Topic: Namecoin vs ENS vs Unstoppable Domains (Read 149 times)

ENS was supposed to be a truly-decentralized domain name registrar/service. But making a partnership with centralized counterparts, tells us it doesn't live up to its name. That's a huge dealbreaker for me. There must be a separation between the decentralized and centralized worlds. Just like how there's a separation between Church and the State.

Between ENS, Namecoin, and Unstoppable Domains, I think Namecoin is the best choice. In terms of decentralization, of course. For versatility and ease of use, ENS and the likes are better. I hope decentralized DNS services continue to improve, just to render centralized counterparts obsolete. Or at least, challenge them. Here's hoping for the best. 

Since the inception of Name services on blockchains and crypto, ENS has been the only one that have stood out to me not just because it's rooted in the second biggest blockchain but because all of these integrations (including the ones you mentioned), increases the potential use-cases for it. Given the fact that ENS improves overall crypto UX and the integrations make it super useful to own and use, I'll keep betting on it long term

I am not familiar with the others mentioned but if ENS uses addresses that do not include a chain-identifier whereas bitcoin-based address systems like NaMeCoin's sort of kind of do, it could certainly take less massaging of user input, and likely less chance of collisions, than would trying to allow a user to for example input a bitcoin address, have it automagically converted into the corresponding namecoin address, then used to look up a website.

The potential collisions that could arise due to the proliferation of coins derived from bitcoin code, whereby not all addresses shout out what chain they are for by looking at their first character for example tipping one (or one's software) off to how to convert it back to the underlying corresponding public key and from that into the corresponding address from some arbitrary other chain such as namecoin are I think only on that input error catching step; the underlying public keys being displayed by different chains as different "addresses" are "universal" to all bitcoin-type chains.

I am not sure offhand though whether really collisions are a possiblity; maybe if a user were to set a default chain in whose notation they wish by default to have input addresses converted from basically what would happen would be that the underlying sameness and compatibility of all the bitcoin-derived address notation systems would be exposed.

So maybe for any bitcoin-derived chain a unique web address could be derived that works on all such chains; that address being simply the actual public key which bitcoin and its derivatives convert into an "address" for what seems largely to be the purpose of giving the input-checking routines a chance at guessing whether the input is in fact a valid way of representing that same public key as an "address", not in the sense of whether that address is in fact a valid public key but, rather, simply in the sense of whether that same public key has been typed in the same error-checking-enabling representation that particular chain chose to use for helping it detect user input error.


TLD: bitcoin/namecoin/litecoin/etc public keys are cross-chain compatible thus useable as web addresses, it is only the default input error detection used by each chain, in which each key is represented by a so-called address, that is different between such chains I am pretty sure.


-MarkM-

TLD2: Use the public key not the error-detection wrapper known as an "address" and it should work across all the btc/nmc/ltc/dvc/ixc/i0c/etc/etc/etc chains.

This is a interesting topic. I think that Ethereum Name Service has the capacity to gain mainstream adoption considering recent & future integrations. In 2024 alone ENS partnered with GoDaddy, Venmo, Paypal & google to name a few. Most are familiar with ENS for its ability to resolve Hexadecimal crypto wallets multichain. But a interesting use case of ENS is also its ability to store content hash records. Recently a company " Webhash " has integrated ENS allowing you to build & deploy a decentralized website through templates via ipfs. I find ENS very intriguing regarding the future potential of these programmable domains.

Hello.

You can try to check "Qortal" here
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/qortal-blockchain-project-decentralized-websites-now-live-5258519

ENS does it for me. AFAIK, Namecoin is a very old project and I don't hear it being talked about much anymore. It's the same for unstoppable domains. I'd just highlight the biggest benefit ENS has over the other projects being compared with it. One ENS domain can be used across most if not all of the EVM chains currently available. So you don't have to reject a domain for each blockchain as long as it has EVM support. That right there is a very powerful feature to keep in mind during this comparison.

Maybe the dev disappeared out of fear from government prosecution. Who knows? You'd need to be aware of the consequences tied to creating decentralized applications that's outside the scope of the government. It's all a matter of being extremely-cautious. The concept of AlphaBay (i2p + Tor) is interesting. Although, I don't encourage the buying/selling of illegal goods on the web. Decentralized domains, alongside decentralized CDNs open up a new door of possibilities.

As far as marketplaces go, OpenBazaar is not as decentralized as I thought it would be. At least, that's what I've read online. I'm sure someone will fork the project to make a better version of it. It's best to keep things at the protocol level to maintain censorship-resistance as much as possible. The future of crypto (and the web) depends on it. Hopefully, we'd get to see truly-decentralized websites in the long run.

What's interesting is the 2nd version of the AlphaBay darknet marketplace used I2P in addition to Tor and one of the roadmap items offered by the dev (DeSnake) was to build a decentralized marketplace that could never fully be taken down. That turned out to be bumpkis, and DeSnake just disappeared off the face of the planet, but from a DNM user standpoint its not a bad idea, kind of like a highly illegal OpenBazaar (wonder what ever happened to them as well).

Good-old Namecoin is not a popular as it used to be in the early days. I doubt Mozilla is going to patch things up with the next release of Firefox browser, just to make .bit domains work. I've been using extensions like Dotbit.me and Peername on both Firefox and Chrome browsers to resolve .bit domains. I wonder if they still work with the new update?

Anyways, the idea of decentralized domains is great. But without mainstream adoption, centralized domains would continue to dominate the Internet for long. I've always dreamed of truly-decentralized websites using decentralized domains, built on top of a decentralized network (SAFE Network, ZeroNet, IPFS, etc) with decentralized smart contracts (Web3). It would truly make them censorship-resistant. As much as I like Tor, I've read online articles which claim it is compromised. Some say that Tor exit nodes can expose your identity (IP), leaving you vulnerable against government surveillance. So hosting a site on Tor with a .onion domain wouldn't be recommended. I2P is another option. Ever heard of eepsites? They're sites built on the I2P network using the .i2p domain. I've found this article online to anyone's interest: https://mhatta.medium.com/how-to-set-up-untraceable-websites-eepsites-on-i2p-1fe26069271d

Who knows if someone decides to build a decentralized marketplace or exchange on top of a decentralized network infrastructure in the future? 

Its a good idea in theory but was never put to much practical use. Several years ago there was an update to Mozilla Firefox that broke compatibility with the Namecoin plugin that allowed people to host websites under ".bit" domains. Last I heard there is still another way to do it, but its not widely used.

IMO the reason why decentralized domains never really took off is because Tor already does a pretty good job of allowing for uncensorable websites. The URLs just aren't as memorable as "nutildah.bit" or something.

With ENS, yes its great that you can just type "nutildah.eth" in an explorer or in Metamask and it will instantly convert to the ENS owner's ETH address. But AFAIK they aren't actually being used as website domains.

I've always been quite fond of truly-decentralized tech. Decentralized TLDs are not new (it all started with Namecoin), although they've gained traction after ENS became a household name. While decentralized domains are a better alternative than centralized domains under the scope of ICANN (in terms of censorship-resistance), I wouldn't expect them to become used by every website in the world. They'll always be the minority.

That said, I'm curious to know which of the aforementioned projects (title says it all) are best? Also, do you think decentralized domains are the future? Or are they just a failed experiment?

An overview of the advantages/disadvantages between each decentralized domain name registrar, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.