Bitcoin Forum

I was thinking, some minutes ago...

• Bitcoins don't have intrinsic value
• Namecoin do have an intrinsic value (they can be "bartered" with the "system" for a new domain/for renewing the domain)

Both can be traded between persons. Clearly the value of a domain isn't "fixed" but...

Namecoins have only a value if people are using namecoin resolvers. If not, they're worthless. Similar applies to Bitcoin: if nobody accepts or buys Bitcoin, they're worthless too.

Nothing has intrinsic value. What you wanted to say is that namecoins has another use apart from bieng money while bitcoins can only be used as money.

The problem with Namecoin is that if it does become money its value will skyrockedt and it wont be used for domains, therefore rendering its porpouse useless. It could also cause a panic when people realize its original poropouse is lost.

The market would adjust to that.  If Namecoins become more expensive, registration costs (denominated in Namecoin) decrease, and vice versa. Yes, at the moment there are network fees but they are just for bootstrapping and will disappear eventually.

Thus, there is no reason Namecoin can't be used for both purposes at the same time.

Bitcoins can be used as payment for processing Bitcoin transactions. As was said, that's just as legit as namecoins paying to get a name in the chain. Neither has value if no one values them. Either can have value if people do.

Why are people pushing this cryptic DNS so hard? wilileaks still has their .org site and I heard in these forums you guys went with .org and not .com because it's more immune to seizure. Why is .bit anybetter? Could the hammer of god easily go after a .org?

Domains are petty things. It's not like they totally make or break web content.

But I though that registration costs are fixed in Namecoin, since you need to spend a fixed amount of Namecoins to keep your .bit domain. I only checked Namecoin superficially so correct me if wrong. But if I am right, this would mean that the price of registering a domain would become prohibitive if Namecoin starts being used as money.

How cool would that be if instead of registering a dns for a year you could focus all that hashing power on something else, like cracking all the wireless around your area in 1 second.

That is easily exploitable.

Air, food, and water all have intrinsic value, at least to humans.

Oh yes?  And what would that be?

I don't agree with Namecoin.  People shouldn't have to pay or mine for domains. There should be a huge number of TLD, from .a to .zzzzzzz for example, and anyone should be able to register domains for free. Of course it would be better if DNS was decentralized and P2P.

I'm really not aware about how this Namecoin works, I should read more.

Can somebody just quickly explain me why its creators chose to make a separate chain which has to have its own miners? Why not reuse the work done in bitcoin mining? That could be done by only allowing a block to be created in Namecoin if it contains a signature done with the private key of the bitcoin block generation.

I dont want to discuss this here, but do you realize that having value to humans means that they have subjective value and not objective value?


The problem with this is that if they are free people would register all the domains they could to try to resell them or benefit in other ways. Having a cost for a domain means that people will prioritize and would tend to choose only the domains they needed (or at least the "hoarding" of domains would be more difficult).

I am still thinking about it, but maybe the best way for namecoin, if they want to be a DNS service and not money, would be to increase the difficulty of the network as more domains are registered. That would mean that as more people register more domains more computer power is added, so everyone with a domain would add their part (or pay someone to do it for them).

Do you see people hoarding .I2P domains? Or people hoarding IRC channels? But if you are worried about hoarding you could set domains on more beautiful TLDs to expire after a year or two.

Well now you are getting into the definition of the word value.  Inanimate objects can't value anything, therefore value only arises in the minds of conscious creatures.  And all conscious creatures have an evolutionarily built-in drive to survive, so things like air, food, and water come as close to being objectively valuable as anything can possibly be.

There will be a huge number of domains eventually, and if you register "unclaimed real estate" you are not really paying for the domain, you are only paying for storage in the block chain.

The purpose of the network fees is just to slow down the initial gold rush, not to artificially limit the number of domains.

What about highly sought-after domains, such as sex.bit? You are saying that you don't want a market where these domains are traded, because people shouldn't pay for them?  Then how do you propose to go about the allocation of sex.bit? by lottery? by decree from satoshi?  

The Domain Name System has to be hosted. In your proposal there's a lot of Top Level Domains to be hosted (where now there's relatively few). Who do you suggest is going to pay for that hosting?

For some reason there are people paying a lot for these coins. I dumped my initial 1000 NC on the exchange for 70 BTC yesterday. I make more than twice the amount of BTC mining for namecoins and selling rather than mining bitcoins directly. I really like the Namecoin concept, but I don't understand its economics.

Water has intrinsic value..food does...air...

Sure you can trade them, just like IRC channels, you could trade them for bitcoins, but when sex.xxx, sex.com, sex.net, sex.sex, sex.xes, sex.sexy, etc, are available there won't be much of a fight for them.

Volunteers, just like free shells, IRC servers, Bittorrent, Bitcoin nodes, etc.  They can collect bitcoin donations for their contribution.

With the current cost of name_firstupdate and NMC/BTC/USD rates, a .bit domain costs twice as much a .com domain. Keep pushing those prices, only the sky is the limit! :D

There's going to be a cost somewhere, and mining for domains can be quite a bit cheaper than just buying them. Plus mining contributes to the network, so the people who are using Namecoin the most are the same people who are supporting it.

Mining is the cost you pay for a p2p, decentralized DNS.