IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)

IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) is the function — operated under ICANN — that maintains the global pools the internet depends on: the DNS root zone, the allocation of IP address blocks to regional registries, and the registry of protocol numbers. When a new TLD is delegated, it is IANA that records which registry operates it in the root database. IANA sits above the day-to-day domain market — it doesn't sell names — but everything a registrar or registrant does ultimately resolves through the root data IANA publishes, the same authoritative layer a tokenized domain keeps using unchanged. Sources: IANA; IANA root database.