Nothing on a blockchain is free. If an attacker can add content to a blockchain without paying a reasonable cost for that immutable data to be stored forever, then they can fill up the block log which would ultimately crash the nodes and stop the chain. This is one of many reasons (along with the decentralized business model that rewards all FIO Protocol participants) why FIO Addresses and FIO Domains have to be renewed each year. This also prevents cyber squatting by freeing up domains others are not actively using for those would like to actively use them. You can learn more about what happens to a FIO address or domain when it expires from the knowledge base. In short, you won't be able to use your FIO names after the expiration date until you renew it and if you don't renew it within 90 days, it will be burned so that others can register and use it.

Renew Your FIO Address or Domain

As of this posting, if you're using either the Edge Wallet or the Mycelium wallet, you can review your FIO names directly within the wallet, paying with FIO tokens. Here's an example of the experience from the Edge Wallet:

Renew Within Edge Wallet

Go to the FIO Names item in the top left menu and notice which FIO Addresses and FIO Domains are expired or about to expire. Click on one and then click the message you see there to continue:

Click Renew FIO Address

Slide the arrow to the left to confirm.

Other Renewal Options (Pay with FIO)

You can use the FIO Registration Helper: https://greymass.github.io/fio-register/ which requires you to import your FIO private key into the Anchor Wallet by Greymass which we've discussed in a previous post: FIO Power Users: Take Control of Your FIO Experience. You can also see step by step instructions with screenshots in this FIO Groups presentation shown below:

Import Your Private Key to Anchor Wallet

For Anchor Mobile:

For Anchor Desktop:

If you need more help with Anchor Wallet, please post in the Greymass forums: https://eoscommunity.org/c/greymass/anchor-wallet/5

Renew With the FIO Registration Helper

Once you have Anchor set up with your account, you can use the FIO Registration Helper: https://greymass.github.io/fio-register/

Login with Anchor, find the address or domain you want to renew, and click Renew Address:

Then just click Renew Address:

Renew With the Bloks Explorer (more complicated)

Once you have Anchor Wallet set up, in addition to the FIO Registration Helper, you can also use fio.bloks.io to interact directly with the contracts as shown below (though it's a little more complicated and the max_fee can be determined here):

Or via the Wallet functionality within fio.bloks.io:

Or call the API directly as described here in the developer hub.

Other Renewal Options (Pay without FIO)

If you do not have FIO tokens to renew your addresses, you can either purchase them from an exchange or swap service or you can use the open source FIO Registration website and pay in popular cryptocurrencies such as BTC, BCH, USDC, and DAI:

Address renewal: https://reg.fioprotocol.io/address/renew/fio

Domain renewal: https://reg.fioprotocol.io/domain/renew/fio

The steps are quite simple. You just put in your FIO Address or FIO Domain you want to renew:

Click renew and select the currency you'd like to pay in:

And then send the requested amount to the address specified. You can use click to view a QR code if you have a mobile wallet handy.

The Foundation is actively supporting the development of a FIO Dashboard to make this process even easier in the future so you can manage all your FIO names in one place.

If you're using a FIO enabled wallet that doesn't yet support FIO name renewals, please reach out to them and let them know how much you value that feature.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to our team in Discord: http://fioprotocol.io/chat