I love Namecoin

[bitcoinrocks]

I'm pretty excited about Namecoin.  So, it works just like BTC except with the decentralized .bit/DNS thing?  I've read some conflicting info but I think the recent flaws have been or are being fixed.  If NMC and BTC were both released today, why would anyone choose BTC?

[viboracecata]

I hate namecoin because I have none, I love bitcoin because I have some, no other excuses.

[JoelKatz]

If NMC and BTC were both released today, why would anyone choose BTC?

Mostly because it's extremely illogical to price goods in terms of domain registrations. The more practical applications something has natively, the less useful it is as a currency. NMC's name registration costs are fixed by the protocol.

[illpoet]

gold silver and platinum all have many many practical uses. 

[bitcoinrocks]

The more practical applications something has natively, the less useful it is as a currency.

Why is that?

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

The more practical applications something has natively, the less useful it is as a currency.

Why is that?

Ideally you want the price of money to be stable and accurately give signals about monetary supply and demand over long time periods, and not be influenced by random trends and whims in tastes or technology.  For example, platinum has much more industrial demand than gold, specifically in the car industry as a catalytic converter.  It is undesirable for a unit of account or a store of value (two key monetary properties) to have price fluctuations based on the performance of a narrow sector such as car demand, or fall 50% overnight because some guy in a lab discovered a better catalytic metal.

[snailbrain]

If NMC and BTC were both released today, why would anyone choose BTC?

Mostly because it's extremely illogical to price goods in terms of domain registrations. The more practical applications something has natively, the less useful it is as a currency. NMC's name registration costs are fixed by the protocol.

Namecoin's "plan" was for the price per name to dwindle to almost zero (or zero) when storage space/bandwidth or w/e is negligible ?

It's fixed now at 0.01, but it is not permanent..

[JoelKatz]

The more practical applications something has natively, the less useful it is as a currency.

Why is that?

Two main reasons. The first is that increased demand for the currency makes the practical applications more expensive. The second is that decreased demand for the practical applications reduces the value of the currency. Or, to put it more generally, a change in the demand on one side (practical applications or means of exchange) affects the price on the other side.

These aren't necessarily a big deal and certainly aren't fatal flaws. Gold has this flaw and it was still quite successful as a currency historically. But there's no reason a crypto-currency has to have this flaw, so one would expect crypto-currencies that don't to be superior unless the tying of the currency to the practical application provides advantages that outweigh these disadvantages.

To be clear, I am *not* saying that Namecoin is broken because of this tying. I'm just saying that it's a technical difference between Namecoin and Bitcoin that could cause some rational people to prefer Bitcoin over Namecoin, even if they were both brand new and introduced today.

[bitcoinrocks]

Really informative guys, thanks a lot.