I can think a million uses for this. Actually not really.
It only takes one good one. The cost is really low, and the distribution and persistence is beyond what's available from almost any other source. (That said, I can't think of one really good one either.) 
Topic: Does Namecoin solve the backing problem? - page 2. (Read 2549 times)
BitCoin is equally backed by the right to enter transactions into the hash chain which is also a distributed data store. Remember, you can transfer any amount of BitCoins to any address you want, whether or not that address actually corresponds to a private key anyone holds.
For example, say I want a provable timestamp of a document. I can hash the document and transfer .0001 BTC to that hash. This proves that the holder of the private key the BTC was transferred from had that document at the timestamp in that block. And at no cost to me, that will continue to acquire more and more confirmation.
For example, say I want a provable timestamp of a document. I can hash the document and transfer .0001 BTC to that hash. This proves that the holder of the private key the BTC was transferred from had that document at the timestamp in that block. And at no cost to me, that will continue to acquire more and more confirmation.
I can think a million uses for this. Actually not really.
BitCoin is equally backed by the right to enter transactions into the hash chain which is also a distributed data store. Remember, you can transfer any amount of BitCoins to any address you want, whether or not that address actually corresponds to a private key anyone holds.
For example, say I want a provable timestamp of a document. I can hash the document and transfer .0001 BTC to that hash. This proves that the holder of the private key the BTC was transferred from had that document at the timestamp in that block. And at no cost to me, that will continue to acquire more and more confirmation.
For example, say I want a provable timestamp of a document. I can hash the document and transfer .0001 BTC to that hash. This proves that the holder of the private key the BTC was transferred from had that document at the timestamp in that block. And at no cost to me, that will continue to acquire more and more confirmation.
There are regular threads here about how bitcoin isn't backed by anything, generally followed by a plan to back it with gold or silver or dollars, however, every one of those plans relies on a central authority. This doesn't work since that central authority is subject to bankruptcy, corruption, and government influence.
In order to keep the distributed nature of bitcoin you would have to back it by something that is itself virtual. That got me thinking that maybe Namecoin is really a backed virtual currency. Even if the dollar/bitcoin/whatever value of namecoin went to zero, you'd still be able to use it for something. Currently, that something is registering domains but it is set up to allow you to store name/value pairs. This makes NameCoin a currency that is backed by the right to use a distributed data store, pretty interesting.
In order to keep the distributed nature of bitcoin you would have to back it by something that is itself virtual. That got me thinking that maybe Namecoin is really a backed virtual currency. Even if the dollar/bitcoin/whatever value of namecoin went to zero, you'd still be able to use it for something. Currently, that something is registering domains but it is set up to allow you to store name/value pairs. This makes NameCoin a currency that is backed by the right to use a distributed data store, pretty interesting.
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