

You can withdraw your eligible announced or objected claim. Anyone can clear an expired claim when its on-chain conditions hold. Withdrawing an objected claim also settles its bond; the namespace fee refund remains 80% unless the stuck condition applies. Objection bonds are accounted for separately from namespace fees and may use a different token.

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Reserved labels

Some top-level labels are reserved in Registry’s fixed Merkle root. A reservation sets claim eligibility; it does not establish ownership.

• A bound reserved claimant can claim directly with the required proof while that reservation is active. This direct Registry path bypasses Allocator escrow and is exempt from the namespace fee.
• Unbound reservations and public claims after an allowed fallback deadline use the public Allocator process and pay its fee.
• Other users cannot bypass the fee by calling Registry directly: ordinary allocation is restricted to the Allocator.

isAvailable(namespace) checks ownership. It does not prove a label is unrestricted, that no rival claim exists, or that a fee exemption applies.

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After the award

Activate the namespace’s Registrar and Resolver, then begin issuing names. There is no mandatory annual Soran ownership fee. Any owner-set username price, timed-name policy or optional hosted subscription has separate terms.