There was a discussion about it on HN about a month ago [0]

Tldr; (from handshake.org) Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol compatible with DNS where every peer is validating and in charge of managing the root zone with the goal of creating an alternative to existing Certificate Authorities.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17673922

Most importantly, where do they get $400K

They did an ICO. Just like every companies with written "decentralized" in the baseline.

Well, I guess in the universe of scams, this isn't the worst outcome.

> The Handshake project has received 10.2MM USD from Project Sponsors. The net proceeds are pledged to be distributed to Free and Open Source Software communities (projects, non-profits, hackerspaces).

Holy jumping jesus, this is the best scam I have ever SEEN! They've scammed a bunch of VCs into investing in their ICO, and they're now going to give the money to FOSS projects with no obligation! This project of course is doomed, but this is a great way to infuse cash into FOSS without having to actually ask for donations.

Even if it's just a nice way to clear one's conscience from paying out some percentage as a generous bogus salary for a few years (no idea if that is happening or not), certainly an improvement over just not doing anything strictly illegal, which is often the best that could be said about a given ICO.

there are probably worse ways to gain adoption for your domain name system than to get in the good graces of free software communities...

They got more that 400k, the just gave out $10.2 mil to foss projects