How does ICANN's new gTLD policy affect Namecoin?

[Bizmark13]

Recently, ICANN has been accepting applications for new gTLDs. It used to be that there were only a few gTLDs such as .com, .net, .org, etc. Then a few more were created including .info and .biz until recently when the policy was changed so that pretty much anyone can register their own gTLD for a $185,000 fee. Hence the reason why there is now an explosion of new generic domain name extensions including .ninja (such as the former dice.ninja), .guru, and .club.

Now I know that Namecoin uses the .bit domain extension. Doesn't ICANN's new policy mean that anyone with $185,000 could register the "official" .bit gTLD and force Namecoin out of existence? ICANN is currently the most widely used DNS root and Namecoin is an alternative DNS root which is hardly used by anybody. Even worse, it seems that usage of Namecoin as a currency is declining as well. Browsers such as Firefox and Chrome always use ICANN's domain name system by default so the existence of official .bit domains would probably wipe out any chance of Namecoin's DNS system ever becoming mainstream.

Google filed applications for over 100 new gTLDs. Amazon has already registered the .book gTLD. There seems to be no reason why .bit cannot be registered as well. It seems unlikely that the Namecoin community will attempt to register it since the philosophy and core beliefs behind ICANN and Namecoin are completely at odds with each other to the point where they can't really co-exist in any meaningful manner. For example, ICANN demands WHOIS information from registrants whereas Namecoin's .bit domains are completely anonymous. ICANN also demands registration and processing fees that cost well over a dollar whereas Namecoin's .bit domains only cost pennies.

If the .bit gTLD were to be registered, how would this affect Namecoin's prospects and what would be the appropriate course of action for the NMC community to take?

[toldy]

Instead of .TLD, they could just create *TLD, like *BIT as long as you have the right browser plugins to understand that type of URL.

[ArticMine]

There are two scenarios:

1) An ICANN .bit registration that ignores Namecoin. This would actually have little impact on Namecoin's .bit functionality, but would create an ICANN TLD that does not resolve in 100% of all computers. In the fierce competition among ICANN domain registries this could prove a significant disadvantage. After all why would I register the ICANN .bit when there are hundreds of ICANN extensions that do not have this issue?
The biggest looser here could actually be the ICANN .bit registry.

2) An ICANN .bit registration that requires as a condition of the the ICANN .bit registration control of the Namecoin .bit registration. One can have as a provision of the ICANN registration that if the ICANN domain is seized legally without a legal seizure of the Namecoin registration then the ICANN .bit is simply disabled. This could be very interesting. We must keep in mind that no consent on the Namecoin network / community is needed to do this.

Edit: There is no need for *bit etc. Just have the Namecoin software override the ICANN root for .bit