Namecoin prices plummeting - opinions?

[bitebitebite]

 Hi guys,

 Iv been watching this exchange https://exchange.bitparking.com/main for some days and prices have more or less only been going down. Bought around 70 a few days ago at 0.06~, and own an additional 100 through solo mining (before the difficulty rise). Was thinking about trading in for bitcoins and sell via mt Gox if namecoins are a dead market in the short term (as it dosnt look like I can transfer any money into mt Gox in time for the reopening). Whats your opinions on pricing - will they go back up, or is it a slippery slope and time to cash out and play with bitcoins?

 Are there any other namecoin exchanges, or GBP bitcoin exchanges with faster payment options

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[michaelmclees]

The problem with namecoins, in my opinion is that people just don't understand them.  Are they meant as a currency?  Are they meant as a reserve or token of web addresses?  Whenever someone explains it, they go into DNS servers and stuff like that.  Regular folks understand coins, transaction fees, confirmations, etc...  Only webgeeks understand DNS; I know I don't.

[Jack of Diamonds]

The problem with namecoins, in my opinion is that people just don't understand them.  Are they meant as a currency?  Are they meant as a reserve or token of web addresses?  Whenever someone explains it, they go into DNS servers and stuff like that.  Regular folks understand coins, transaction fees, confirmations, etc...  Only webgeeks understand DNS; I know I don't.

This is exactly why namecoin will remain forever just a 'project' like a small Linux distribution, and Bitcoin will probably reach great adaption like Ubuntu.

The masses have to understand what you are proposing to them. The moment you start talking about DNS seizures and ICANN, you alienate 99% of the population.

If you explain you can create an anonymous wallet in 20 seconds & recieve money into it, that's a much easier concept to sell.

[bitebitebite]

 Iv just sold them all off at current market value (~1/3 of the value when I mined them). In ~1&1/2 weeks of various forms of mining BTC and NC with a 6990 I have ~4BTC.

 Would be interested in trading BTC if any GBP exchanges pop up with fast bank transfers (if anyone finds this in the coming weeks please post), as mining seems like a waste of time for anyone without a large number of already paid off fully loaded rigs imo (made more than 4BTC's value in my morning coffee break during the 1&1/2 weeks lol)

[gdrop]

Namecoin serves a niche that doesn't appeal as widely as Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a currency/commodity that you can directly exchange for goods or cash. Namecoin at its heart is based on making a decentralized DNS.

It's not surprising that a BTC/NMC exchange popped up relatively early, though.

What you'll notice is that the exchange rate depends on the difficulty ratio between BTC/NMC. the NMC -> BTC rate SHOULD be around the difficulty ratio for NMC vs. BTC.

People expect that you'd get similar profits from mining NMC vs. BTC, but the fact is that people can currently use BTC for much more, while NMC only really has 1 role, so you see most of the trades going for the majority of miners going from NMC -> BTC.

Also, BTC difficulty is skyrocketing, while NMC difficulty is actually falling.

This means, that if you're mining NMC to convert to BTC to sell, sell it now. The difficulty ratio will plummet and so will the exchange rate.

I forgot the site that shows this, but the difficulty ratio is going to go for a massive drop really quickly. Soon your NMC will be trading at 0.010 BTC each.

Should've sold mine when the difficulty ratio / exchange rate was ~0.063.

Also, look at the instantaneous difficulty. That can hint at where the exchange rate is going.

[bitebitebite]

 Yea, wish I had sold ASAP. Was getting one namecoin block of 50 per day when I started... (which I roughly worked out was 3x BTC mining profit at the time in relation to the exchange rate/my daily pooled BTC mining rate). Did expect the exchange rate to hold up, and it was my first experience of difficulty increase. Thankyou for the info relating to why it has not 

[imperi]

Yea, wish I had sold ASAP. Was getting one namecoin block of 50 per day when I started... (which I roughly worked out was 3x BTC mining profit at the time in relation to the exchange rate/my daily pooled BTC mining rate). Did expect the exchange rate to hold up, and it was my first experience of difficulty increase. Thankyou for the info relating to why it has not 

It could be cyclical. I think there's a pretty high chance that Namecoins will increase in value alongside Bitcoin increasing with value (compared to dollar).

[maxll]

Yea, wish I had sold ASAP. Was getting one namecoin block of 50 per day when I started... (which I roughly worked out was 3x BTC mining profit at the time in relation to the exchange rate/my daily pooled BTC mining rate). Did expect the exchange rate to hold up, and it was my first experience of difficulty increase. Thankyou for the info relating to why it has not 

It could be cyclical. I think there's a pretty high chance that Namecoins will increase in value alongside Bitcoin increasing with value (compared to dollar).

When?

[JohnDoe]

This is exactly why namecoin will remain forever just a 'project' like a small Linux distribution, and Bitcoin will probably reach great adaption like Ubuntu.

The masses have to understand what you are proposing to them. The moment you start talking about DNS seizures and ICANN, you alienate 99% of the population.

If you explain you can create an anonymous wallet in 20 seconds & recieve money into it, that's a much easier concept to sell.

There's no need for people to understand about the DNS part of Namecoin. You could just tell them that it is a currency just like Bitcoin except that it has at least one additional use.

[zpinto]

Actually, from my perspective, i think namecoins arent going to stay at 0.010 btc, why? Because next btc difficulty will make a lot of people jump on to namecoin mining, because it will be more profitable to mine NMC and exchange for BTC than it will be to mine BTC. Its going to be a cycle, where people jump from namecoin to bitcoin mining and vice versa depending on profits.
Currently, whats missing in namecoin is an easy-step program with a simple interface for those who want to mine solo. Theres also an aspect where namecoin lacks of, which is POOLS! We need more people to step forward and create new pools, because, if im not mistaken, theres only one pool for namecoins.

[grod]

It would also be nice if exchanges pick up namecoins as well as BTC.  Hear that, TradeHill?  Add namecoins to the list of currencies you deal with, should be pretty easy using your BTC code.

[Bazil]

It would also be nice if exchanges pick up namecoins as well as BTC.  Hear that, TradeHill?  Add namecoins to the list of currencies you deal with, should be pretty easy using your BTC code.

I'd love it if mtgox and tradehill both did NC and BTC trading together.  I'd play the markets off each other.  It's so much easier to move BTC or NC from exchange to exchange than USD.  It takes days to move a dollar, a BTC or NC can be moved in seconds.

[imperi]

Yea, wish I had sold ASAP. Was getting one namecoin block of 50 per day when I started... (which I roughly worked out was 3x BTC mining profit at the time in relation to the exchange rate/my daily pooled BTC mining rate). Did expect the exchange rate to hold up, and it was my first experience of difficulty increase. Thankyou for the info relating to why it has not 

It could be cyclical. I think there's a pretty high chance that Namecoins will increase in value alongside Bitcoin increasing with value (compared to dollar).

When?

Just as a long term trend I meant.

[MikesMechanix]

Namecoin will skyrocket if one or more of these happen:
- someone (maybe bitcoin/namecoin collective) buys the .bit tld so it works universally
- an easy way to enable .bit support for the major OSs is created (some sort of installer, probably)
- some high-traffic porn/torrent site start to use a .bit domain

[marcus_of_augustus]

My opinion?

buy with both fists NMC will never be cheaper (well maybe a little) .... they began at around 0.001 btc or less so are up 3000% ... a correction was warranted to gather the thoughts.

They have all the potential of BTC, 'people don't understand them', so what? ... which average joe actually understands money? how else has fed. res. been able to screw yous over for soooo long?

People who matter understand them. Buy and hold is my free advice. DYODD.

[Bazil]

Namecoin will skyrocket if one or more of these happen:
- someone (maybe bitcoin/namecoin collective) buys the .bit tld so it works universally
- an easy way to enable .bit support for the major OSs is created (some sort of installer, probably)
- some high-traffic porn/torrent site start to use a .bit domain

why buy .bit?  Why not just make the namecoin client create a NMC protocol on every computer it's installed on?  So all namecoin addresses would be as follows: nmc://address  Seems like the best way to do it to me.  Although I haven't looked into name coin at all so I have no clue how it works atm.

[Fakeman]

In addition to the reasons mentioned above I think it's an extension of the Mt. Gox panic. People intending to exchange NMC for cash are at the mercy of two different exchange rates/markets, and some people will naturally panic when a 'perfect storm' turns both of those rates against them.

I'm hanging on to what I had and bought a bit more at 0.02XX. It's not like I'm working with 'money' I can't afford to lose, so why not? If it keeps slipping I won't sink any more BTC into it, but if it returns to previous levels I'll come out much better than if I hadn't bought anything on the dip.

[grod]

Problem is, at the current hash rate (still dropping) on the netcoin network it'll take at least a month until a difficulty adjustment down.  During those times BTC difficulty (and $ cost?) will probably continue going up, so your .02/nmc could look like buying at the top in a week or three.

In other words, NMC is currently INflating due to an anticipated fall in difficulty and BTC is DEflating.  Double whammy against NMC.

And that's what people figured out a few days ago and started the dump at .05 down to .02 right now, and still falling.

[Fakeman]

Ultimately I guess the question is whether the project has staying power. If so then at some later time it may be handy to have lots of namecoins stashed away. Or, one or both currencies could well become completely worthless. In the long term I don't think you can really predict what the exchange rate may settle at, it's ultimately a function of popularity. If both projects stick around then eventually there will basically be the same number of coins of each, and mining costs may have almost no bearing on prices at all.

[Aristotle]

I don't really understand Namecoin, and don't really see any value in it.  I believe the prices spiked due to initial speculation.  The Bitcoin architecture doesn't seem like a good fit for DNS.  Plus, even if authorities can't remove Namecoin DNSs, they can still shutdown the servers.  There are already anonymous, distributed DNS-like systems out there within the Tor and I2p networks, and they protect the servers as well.