What happened to Namecoin?

[Abiky]

Namecoin was one of the oldest cryptocurrencies on the market with an innovative approach to domain names. Being the first project to introduce the concept of a decentralized domain name registrar, it became an extremely popular cryptocurrency within its early days. However, it seems that the project may be coming to an end as people are focused on other big players on the market. The Ethereum blockchain is highly programmable, allowing anyone to design anything limited to their own imagination. We now have decentralized domain name registrars like ENS and Unstoppable Domains built into the Ethereum blockchain. With this, there may be no reason for Namecoin to exist. Yet, it's good to have a separate blockchain with its own use cases for the mainstream world in order to provide people with an alternative in case existing solutions go down the drain. Whenever NMC will survive or not, lies in the hands of the community itself.

To my surprise, Namecoin (NMC) is listed as an IOST token on CoinMarketCap. As far as I know, there isn't any official announcement from the project's team that would indicate the switch to another blockchain network. If Namecoin did migrate to an existing blockchain, I doubt people will find it interesting. Last time I've checked, I couldn't access the official site through namecoin.org. Maybe developers decided to move on to other things.

Thoughts?

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[Baofeng]

I can still access the site: https://www.namecoin.org/

Namecoin Core Name Renew GUI

Namecoin Core Name Renew GUI

Dec 5, 2020 • Jeremy Rand

Now that Namecoin Core’s name_list GUI is merged to master branch (it’ll be in the v22.0 release!), it’s time to move on to renewing names. As with the name_list GUI, I’m trying to follow the principles of (1) keeping PR’s small, and (2) keeping all the interesting logic in the RPC method rather than the GUI.

In service of principle 1, I’m not touching the “Configure Name” GUI, nor am I touching the “Renew Name” button; this only adds the right-click context menu for renewing names. In service of principle 2, yanmaani has done the excellent work of adding a renew mode to the name_update RPC method, which simplifies the GUI logic considerably.

https://www.namecoin.org/2020/12/05/namecoin-core-name-renew-gui.html

So they are still much very active this 2020, https://www.namecoin.org/news/, lots of things going on behind.

Historically, it started as a discussion about BitDNS->Namecoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0

[Abiky]

I can still access the site: https://www.namecoin.org/

Namecoin Core Name Renew GUI

Namecoin Core Name Renew GUI

Dec 5, 2020 • Jeremy Rand

Now that Namecoin Core’s name_list GUI is merged to master branch (it’ll be in the v22.0 release!), it’s time to move on to renewing names. As with the name_list GUI, I’m trying to follow the principles of (1) keeping PR’s small, and (2) keeping all the interesting logic in the RPC method rather than the GUI.

In service of principle 1, I’m not touching the “Configure Name” GUI, nor am I touching the “Renew Name” button; this only adds the right-click context menu for renewing names. In service of principle 2, yanmaani has done the excellent work of adding a renew mode to the name_update RPC method, which simplifies the GUI logic considerably.

https://www.namecoin.org/2020/12/05/namecoin-core-name-renew-gui.html

So they are still much very active this 2020, https://www.namecoin.org/news/, lots of things going on behind.

Historically, it started as a discussion about BitDNS->Namecoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0

That's weird. I've had a lot of trouble accessing the site a couple of days ago, only to find out that now it's back online. It seems to me that the official site is the only place where the team is posting the project's latest updates/announcements. If they want NMC to reach greater adoption in the mainstream world, they're going to need to spread the word out there across social media sites.

What I've noticed is that CoinMarketCap lists Namecoin (NMC) as an IOST token. But the official site doesn't indicate such change. The project may still be living on its own blockchain, although I'm not sure if the team has decided to migrate to an existent blockchain yet. Prices per NMC are dirt cheap these days considering the features it provides. I remember when NMC was worth well above $1 per coin on the market. Those where the good days when the crypto community was extremely vibrant, delivering real usability instead of hype. With ETH in play right now, I doubt NMC will be able to gain traction on the market once more. After all, it's possible to create decentralized domain names on the ETH blockchain via the use of ENS. NMC could lose interest from people in the mainstream world, as they focus on big players within the crypto market.

At least, I'm relieved to see some updates related to the project's development on the official site. It tells me that the project is still alive and supported by the community. We'll have to see what happens with the project in the future as new projects come into play. Hopefully, Namecoin will be able to survive alongside other old coins like Bitcoin and Litecoin for years to come. Just my opinion

[Baofeng]

I have to check the IOST platform connection though, yeah I know it's weird as to where CMC got that.

And yes, it has stood the test of time, and I'm sure if will continue to exists in crypto market and it is one of the prime movers as well, similar to bitcoin it's just it didn't got any traction. Another one worth to mention is Peercoin (PPC). 

[Abiky]

I have to check the IOST platform connection though, yeah I know it's weird as to where CMC got that.

And yes, it has stood the test of time, and I'm sure if will continue to exists in crypto market and it is one of the prime movers as well, similar to bitcoin it's just it didn't got any traction. Another one worth to mention is Peercoin (PPC). 

If I'm not mistaken, Namecoin was the first altcoin that came into existence. Back in the day, its PoW consensus algorithm and decentralized domain name system were truly innovative. Now that we have Ethereum with a highly-programmable blockchain architecture, there may be no use for separate blockchain networks with a decentralized domain name registrar. Maybe I'm wrong, and Namecoin manages to survive for a very long time. What ultimately matters is community support and real use cases for the mainstream world. I'm surprised to see such an old coin still alive, being actively traded on the ever-growing crypto market. Many people are unaware of Namecoin as they're focused on the next big thing in crypto. Ethereum and other smart contract platforms are getting all of the attention due to the "De-Fi" hype.

As far as CoinMarketCap is concerned, the misinformation surrounding Namecoin will certainly confuse investors, traders, and everyday people. The vast majority of people will believe Namecoin is an IOST token, when in fact, it's a separate coin with its own blockchain network. At least, the network is healthy with miners supporting it every step of the way. What Namecoin is missing is mainstream adoption. I've seen that the number of websites using the ".bit" domain are extremely limited. The team is going to need to ramp up the project's marketing/promotion efforts if they want to fulfill Namecoin's purpose of decentralizing the web. As long as there are use cases for the coin, it won't be going anywhere. Just my opinion

[LostConfidence243]

Exchangeable, Merchenable and smart exchagner coin sign are Namecoin. It could not be a collapsed incident with another coin, but NMC Block Chain exchanger might be migrated to another and it's not certain that which one is going on it because there have no declaration from his project owner.

[Ryushin]

Namecoin is a very old altcoin and yes it's running on IOST blockchain I guess, I'm just surprised that this coin is still alive till today, it's trading on Livecoin, Yobit, southXchange and it has 8million marketcap, I can't find any new updates on the project and that's a big shame, projects of today won't stay alive this long if there is no more new updates for them, this is why old crypto projects are more stronger and valuable, I hope this coin comes back good, I'd definitely support