Why consider holding Namecoin?

Let’s make a deep dive into Namecoin as a currency, decentralized DNS, Web3 backend, host for historical collectibles, and blockspace for Web3 content creation.

Namecoin as Currency

Bitcoin’s brother

Namecoin, the first altcoin ever created, was forked from Bitcoin’s code and launched on April 17, 2011. While Bitcoin was designed to free finance, Namecoin was designed to free the internet by providing a decentralized Domain Name System (DNS). Since October 2011, it has been merged-mined alongside Bitcoin, as originally proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto. This makes it technically a sidechain from Bitcoin as well as the most widely adopted altcoin among Bitcoin miners, providing the highest hashrate and strongest security profiles in the crypto space. As of August 2025, it is mined with a hashrate of 600 EH/s by about 60% of the Bitcoin network. Like Bitcoin, Namecoin is based on a deflationary economic model, with a maximum supply of 21 million coins. As a result, the market cannot be flooded with new supply, and each $NMC retains significant intrinsic value.

$8.4 million USD Daily Investment

Most importantly: Namecoin, like Bitcoin, is mined out of nothing. This means that Namecoin as a currency is legally treated as a commodity and cannot be restricted like coins that were pre-mined and financed by ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and other forms of investment seeking. Therefore, all attempts by influential authorities to classify those OG coins as securities have fatally failed! The only investments in the chains are made by mining operators for hardware, location, and electricity, resulting in a total worldwide investment of about $14 million USD per day. Thereof, about $8.4 million USD is proportionately allocated to merged mining of Namecoin. Per day. Taken to ensure the integrity and cryptographic security of the ecosystem.

Namecoin as Web3 Backend

Historical NFTs and Collectibles

A large community has emerged around Namecoin due to its nature as a host for digital artifacts and collectibles. Namecoin has historically been used as a Web3 backend by the ID service provider called OneName (now Blockstack), writing the users' personal data to the blockchain, including links to their avatars from social media. This way, classical NFTs were created on Namecoin — such as the Twitter Eggs minted between 2014 and 2015 — reflecting the histories of three projects: Namecoin, OneName, and Twitter, along with the legacy of specific Twitter users. Holders of these historical NFTs (often referred to as HNFTs) own a unique and vivid piece of digital history.

Historical Utility Assets

Even further back, up to the launch of Namecoin in April 2011, curated collections of different domain and ID creations emerged. These are the earliest known Web3 IDs and the oldest collectibles of their kind, representing some of the most creative and meaningful artifacts created by early adopters. The very first blockchain domain ever is d/bitcoin, resolved as bitcoin.bit. It was created on April 21, 2011, primarily to be immune to the censorship of the original domain, bitcoin.org, at a time when Bitcoin was considered a threat to the traditional financial system by authorities.

Namecoin’s Blockspace

Thanks to highly optimized specifications, there is no size limit for on-chain NFTs, including image data, extended link containers with detailed descriptions, and even full blog (block) posts like this one. All this utilizes Namecoin’s blockspace while adhering to the limitations derived from Bitcoin’s consensus rules, preventing flooding the network and blowing up the blockchain. Thus, standard transactions are utilized with the guarantee of being broadcast by any standard node and mined by any miner with standard configuration.

Namecoin as DNS

Browser Add-ons and HTTPS Resolver:

Besides being a currency and host for NFTs of all kinds, Namecoin’s design unleashes its full utility as DNS. Browser add-ons for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are being released soon for both desktop and mobile platforms. These add-ons integrate smoothly with the Namecoin HTTPS Resolver on desktop and Android, enabling access to fully HTTPS-protected websites hosted under decentralized Namecoin domains — accessible from the most common mainstream browsers. By contrast, ICANN-accredited registrars and their resellers typically charge high and arbitrary annual fees in exchange for writing your IP data to the TXT files of the traditional hierarchical DNS structure. A Namecoin domain, on the other hand, relies on one instance only: the blockchain — distributed across locally run user nodes and mining nodes, cryptographically secured by the Bitcoin network.

Vulnerabilities of Traditional ICANN Domains:

The vulnerability of traditional ICANN domains becomes evident when a top-level domain (TLD) registry sends a test letter to the administrative contact address associated with a domain. If the letter fails to reach the recipient — for whichever reason — the domain may be suspended without prior notice, regardless of how far in advance the registration fees have been paid. For those seeking greater independence and protection against such strangulation of personal liberty and independence: Run a Namecoin node, register your desired domain, and publish your content. No advanced technical skills or computer science background is required — unlike with setting up e.g. an Ethereum node.

Vulnerabilities of Ethereum Name Service:

Ethereum’s degree of centralization remains topic of public debates, due to the influence of the Ethereum Foundation and the nature of the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism — which favors the most blown up ETH whales. As of 2025, around 30% of staked ETH is held by major entities such as the third-party staking service Lido. Furthermore, the affiliated Ethereum Name Service (ENS), the most dominant competitor in the Web3 space, provides their eth.link webpage for .eth domain resolution with an SSL/TLS certificate for this domain only, so HTTPS-protected at the surface level only. In fact, it relies on external infrastructure such as Cloudflare Workers and IPFS gateways — effectively acting as an external proxy, breaking the end-to-end security model and undermining data privacy, making it unsuitable for sensitive communications, in other words: the absolute no-go for any secure data transmission!

Namecoin’s True End-to-End HTTPS Solution:

By contrast, the Namecoin HTTPS resolver provides true HTTPS protection by operating as a local proxy — a cutting-edge, standards-compliant approach to bridging Web2 and Web3.

Getting Started with Namecoin

Your registrar

domaindeals.pro:

For guidance or help registering domains, Web3 IDs or NFTs, check the services of your registrar domaindeals.pro. Browse here curated collections of historic collectibles on the Namecoin blockchain and take part in public auctions!

URL:

https://domaindeals.pro

Specifications

namecoin.pro:

For information on registering and creating Web3 content, as well as to see the Namecoin browser add-ons and the HTTPS Resolver in action, visit namecoin.pro.

URL:

https://namecoin.pro

Tools and Web3 Links

Namecoin JSON Editor

dotbit.app:

This block-post was created on August 8, 2025, by Uwe Martens using the Namecoin JSON Editor.

URL:

https://dotbit.app/editor

Block Explorer

namecoin.online:

The block explorer at namecoin.online allows you to browse historical NFTs and provides a live view of the original, historical, and active links to external media only. So here, you can validate the integrity of HNFTs. Furthermore, the browser allows the file reconstruction of on-chain NFTs created in different standards.

URL:

https://namecoin.online/explorer/details.php

Latest News and Releases

namecoin.nmc:

For the latest news and releases, as well as direct links to the most important standards and communities, check out the Web3 link container at namecoin.nmc, which is the default page of this Asset Viewer!

URL:

https://dotbit.app/namecoin.nmc