Even if weed becomes legal there will still be a black market for it. If you look here in The Netherlands we have 'legalized' weed but I can still buy it on every corner of the street from a shady guy in a dark alley. Besides that the name dope suggests buying drugs with it, especially since the logo is a leaf, but it can be used for everything on the black markets once it has anonymity features. Those kinds of hidden markets will never disappear as long as there are humans on this planet (or any other planet) so you don't have to worry about your target audience getting too small.
While I agree that you can't force people to use your currency for only 1 thing (which I don't want/am suggesting) but you have to agree that most of the altcoins are made with a certain goal in mind steering the use of the coin in that direction. If they didn't what would make people use the coin over bitcoin/altcoin nr 5013? If just throw something out of the wild without telling people what they can do with it they lose interest and find something easier. People have a need to be guided, they are lazy and usually don't go through great lengths to think for themselves. If you don't tell them this is coin X and it can be used to do Y and Z it is too much effort to find it out.
I strongly feel that a coin doesn't need investors (who has shares in currency anyways? Anyone here has 'invested' in USD or Euro?) but users. If it is called money it needs to be spent. Spending creates a stable market, investors just fluctuate prices which scares people away.
Tor network already offers a great deal of anonymity and although I am not completely sure how they work with domain names, I think a namecoin like system has little to offer over it as for as anonymity goes. It probably already works in a similar way. I am not trying to say it is a bad idea, but I think the positive side of it doesn't outweigh the development costs (at this moment). Even the dopecoin developers have to get paid and fed.
Essentially you're not wrong, I mean there will most likely be age restrictions on weed in the USA like 21+ and I honestly think even with alcohol it should be 18+ if you're old enough to have the responsibilities of a 21 year old, you're old enough to have the privileges in my opinion(there already is age restriction in states where it's legal). Dope in the English language can mean many many things some examples from Google can be found by searching define:dope. My favorite is 'very good."that suit is dope!" '
. It doesn't have to be drug related although among older generations that's generally what it means.
While I agree the decent altcoins(as few as there seem to be these days) that come out usually offer something Bitcoin does not or a unique way of doing things other altcoins don't have, it seems most altcoins aren't made with any other intention of being a get rich quick scheme for the creators. Dopecoin has a purpose, and a noble one at that, protecting people from bullshit laws that destroy lives for victimless "crimes". By investors I meant more like early adopters buying in on some Dopecoin to help drive up prices/increase it's adoption rate.
Yes you need to have people spending more than holding, however at least early on there will most likely be a decent amount of people holding huge amounts eventually(if there aren't already), in hopes of a repeat of how people got rich off of Bitcoin. If they feel it's too unstable or that the market it serves could collapse due to law changes you might have a problem getting more people on board(Keep in mind it doesn't have to be true, there just has to be rumors, and widespread public perception that it's true, Bitcoin's price goes up and down more with media stories than it does with Bitcoin updates if people see weed is legal all of a sudden, and like you said it has a pot leaf on it, they might no longer think they need it/not adopt it as much/use other Cryptos like Bitcoin).
It's mostly for this reason I think that it can, and should have many uses with that one being a main feature due to the anonymity of course. I guess however just about anyone with the know how could make a service like that, and have it accept Dopecoin though, so it doesn't have to be a priority of the main devs. I cannot predict the future, nor am I qualified to say that this is fact(nobody is at this point xD that's the most exciting part), just saying it's a possibility. In terms of "shares of currency" I'd say each coin you have is a share maybe not in the traditional sense like stocks, but in some kind of sense you have a vested interest in it's success thus you are invested in it whether it be investing time/money/other resources you have a stake in it's success. Tor has some flaws too though and isn't 100% fool proof(like trying downloading torrents on Tor, not always so anonymous).
I'm kind of interested to see the Bitcoin foundation, and Kim Dotcom's(they're working on different projects last I heard just mentioned to prevent confusion) attempts to decentralize the internet, and get rid of the surveillance state. In terms of spending Namecoin? Probably not so anonymous, but they probably have more anonymous domain names than say a .com/.net/.org or other traditional domains that are on regular DNS, and can easily be seized by governments. In terms of implementing such features/services, I'm sure there are mannny more things that take priority over it namely for one the anonymity feature as it is key to the success of this coin's intended goal, and it seems to be one of it's main selling points over pretty much all other coins. All in all no matter what happens I'm more or less just spitballing ideas, and hoping this coin ends up successful. Cheers Mate!~
