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I don't get why it doesn't use bitcoin's block chain. That would give it a strong existing infrastructure of users, miners etc. This way it is on its own.

by rumcajz 13y ago

bachback 13y ago
it does in some sense. look up merged mining. however putting namecoin into bitcoin would have implied major changes for bitcoin (much larger blockchain for instance). because namecoin is barely used such an integration would have made not much sense.
- rumcajz 13y ago
  Yes, I am aware of merged mining. While that adds some incentive for miners to mine for namecoins, it's still optional, so it won't help namecoin much unless a lot of people opt-in. Technically, why not piggy-back namecoin on bitcoin. As far as I know there's some kind of 'comment' field in the transaction where you can put arbitrary data.
  - bachback 13y ago
    in the original thread, which I linked above, this possibility was discussed. however it would have meant tying bitcoin to a project which has a lot of uncertainty and is not the core use case. miners/stakeholders have to agree with (major) changes so it's up to them making decisions. so the devs are really very much constrained to the original design. how this will play out is not quite clear. advanced features (payment protocol) are pending for quite a while. technically the integration is easy to do. the namecoin source has very few original lines of code. it is rather a question of consensus I think. Mike Hearn discussed this here: https://medium.com/p/b64cf5912aa7 https://medium.com/p/b64cf5912aa7 "It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not practical for our needs right now because it has no users. "
  - wcummings 13y ago
    the NMC network has some serious hashing power, look it up
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    As I understand it, merged mining an altcoin is essentially free money, therefore as mining margins narrow miners will have to merge mine major alts in order to stay competitive.
aaron-lebo 13y ago
The Bitcoin devs don't really want the blockchain used for non-financial transactions. If makes sense if you think about it. The current BTC blockchain is gigabytes of data. Add text information to every transaction and you are adding even more bloat.
- baddox 13y ago
  Do you have a source for that claim? The official Bitcoin wiki certainly talks about non-financial uses of Bitcoin, and Script obviously makes such uses possible.
  - aaron-lebo 13y ago
    Well, I remember reading something like that once, so it must be true. ;) In all seriousness, I did some Googling and the closest I can find is this: "One final reason is that Satoshi was opposed to putting non-Bitcoin related data into the main chain. As creator of the system, his opinion should carry a lot of weight with anyone serious about extending it." https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain I realize that is close to being useless, but I can't find the direct post in question by Satoshi that it is referencing. I seem to recall it not being Satoshi, however, but one of the current devs that I read a similar sentiment from. But again, I don't have any direct links. I apologize.

I don't get why it doesn't use bitcoin's block chain. That would give it a strong existing infrastructure of users, miners etc. This way it is on its own.

by rumcajz 13y ago

I don't get why it doesn't use bitcoin's block chain. That would give it a strong existing infrastructure of users, miners etc. This way it is on its own.

bachback 13y ago

it does in some sense. look up merged mining. however putting namecoin into bitcoin would have implied major changes for bitcoin (much larger blockchain for instance). because namecoin is barely used such an integration would have made not much sense.

rumcajz 13y ago
Yes, I am aware of merged mining. While that adds some incentive for miners to mine for namecoins, it's still optional, so it won't help namecoin much unless a lot of people opt-in. Technically, why not piggy-back namecoin on bitcoin. As far as I know there's some kind of 'comment' field in the transaction where you can put arbitrary data.
- bachback 13y ago
  in the original thread, which I linked above, this possibility was discussed. however it would have meant tying bitcoin to a project which has a lot of uncertainty and is not the core use case. miners/stakeholders have to agree with (major) changes so it's up to them making decisions. so the devs are really very much constrained to the original design. how this will play out is not quite clear. advanced features (payment protocol) are pending for quite a while. technically the integration is easy to do. the namecoin source has very few original lines of code. it is rather a question of consensus I think. Mike Hearn discussed this here: https://medium.com/p/b64cf5912aa7 https://medium.com/p/b64cf5912aa7 "It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not practical for our needs right now because it has no users. "
- wcummings 13y ago
  the NMC network has some serious hashing power, look it up
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  As I understand it, merged mining an altcoin is essentially free money, therefore as mining margins narrow miners will have to merge mine major alts in order to stay competitive.

aaron-lebo 13y ago

The Bitcoin devs don't really want the blockchain used for non-financial transactions. If makes sense if you think about it. The current BTC blockchain is gigabytes of data. Add text information to every transaction and you are adding even more bloat.

baddox 13y ago
Do you have a source for that claim? The official Bitcoin wiki certainly talks about non-financial uses of Bitcoin, and Script obviously makes such uses possible.
- aaron-lebo 13y ago
  Well, I remember reading something like that once, so it must be true. ;) In all seriousness, I did some Googling and the closest I can find is this: "One final reason is that Satoshi was opposed to putting non-Bitcoin related data into the main chain. As creator of the system, his opinion should carry a lot of weight with anyone serious about extending it." https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain I realize that is close to being useless, but I can't find the direct post in question by Satoshi that it is referencing. I seem to recall it not being Satoshi, however, but one of the current devs that I read a similar sentiment from. But again, I don't have any direct links. I apologize.