Spaces launches Trust Anchor for blockchain-verified Bitcoin identities without intermediaries

Spaces has launched Trust Anchor, letting wallets and apps confirm human-readable Bitcoin identities such as alice@bitcoin directly against the blockchain instead of through a company-run resolver. Separately, Spaces released version 0.4.2 on September 16, 2026, which puts the protocol’s off-chain issuance system on Bitcoin’s mainnet for the first time, with the handle @bitcoin as its first production operator.

• The Trust ID credential stays valid for 14 days before a wallet needs to rescan it to add contacts or catch a rotated key.
• Spaces sells @bitcoin handles at a flat $25 on a first-come, first-served basis, with no revocation, rerouting or recovery once issued.
• A Princeton study of the earlier Namecoin system found only 28 of roughly 120,000 registered names avoided being squatted.

• $25 flat @bitcoin handle price, sold first-come
• 14 days Trust ID validity window before wallets must rescan it
• $979B Q1 2026 global retail crypto volume, down 11% year over year

Spaces, a protocol that attaches human-readable names to B