Topic: [announce] Namecoin - a distributed naming system based on Bitcoin - page 74. (Read 596107 times)

I think there should be a fixed expiration time of 1 year, particularly for domain names. As long as it is quite cheap to register names, a lot of people experiment with namecoin, register some names and then lose interest. There must be a chance for others to name_new these names after one year at the latest.

It would be even better if it would be customizable between 1/2 year and 5 years in 1/2 year steps. May be not everybody needs it for 4 years.

About the fees, there should definitely be higher than bitcoin, maybe 10 times higher? now is ok
i understand gavin is working on some automatic value, but we need something easy.
and the fees also need to go down, at least half the value every 4 years,
since the number of coins created is fixed and halves every 4 years.
the same goes for name_new and name_update
and of course name_update should only be free if it doesn't use more space on the blockchain.

and last thing, maybe it's better make domains/info expire every 4 years not 1.

That is true. I thought also about it.
But what about giving the election for the user who is registering a domain name if destroying(or donating to a Namecoin Development Foundation) a fixed amount of namecoins ?
In this case those who are opposing the idea can select the usual destroying fee method. Some don't like the destroying coins and may be would be more acceptable for them donating it.

The other option binding namecoin vs destroying I am also not sure which is better.
Destroying namecoins in very long term could have a positive effect on the namecoin prices but may be we don't live so long.
Binding namecoins(larger amount than the amount which would be destroyed) would have an immediate effect because reducing supply. Binding namecoins doesn't reduce market volume also, which would have a positive effect on the market capitalization statistics.

Best would be a selection between binding coins or donating a lesser amount but because of the different amount it could be confusing for the users.
So I would rather suggest donating/destroying selection or binding a higher amount. We could also try different solutions by different domains and we will see which is better.

We need to be very careful with a hard fork. A lot of pool operators are already ranting about Namecoin and might take any effort as an excuse to stop Namecoin merged mining. On the other hand side, if we get improved stability I am sure difficulty will rise again.

Tx fees
By default the client should pay a reasonable fee, decided on by the community / the devs. Only then is it possible for miners to raise the bar because then the majority of txs includes a fee.

I would prefer if high priority tx would have to pay standard fees but it is not important. There is no way to enforce using priorities on miners so it is wise to always include fees anyways.

Name op fees
[trolololo]

Currently a name_new costs/locks about $0.01 worth of NMC, a name_update costs nothing. I think a name_update should cost/lock the same fixed amount as a name_new.

Sending fees to a foundation or something is politically very difficult.

A lot of short names (domain namespace) have already been registered so any larger change should also make name_update more expensive to make it more expensive to hold on to short names.

The idea of making shorter names more expensive certainly makes sense (1 letter name 10 times more expensive than 2 letter name 10 times more expensive than 3 letter name 10 times ...).

Full disclosure: I have registered plenty of short domains myself. If it were more expensive to hold domains I would have let expire a lot of names.

Coin locking for name_ops
Is a non issue at the moment imho. It would be much better if coins could never be unlocked but be destroyed because then the name_ops would come with a price tag rather than a deposit.

Allowed value size
Current limit 520byte
--> 1000byte (fix)
--> 9000byte (change)

I don't think 0.01NMC= 1 US cent is to expensive. It should be at least 10 times higher.
Then 0.1 NMC fee would be still 0.1 USD very affordable. Short domains should cost more.
That could decrease of course over the time if there will be 10 domain names and namecoin price will be much higher than today.
Of course there could be other namecoin related registration services with lower fees or we could have an extra domain with no registration fee later.
But until it is the case we need more namecoin traffic on the only existing .bit domain.
Of course it depends in what context we see the fee reduction. If it is planned after the namecoin prices are already increased and after the introduction of new domains it could be OK.
There is also the question how quickly could react  the development for implementation of new fees by changed NMC price. But here could help a wider range of available names, some of them very cheap others more expensive.

I'm not against this idea, but not for it either. Other opinions on this ?


It may be a bit complex to do that (allow the coin to be included in a tx without including it in the total amount from txIn. Algo of coin selection need to be modified + this adds another specific case).
Even the possibility to give it back to the last name owner should be analyzed carefully (I've verified, coin selection algo is also concerned...).


Standard transaction fees should be changed for this reason :p


Indeed, it shouldn't be too expensive, and we must plan for it to be not too much expensive even if the NMC value do x10 (that also why there is relay_fees AND client_fees).
If some people plan to register thousands of names for "specific" usages, maybe using something else than names, like "messages" (I've done a PoC in the branch message_send [rapid hack, usable, but not for prod :p]) may be more suited. Those messages would require 1 tx instead of 2 for names. Maybe using a PoW like BitMessage would be a good idea. And, to go further, we could also do messages that won't be recorded in the blockchain (maybe both would be needed, or the blockchain one is not really needed)


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Another thing we didn't speak about yet is free transactions (no fees).
Should we allow them ? (I would like to)
Only for standard tx or also for name_tx ?

Current algo allow them depending on
- space left in block currently created (so, those tx may be delayed to future blocks)
- age * amount of coins / tx size (using the amount in this formula allow any big amount to be split into small ones for free. Using the tx size limit this behavior)
-> currently: small tx (< 1kB) + old and/or big coins (dPriority) + no dust = free tx

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I've another idea that may not be appreciated by everybody : use lost coins to fund namecoin bounties & a giveaway.
An opinion ?


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Some update on the proposal :
+ x nmc per kb (could be non linear, a bit exponential)
+ y nmc per txout (avoid too much splitting)
- z nmc per tx in (txout size will reduce, but cpu is used to verify signatures)

X > Y > Z: a kB cost more than a new txOut, that cost more than a txIn spent (to make thing simple in the code, Y = X / const and Z = Y / const, that way we declare 1 value : X, like now)
Y - Z >= 0 : can't be negative, even if UTXO is reduced

just a random thought:
In an MMORPG, you always create your character first.. you change hair colour, face shape, height, eye colour etc etc etc.. after all these combinations your "appearance" can be recorded as just a string of characters "EDfewe232DFwewfehjhti" is my avatars appearance.

Just something else that can be stored... there could be a website designed where you create your character then copy and paste your "appearance code" into your name's value..
e.g. ch/snailbrain"EDfewe232DFwewfehjhti"

useless at the moment, just a thought -- (you could just save that on an open website though i guess, but it could be in your id tag :d)
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Any fees need to go back to the miners.... it shouldn't be expensive to create a name... but should be expensive to spam the network..

The 0.01 fee for name_new should go back to the miners when the "name" expires.. if this would be possible.

Higher Cost for shorter names is good... if we used namecoin for some system where human readable names isn't too important.. e.g. login/snailbrain21341fdsf then shorter names being expensive and longer names being free (or almost free) seems good.

Vinced

The eventual plan was for new names to be free.... apart from "data usage", standard transaction fees are enough?

NMC/KB is good.. but registering names alone shouldn't be too expensive. Changing the data costs 0.005nmc atm?

___________________________

https://github.com/namecoin-qt/namecoin-qt

should compile better on linux (genbuild.sh removed)

Hi.. what i was suggesting was "be-careful" with the fees (you missed that bit of the quote out:))... in-case NMC value increases

It is very good the used kb fee to protect the network from spam but we need also an additional fee(we can discuss about the amount) to protect more the short domains otherwise all of them will be kept and unused years until somebody decides to buy a couple of them from domain speculators.
Anyway it is not intended to stop domain trading just to create a little bit domain justice.

Personally I do not think namecoins *should* have an "artificial" value (like in doing something to force the value up as you seem to suggest).  The point of namecoin is to have a secure and distributed name-value system (with a lot of different useful applications) - and in my opinion it is *not* to have a coin that can be used for payments or has a high intrinsic value, as the goal of bitcoin is.

To me namecoins are just what you need in order to make the system work, and also in order to prevent a bit mass-reservations of names by making a reservation (plus also the transactions that all nodes have to process on the blockchain) cost something.  As long as the costs are high enough to prevent spamming and abuse, that's fine.

Here is a simple proposal based on resourse usage :
+ x nmc per kb
+ y nmc per txout (avoid too much splitting)
- z nmc per tx in (txout size will reduce, but cpu is used to verify signatures)

Y - Z can't be below 0 or x for exemple

Good points, hadn't noticed that larger TX reducing the TXout ....No simple ideas ...I'll think some more about it.

Larger blocks may not be such an issue if we get leveldb and ultraprune blockchain handling features from latest bitcoin implemented anyway?

i'm thinking : what if we want to use namecoin for some sort of system that requires the creation of lots of names.. not just (domains)..

i thought the cost of names would eventually become zero?

Size added on the explorer : http://explorer.dot-bit.org/nbb=100/fromb=0
1 or 2 cents of fee for 15k per tx is cheap for a world distributed and permanent storage system.
Namecoin can meet a great success :p

391k block : http://explorer.dot-bit.org/b/24a0f711c42787d22a9228399d3bddc9096181bc32fa430198362c7fb390bd3c

1 tx hash :  http://explorer.dot-bit.org/tx/b11ae7d2cc8a4ac606e4b9aa8aec3347e8d1b0559174a5e86bd47c6097cb23af
nb input tx: 495
nb output tx: 2
size: 32k
fee:  0.045NMC

This tx has reduced number of unspent tx a lot, for exemple. Should we really penalize that ? :p

One original tx that splitted amounts : http://explorer.dot-bit.org/tx/e5d13d2a2d695b4cf6e9ed07c93aaff5abcdf5a3041c754b82519659093d47e8
input : 1
ouput : 40
fees : 0.13NMC
size: 1,5k

However, there are things to do about fees.

But I don't know how to fix an arbitrary amount that have a different value in 2 years ?
I like simple solutions and using an arbitrary amount based on current bitcoin & fiat value is not good one, but maybe the simpliest.

Any simple idea ?






Indeed, that's a hard limit on number of names and with money that don't go to miners (to avoid free names I guess)
It is a sufficiently high number to make it evolve (being dynamic or not) long before we need more room.

I understand that a name has a value of 0.01.. but if you can't do anything with it, then eventually we would just end up with a load of names and no coins?

2,100,000,000 names?

or am i misunderstanding?

Same thing happened to me. After verification, it is the anti-dust mecanism :p
Do not send less than 0.01NMC to avoid it (another thing to update ?).



No coins are lost anymore since a long time.

A name_new is composed like that :
- 1 tx with the remainder of your coin (the change)
- 1 tx with an amount of 0.01NMC sent to you + a hash of (randomValue + yourName)

To create a name_firstupdate with the previous name, you must provide the random value and spend the previous 0.01 coins in this transaction (in bitcoin words : you sign the previous coins to prove you own it and then, you are able to spend it) and spend it to yourself again.

To create a name_update, you do exactly the same thing, except you can give an address you don't own on the command line to transfer the name to another person, which will be able to sign the received tx to update the name.

So, a name HAS a value of 0.01NMC at least.

When a name expire, the 0.01NMC stay there, locked.
There is currently no code able to read that name tx and spend it to a standard bitcoin tx (the network doesn't support). Not sure if it would be interesting or not ?

Someone's spamming the blokchain with 300-450k blocks ... what's the plan for fees?

the 0.01 for name_new is the 0.01 which is destroyed?

khal .. I tested sendtoname with some small amount 0.001 nmc I think, and it added a fee of 0.01 ... is there a standard fee for sendtoname of 0.01nmc or was it something else that added the fee?