A Bitcoin Address "DNS"

[Bruce Wagner]

A Bitcoin Address "DNS"


A friend who's brand new to Bitcoin handed me a tiny piece of paper yesterday.  He said, "Here's my Bitcoin address."  It contained his Bitcoin address in about 6 point type, printed on paper. 

I smiled and handed it back to him.  Obviously, he hadn't TIT, as I always say (Think It Through.... or Thought It Through).

A Better Idea for BitcoinAddress.com

I thought of this idea just now...

Adding a shorthand nickname to the BitcoinAddress.com directory.... and it be sorted by that.

So, if I go by "plankhead" all over the internet, I can be listed as plankhead on BitcoinAddress.com

This way, people could potentially prA int on their business card...

Email:  zack@plankhead.com
Telephone:  646-555-4321
Bitcoin:  plankhead

By default, I would give people (1) their top level domain - like eff or epicchange - or (2) their bitcoin forum handle - brucewagner

Not sure how I'll handle other requests.  Perhaps a registration fee that goes entirely to the Bitcoin Foundation, to be used for Bitcoin promotion, advertising, and evangelizing.

[1714001150]

1714001150

[1714001150]

1714001150

[1714001150]

1714001150

[1714001150]

1714001150

[1714001150]

1714001150

[no to the gold cult]

I prefer

btc://sumchancer.com/youraccount

send me money.

oh wait...

[ribuck]

This way, people could potentially prA int on their business card...

Email:  zack@plankhead.com
Telephone:  646-555-4321
Bitcoin:  plankhead

Wouldn't it work better to link the bitcoin address to their email address rather than needing to use a nickname?

[kseistrup]

So, if I go by "plankhead" all over the internet, I can be listed as plankhead on BitcoinAddress.com

You could even use real DNS with NAPTR records with e.g. the nickname or the email address as the ‘key’.  Let's say we have nickname plankhead and the email address plankhead@example.com:

Code:

$ dig naptr plankhead.bitcoinaddress.com +short
10 100 "u" "E2U+bitcoin" "!^(.*)$!bitcoin://1tmOThuWMaTJfpA1YAFo1wEf3f6F11N1g7!" .
10 100 "u" "E2U+email" "!^.*$!mailto:plankhead@example.com!" .
$ dig naptr plankhead.example.com.bitcoinaddress.com +short
10 100 "u" "E2U+bitcoin" "!^(.*)$!bitcoin://1tmOThuWMaTJfpA1YAFo1wEf3f6F11N1g7!" .
10 100 "u" "E2U+email" "!^.*$!mailto:plankhead@example.com!" .
$ 

This is similar to how you look up E164 ENUMs for use with VoIP, and you could store all sorts of information in separate NAPTR records for each entry.

Cheers,

[FatherMcGruder]

More easily, you could always put your address on your profile page at your social network of choice.

[kseistrup]

More easily, you could always put your address on your profile page at your social network of choice.

That's easy for the individual user (e.g., plankhead), but where do I find plankhead's address?

Cheers,

[Quip]

This is a very good idea.

[FatherMcGruder]

That's easy for the individual user (e.g., plankhead), but where do I find plankhead's address?

Cheers,

You ask him.

[jgarzik]

This is not a new idea.

One could put a bitcoin address inside a TXT record, for example.

[kseistrup]

This is not a new idea.

Sure not.

One could put a bitcoin address inside a TXT record, for example.

That's correct, but NAPTRs are built to map all sorts of address information.

Cheers,

[BitterTea]

Do you really want the government secretly ordering your Bitcoin address DNS record to be changed to an address they control?

Maybe this would be a good idea once we have a distributed DNS system.