13
Namecoins are used to register .bit domains:
http://dot-bit.org/HowToRegisterAndConfigureBitDomains
They're also bought and sold by speculators, but DNS registration is their original purpose.
13
Yes. The ASICs themselves only perform the SHA256 calculations, they do not deal with anything protocol related and as such can merged-mine exactly the same as existing GPU and FPGA implementations. In other words, merged mining is part of the protocol, ASICs just do the math.
The standard rules of merged mining still apply, of course. The alternate ...
12
The switch to merged mining is scheduled for Namecoin block 19200. At the time of this writing, the Namecoin network is on block 18805, so 395 more blocks need to be solved.
The last 29 blocks on the Namecoin block explorer were solved in an average of 108.79 minutes each. Extrapolating from this, 395 blocks should be solved in just under 30 days, so ...
10
Namecoin is a distribuited DNS system where information held about a web address (MX, A, etc) are held within the coin itself. Advantages of this are no other company holds the address, unique ownership will always be had due to the way the bitcoin works. (no man in the middle attacks, CA will no longer be needed)
Specific DNS servers are required to browse ...
9
The Namecoin block reward is to be halved every 4 years, similar to Bitcoins. The fee to register a domain in Namecoin is set to decrease by the factor of 2 every two months, and later by a factor of 4.
As the price of registering a domain go down way faster than the block reward, there won't be a shortage of opportunities for registering domains. On the ...
9
Yes, it's 50, as documented here:
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alternative-based-on-bitcoin.html
The reward for solving a block will halve every 210,000 blocks (around 4 yrs), like Bitcoins.
When namecoins are spent to register a domain name, they are destroyed. More details here:
https://github.com/vinced/namecoin/blob/master/FAQ....
9
This post by ArtForz on the forums explains the attack:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43692.msg521772#msg521772
Quote: "By exploiting the fact that retargeting ignores one block interval every period, it's possible for an attackers' fork chain to "jump backwards in time" and create lots of blocks at low difficulty without running nTime off into ...
9
The amount of NMC required in order to register a domain name is fixed by the protocol.
Having NMC and BTC be separate currencies ensures that the number of BTC needed to register a domain name is set by market pricing mechanisms, not by the hardwired protocol.
If we used NMC for buying and selling things other than BTC, it would be like denominating all ...
8
There are two basic fronts on which they can defend, and they really do have to do both.
First, they need to increase their total hashing power. 51% of a very large number is much harder for an attacker to muster than 51% of a small number. Merged mining is probably the most realistic way for these currencies to accomplish this.
Second, they need to fix ...
8
This site allows you to compare the mining profitability of the various coins:
http://dustcoin.com/mining
7
The -gen flag actually started a CPU miner process in older versions of the Bitcoin client, before CPU mining became obsolete.
What you're probably thinking was more like bitcoind -server or `bitcoind -server -RPCALLOWIP=192.168.1.* -RPCPORT=8333 which would start a listening Bitcoin server from which a proper miner could obtain getworks. Since namecoind is ...
7
When I first looked into this issue the low price for name operations struck me odd, too. But the rationale behind it is to allow to register as many names for as low a price possible. You need to realize namecoin is not only about domains and the dot-bit project is only the first large namecoin project. namecoin is a generic name/value accounting system.
...
7
Namecoin was the first fork from Bitcoin, and is a blockchain based peer-to-peer network which maintains a decentral ledger of registered names.
It is the convention, that when you register a Namecoin name starting with d/ that appropriate DNS resolution software would translate this information to a .bit address. E.g. d/myself would be resolved to myself....
6
The answer to the title question "Why is BitcoinEXress planning a 51% attack on Namecoin?" has been given in the linked post itself:
Goals
Developing protection for Bitcoin against exploits
Developing a lethal alt chain killer.
Making developers aware that when the "bad guys" make you aware of an exploit, FIX IT!
We know the 51% attack ...
6
I would recommend VirCurEx. You can use it as a wallet or trade between different currencies.
6
Namecoin addresses, like Bitcoin addresses, are Base58 encodings of a public key hash. The encoded data starts with a version byte, and the value of this byte affects the first characters of the result.
Namecoin addresses specifically use a version byte of 52, which dictates a certain range of initials. The prefixes you listed are simply too high - they ...
6
I have some idea of what Namecoin was trying to achieve, but as of yet I've never seen it actually used. Is it being used for anything of significance yet, or are there plans by anyone to do so in the short to medium term?
If a distributed, first-come-first-serve domain name system for the .bit top-level domain (TLD) is significant, then yes, it has done ...
6
Not really. According to the Bitcoin Wiki:
Namecoin is an alternative distributed Domain Name System (DNS) on the
basis of Bitcoin software.
In contrast to a currency, according to Wikipedia
A much more general use of the word currency is anything that is used
in any circumstances, as a medium of exchange. In this use, "currency"
is a synonym ...
5
NameCoin merged mining adds no more than 49 bytes to the size of the block. Namecoin messages aren't stored in the bitcoin block chain, instead the hash of the most recent namecoin block is stored in the Bitcoin block providing continuity between a potential hash and the Namecoin block chain.
So yes it technically does "bloat" the Bitcoin blockchain but ...
5
Multicoin can be used to trade Namecoin although the functions for registering names and such cannot be used.
There is a current bounty of 750NMC to produce a web UI for the client to run within a local machine. It can be found on the http://dot-bit.org wiki site.
5
No. Sovereign keys are simply a technical mechanism to use the DNSSEC trust anchors instead of companies like Verisign. Trust is still centralized; it's just centralized in a different place.
5
Since Namecoin started using merged mining with Bitcoin, its effective processing power increased substantially. The current difficulty is 1063443.
This is very high considering the resale value of namecoins (1 namecoin is worth 0.002 of a bitcoin) and given that the difficulty is 49% of the Bitcoin difficulty.
The Bitcoin network currently is around 16TH/...
5
The algorithm of registering .bit domain is described, for example, on dot-bit wiki.
In short:
Create new domain name with name_new command: ./namecoind name_new d/<name>
Wait 12 or more blocks
Actually register the domain with name_firstupdate, where <rand> is the second (shorter) hexadecimal string returned by name_new, and <json-value> ...
5
.bit domains are not recognized by ICANN, the company that runs the main internet DNS. This means that most operating systems have no support for them built-in.
So, to be able to visit .bit domains, you will have to do some configuration first. You basically need to let your computer know where to search for the IP address translation of the .bit domain, as ...
5
Well, the fact that it will be possible to implement features similar to Namecoin that it will become obsolete.
Bitcoin is intended as a currency and a payment system, while Namecoin is designed specifically as a DNS provider for .bit domain names.
The fact that Namecoin would be able to handle .com domain names, doesn't mean the currently employed ...
5
So the whole point of a name reg contract is not to send transactions, rather its sole purpose is to build up a database which other nodes can then query.
Ethereum smart contracts have immutable storage. This means that you can prove your primacy to a specific name, and other people can then reference that as part of a database.
What it comes down to is ...
4
Almost everyone seems to use the Bitparking Namecoin Exchange.
4
It seems you can issue your name_firstupdate transaction whenever you're ready (in particular, right after doing the name_new). It won't be included in a block until the name_new is mature (12 confirms) but should be picked up shortly after that happens.
I don't have any source for this other than recent experience, but my names are showing up when I do ...
4
Namecoins use the Nakamoto blockchain algorithm - and are very similar to Bitcoins. So much as Bitcoins are a currency, so are Namecoins.
The only major difference in concept is that Namecoins have a built in domain registry, and currently allow merged mining.
4
The Bitcoin network is currently the worlds fastest distributed computing network. It gains security through size.
The large pool issue is real however it can be overcome without flawed centrally controled digital currencies.
One example is p2pool. It is a pool where miners share rewards but each miner independently generates their own block header ...
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