Bitcoin Address Name Servers?

[Elwar]

I am sure someone else has thought of this. But using long ass BTC addresses is akin to everyone still using IP addresses to access web pages. I doubt most people go to specific IP addresses when trying to access a web page. So why would we want people to type in a long string of random characters to send Bitcoins?

Could we not figure out a way to create something similar to a Domain Name Server (DNS)? Call it a Bitcoin Address Name Server (BANS).

That way I could just tell someone, "send the BTC to ElwarFromUS" or some such name. Companies could say "send it to BitMint-Listing-Fee".

Something similar to namecoin could be used to track all registered address names and it would just be a matter of finding a term that has not yet been used. Perhaps pay a fee to the miners per name.

[1715453675]

1715453675

[drakahn]

namecoin is working on this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84653.0

[kangasbros]

Maybe you can use the namecoin names to shorten bitcoin addresses? LOL

Otherwise I think that firstbits protocol is probably best for this kind of use.

Also, bitcoin aliases as described by Electrum creator could be cool: http://ecdsa.org/bitcoin_URIs.html

For example, you could direct funds to jeremias@kangasbros.fi, and it would fetch bitcoin address with GET request to https://kangasbros.fi/bitcoin.id/jeremias

[rjk]

It is difficult to properly implement cryptographically secure names in such a manner, but Namecoin could provide a good vehicle for it.

[Stephen Gornick]

That way I could just tell someone, "send the BTC to ElwarFromUS" or some such name. Companies could say "send it to BitMint-Listing-Fee".

That works for things like donations where you don't need to know who sent the money, but that's a complete fail for the example you gave: "BitMint-Listing-Fee".

I suppose you could set up an alias to have a receiving address per-customer, so at least you'ld know who the payment was from, if you wish.

[FreeMoney]

That way I could just tell someone, "send the BTC to ElwarFromUS" or some such name. Companies could say "send it to BitMint-Listing-Fee".

That works for things like donations where you don't need to know who sent the money, but that's a complete fail for the example you gave: "BitMint-Listing-Fee".

I suppose you could set up an alias to have a receiving address per-customer, so at least you'ld know who the payment was from, if you wish.

Yeah, I don't think name servers fit for that reason at least. Though you could have however many addresses you expect to ever have outstanding bills waiting on and reuse them. Maybe you could also register a bunch under one alias like bitMint.112, bitMint.113, etc

[Tuxavant]

Maybe you can use the namecoin names to shorten bitcoin addresses? LOL

Otherwise I think that firstbits protocol is probably best for this kind of use.

Also, bitcoin aliases as described by Electrum creator could be cool: http://ecdsa.org/bitcoin_URIs.html

For example, you could direct funds to jeremias@kangasbros.fi, and it would fetch bitcoin address with GET request to https://kangasbros.fi/bitcoin.id/jeremias

That is so BAMF... Just set up an alias on all my domains to do exactly the same thing. Now I'm thinking of a little php script to rotate through a bunch of addresses per identity for a little anonymity. Very awesome.

[Tuxavant]

The users would not use this necessarily it's a programatic way for a client to retrieve a bitcoin address that is aliased by a more human readable email style address.

Users can protect their privacy by a system that dynamically rotates receive addresses.