NAMECOIN

GENERAL

Namecoin is a cryptocurrency that was forked from bitcoin and based on the same algorithm code as Bitcoin, it was developed in 2011 as a solution in mining and decentralized namespace. Namecoin's symbol is ℕ, this was finalized in a discussion by “ninjarobot” on Namecoin Forum in June 2013.

THE ORIGIN

Bitcoin was introduced into the cyber world as a decentralized economic system against centralized system, people accepted Bitcoin and started using this new currency on peer-to-peer method, making it gaining the title of “alternative currency” that was not controlled by anyone. However, the Internet was centralized, and controllers were able to alter the web.

Zooko's Triangle and BitDNS Talk

American cypherpunk and online security specialist Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn produced a trilemma theory that, there are three desirable traits - “Human-meaningful”, “Decentralised” and “Secure”, but no name can achieve all three. This theory is known as Zooko's triangle, and people started discussing finding a solution for this Triangle. In the month of Sept in the year 2010, a discussion in Bitcointalk about a hypothetical system called “BitDNS” to mine Bitcoin was the point which made a new way of mining, this was the crucial point which was used to think about decentralised namespace and in Dec 2010, a reward was announced for implementing BitDNS.

Wikileaks backlash and The DNS issue

On 28 November 2010 (Sunday), Iceland based news leak publisher Wikileaks.org leaked US diplomatic cables dating from Dec 1966 to Feb 2010 with the help of whistleblower Bradley Manning (later Chelsea Manning), this was widely known as Cablegate. After this incident, the United States' Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security tried to seize the domain and problem of Domain Name System (DNS) arise. Bitcoin gave way to a decentralised economy, however, to save the free speech, activists and researchers sought a decentralized namespace.

LAUNCH OF NEW CRYPTO

In the year 2011, Namecoin (NMC) was launched in the blockchain using that method on Block-19200 in a way that miner can mine BTC or NMC simultaneously without jumping from one to another blockchain, this merged mining brought popularity for the crypto. It is considered that Vincent Durham launched Namecoin, and hacktivist Aaron Swartz supported it.

An Alternative To Bitcoin

“Namecoin” ended the monopoly of Bitcoin by using the same features as Bitcoin, but becoming another cryptocurrency, this got it the term of “alternative cryptocurrency” and the “alternative bitcoin” with its similar features. In popular notes the short term created by this pronounces was “Altcoin”.

Same As Bitcoin

The ticker symbol of Namecoin is NMC, this is similar to BTC of Bitcoin. The smallest currency unit of Namecoin was named as “Swartz” after Aaron Swartz, which is similar to the “Satoshi” in Bitcoin. One thousandth part of Namecoin is “millinamecoin”, this is also similar to “millibitcoin” for Bitcoin in terms. Name also utilizes Proof of Work (POW) protocol which makes it mineable like Bitcoin, the hash algorithm of Namecoin is SHA-512 and SHA-256d, and like Bitcoin, Namecoin too is limited to 21 million coins.

More Than Bitcoin

Namecoin was developed to cover the crucial limits of Bitcoin, it was able to ink the meaningful uncensored and non-seizorable domains which are independent of ICANN and provide blockchain backed decentralised Transport Layer Security, secure the keys, store transaction database, attach all identity information and keep anonymity.

DECLINE

Namecoin remained popular in the crypto world, however it did not remain the only “Altcoin”, more coins started coming just after it's launch and started giving it thought of competition. In 2012 proof-of-stake (POS) protocol based tokens were launched where holders started receiving interest, for example “Peercoin”. New Blockchains were launched that were different from Bitcoin blockchain, for example Ethereum. The Coin market counted the value of every currency on the basis of Bitcoin to which Namaecoin was a competitor. And finally many loopholes in namecoin emerged in 2015, many studies found that Namecoin network was not decentralized and only few domains were active. Namecoin although remained a Name, but lost its popularity in cyber world and become just a normal cryptocurrency.