What is Namecoin?

Namecoin is an alternative Domain Name System based on blockchain technology. On April 17, 2011, Namecoin was forked from Bitcoin, and thus the first alternative cryptocurrency was born. Your first question as a trader might be: Will Namecoin go to the moon? Well, since Namecoin is primarily a key-value store, it is more of an asset than an electronic currency. But of course, the more application value Namecoin gets the more financial value it gains.

For a one-time registration fee of 0.01 NMC, which is around 0.015 USD in 2021, you get a domain registered on the Namecoin blockchain, valid for 36,000 blocks, which is more than half a year. After this period, the renewal takes about 0.0004 NMC, which is just the miner’s fee. Your ownership and access to modify the value data for your domain are cryptographically secured by your wallet’s private key.

In October 2011, merged mining was introduced for parallel mining along with SHA-256 encoded currencies like Bitcoin. Namecoin is mined for free in parallel mode at this point and is thus secured by the powerful Bitcoin network. That’s why Namecoin, the oldest and most stable alternative cryptocurrency on the market, will always coexist with Bitcoin. In 2021, Namecoin has a market capitalization of around $24 million USD.

How to use Namecoin?

The easiest way to access a blockchain domain is to install our browser add-on for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, which handles the domain resolution. The add-on acts as a blockchain explorer connected directly to the blockchain, which is much faster than any traditional Domain Name System that performs name lookups using file or table-based databases. Normal top-level domains such as .com, .net, and .org are regulated by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

To receive the content of a particular website, your browser needs the corresponding Internet Protocol address of the server hosting the website, commonly known as IP address. The proper resolution from an ICANN domain to the corresponding IP address is done through a hierarchical Domain Name System consisting of DNS root servers and thousands of subordinate DNS servers around the world. Their databases contain millions of individual zone files in txt format for each domain.

Blockchain domains don’t require such a hierarchical system. All a blockchain domain needs to be dynamically resolved is a lookup at the blockchain where the domain is registered. Each update of a domain record is distributed within the Namecoin peer-to-peer network with the next mined block, which happens within 10 minutes on average. It's time for a change. It's just about the revolution of the internet. And it's gonna be hot! Think about it the next time you watch the night sky! Namecoin has impact.

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