Bitcoin Forum

What is Namecoin? Is it in competition with Bitcoin? Seems like a bad idea to have multiple competing currencies operating simultaneously on the same technology.

It's a distributed key value database, currently used for domain names. Its currency is a mechanism to discourage  early adopters from squatting names. Over time registration will become free, and thus removing the link between the coins and the purpose of the system, which is claimed by NMC traders to be its big selling point over BTC.

I wouldn't say "free" given that when a domain registration costs 0.01 NMC the cost to mine a single namecoin could be $100.

Currently you can mine about 11 NMC at the current difficulty of 94035.

The cost in NMC will approach ZERO and thus may look like the domains are free.

The people who are holding NMC now could be doing it for the same reason that early adopters of BTC held their large amounts of BTC.

Quite the contrary, competition will only strengthen the one that wins out. While Bitcoins do have a lot going for them, and the first mover advantage, If a better system comes out, Im sure most people will have no problem with migrating.

You know how your Bitcoin is a series of letters and numbers that make no sense?

Namecoin is just like Bitcoin but instead of a random array of numbers and letters it is names.

Mainly of famous actors.

Hence the name...Namecoin.

Is anyone aware of a whitepaper covering Namecoin?  (something appropriate to cite for academic research)

We are already discussing this issue on this forum due to the fact that merged mining will be released soon. Please join if you like: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29074.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29074.0)


This is more or less a question of when, not if  ;D Vinced already released a test version for merged mining and we have a test pool up and running on testnet. If you are interested, please check: http://dot-bit.org/MergedMining (http://dot-bit.org/MergedMining)

I think namecoin is going to disappear or become irrelevant. Bitcoin is ALMOST too techie for mainstream adoption so namecoin is definitely going nowhere.

Then that would imply that bitcoin is also going to go nowhere given that once merged mining takes hold they will "fail".

1. Sell your bitcoins.
2. Close your bitcoin.forum.com account.
3. Go work for funny monopoly money at a 9-5 job.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Here's some links for anybody who really is interested in finding out about namecoin and not just spouting random misinformation on forums:

Main project page
https://dot-bit.org/Main_Page

Main forum page
http://dot-bit.org/forum/index.php

Main exchange page
https://exchange.bitparking.com/main

pretty chart
http://www.nmcwatch.com/

more pretty charts
http://tvori.info/bitcoin/charts/

Your logic needs work. One could fail without the other failing. Merged mining does not change this logical relationship.

Looks like your logic needs work in that you can't see the future of the bitcoin network based purely on logic or anything for that matter.

You are just speculating.

Time will tell.

I don't need time to tell me that you are speculating.

If you don't think namecoins will work then dont buy any. But keep in mind that competition is what gives thriving technologies their edge. This would explain why the fiat money system is so centralized and corrupt, there is no competition.

With namecoin being alternative to bitcoin and having a unique purpose in addition to all the functions that bitcoin does I'd say namecoin has a good chance to being at least as successful as bitcoin.

But I too am just speculating.

The Internet was "too techie" as well once upon a time. Both currencies are currently only for techies not because of some design flaw, but because they are just not mature enough. User-friendliness can definitely be built on top until they become idiot-proof.

But the average user need not participate in the Namecoin economy to benefit from Namecoin.  The typical use of Namecoin would simply be hostname-to-IP lookup to resolve .bit domain names.  This could be accomplished by simply changing the user's DNS server to a Namecoin-to-DNS bridge.

Web site gets 80% of internet traffic from web searchers (google.com, yandex.ru) Are you really think that google will change his DNS server in order to see .bit domains? So there are not .bit domains in google, nobody can find such domains. Useless.
Nobody will change web browser settings

They will if they need to access a censored site.

What is Namecoin ? What are anonymous .BIT Domains ?

Namecoin on Youtube by Michael Jonsson.

https://i.imgur.com/VBpmPta.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OFv4fHsZQ0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OFv4fHsZQ0)

Support and Donate this great production:
Namecoin: N5idbhfNN5QfMAviS4iSPcGcM4Pi6o2YAf
Bitcoin: 1Ak4cwYsMxJ5mFJM2F3JQ9N5XiUMzk8oeS

Merge mining ftw :)