Hello,
I have an idea for a utility coin.
A utility coin is a coin whose function is to provide a useful de-centralized distributed feature rather than to act as a monetary currency. Such coins are probably a poor investment if you are looking to make a profit, since their value should be tied to the utility provided and what demand there is for it.
Namecoin is an example of a utility coin.
Namecoin actually is what I would choose to fork to make my idea happen, as the utility I want to provide is similar but different.
What I want to provide is namespaced key=>value on a blockchain (much like namecoin does) but where you can purchase exclusive use of a namespace. With namecoin, you can't buy exclusive use of a namespace.
Some potential uses:
* OpenNIC is a centralized alternative to ICANN. Even though they are centralized, they could register namespaces within this coin and manage domains the same way namecoin manages the .bit TLD - except since they own the namespace, only they can create key=>value pairs within the namespaces they manage.
The benefit to OpenNIC would be that those wanting to run a DNS server including their domains could do so using the blockchain as a source. This de-centralized distribution of their domains would eliminate single points of failure.
* GPG Keyring - a company could run its own GPG keyring so that it is easy for their partners to get public keys for people within the company they need to contact, either via encrypted messages or to check a signature.
If I know acme corporation owns the namespace acme/ and I need to check the GPG signature on an e-mail sent to me by
john@acme.tld then I can look up acme/john to get his GPG public key.
* Age Verification
One of the things slowing down acceptance of crypto-currencies in the adult content industry is a lack of age verification.
A company could set up an age verification service where they give a user a username and then when they have verified the users age - make an entry in their database containing an sha256 has of the username + e-mail address.
So when John Wanker wants to buy webcam time using bitcoin or whatever, her signs up at the webcam site and provides his username with the age verification service and the e-mail address used for age verification. The webcam site can check to see if the sha256 sume of the username + e-mail address matches the checksum associated with the username in the blockchain and if it does, send a confirmation e-mail to that address he has to reply to in order to verify his age.
* Altcoin Trade Trust
A namespace could be set up where users of bitcointalk can register that includes their bitcointalk username and a GPG key. From that, strangers doing business can use GPG to make sure they are talking to the actual person and not a hacked account, and then look at their ratings on bitcointalk to see if it is a trustworthy person to trade with or to use as an escrow agent for a trade.
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There are lots of uses for this kind of a service where a namespace is restricted to the buyer of the namespace.
When a user _has_ purchased a namespace, there would be special key=>value pairs.
* First would be an optional api key that points to a web page describing how they use the json values in the key=>value pairs. This is for third party developers who want to use the data in the namespace.
For example, an age verification service may want to specify the age verification method (e.g. credit card, in person ID verification, etc.) so that websites that have certain policies about how an age was verified can still confirm an age and know how it was verified. Having an API to look at will tell them exactly what all the data means.
* Second would be an optional authorized key=>value pair with a specific format, containing the public address of people authorized to make changes to the namespace and what kind of changes. That would allow they private key used to create a namespace to be put into cold storage.
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My idea is that buying a namespace would be rather expensive compared to making entries in the namespace, say 20 coins. Adding an entry would be say 0.01 coins.
Block time would be about every 15 minutes, since it isn't intended to be used as a currency fast confirms are not needed and this would reduce number of blocks where only transaction is the block reward.
Initial two weeks, mining reward would be 3 coins.
Following initial week, mining reward jumps to 48 coins to be halved about every year until it drops back down to 3 coins. Never drops below 3 coins. Finding 7 blocks is thus enough to buy a namespace when reward is at minimum, and have a coin leftover to make some entries.
What would be kind of cool is if coins used to purchase namespaces and entries in a namespace rather than being destroyed were split up between the last 5 addresses that received a block reward.
For block hashes I would want to use the Quark 6+ model because I want coins to mostly be mined by people, not professional miners.
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No qt GUI - this isn't intended as a currency to spend, and is targeted as a data store for those providing a service, not the individual. So maintaining a GUI codebase is not necessary. Let third parties provide that if necessary. I just want the daemon.
Thoughts?
