Namecoin
Namecoin is an experimental open-source technology which improves decentralization, security, censorship resistance, privacy, and speed of certain components of the Internet infrastructure such as DNS and identities.
(For the technically minded, Namecoin is a key/value pair registration and transfer system based on the Bitcoin technology.)
Bitcoin frees money – Namecoin frees DNS, identities, and other technologies.
What can Namecoin be used for?
- Protect free-speech rights online by making the web more resistant to censorship.
- Human-meaningful Tor .onion domains.
- Decentralized TLS (HTTPS) certificate validation, backed by blockchain consensus.
- Access websites using the .bit top-level domain.
- Attach identity information such as GPG and OTR keys and email, Bitcoin, and Bitmessage addresses to an identity of your choice.
What does Namecoin do under the hood?
- Securely record and transfer arbitrary names (keys).
- Attach a value (data) to the names (up to 520 bytes).
- Transact the digital currency namecoins (NMC).
- Like bitcoins, Namecoin names are difficult to censor or seize.
- Lookups do not generate network traffic (improves privacy).
Namecoin was the first fork of Bitcoin and still is one of the most innovative “altcoins”. It was first to implement merged mining and a decentralized DNS. Namecoin was also the first solution to Zooko’s Triangle, the long-standing problem of producing a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.
More Information
News
(RSS Feed)
Hashed TLSA Records in Encaya
2025-09-11 As long-time readers will be aware, probably the biggest innovation of Namecoin’s TLS functionality is that it uses a special form of TLS certificates that happens to work well in mainstream web browsers, via the interoperability magic of AIA and PKCS#11. This avoids having to patch web browsers or intercept TLS connections (either of which would introduce nontrivial security liabilities).
What’s the maximum length of an AIA Issuer URL in Windows 11 CryptoAPI?
2025-09-07 For those of you who haven’t seen my various conference talks about Namecoin TLS, AIA (Authority Information Access) is a mechanism for a TLS certificate to provide a URL where you can find the certificate of its issuer. Namecoin does some, uh, creative things with AIA. For reasons that will be elaborated on in a future post (don’t worry, all will be explained there), I wanted to know the maximum length of the URL that AIA can link to.
Improving sockstrace: Debugging, Process Control, and Proxy Rules
2025-07-25 sockstrace just got a major update. Here’s a quick overview of the new features:
Namecoin will be at MoneroKon 5
2025-06-15 We’re happy to announce that Namecoin will be giving a presentation at MoneroKon 5 in Prague, Czechia (June 20-22). Live streams are expected.
Code Quality Improvements in ncp11
2025-05-13 As you may recall, ncp11 is Namecoin’s PKCS#11 module that enables TLS to work for Namecoin domains with standard TLS clients that use NSS or GnuTLS. I’ve recently made several improvements to ncp11:
Occlumask: A Content-based Anonymity Leak Detector
2025-05-11 A few weeks ago, we announced funding from Power Up Privacy for a number of different projects. One of those projects being “Occlumask”. We will be giving some details about Occlumask, the motivations behind it, its methods, challenges, as well as the current status on research.
Enhancing Proxy Leak Detection with SocksTrace: From ptrace to seccomp notify
2025-03-30 Initially, SocksTrace relied on ptrace to trace connect syscalls. While ptrace works well for simple programs, it wasn’t practical for high-performance applications, especially browsers.
Namecoin Receives TLS and Anonymity Research Funding from Power Up Privacy and NLnet Foundation’s NGI0 Core Fund
2025-03-30 We’re happy to announce that Namecoin is receiving three new grants:
38C3 Summary
2025-03-30 As was previously announced, several developers represented Namecoin at 38C3 in Hamburg, Germany. You know the drill by now: we had a lot of conversations with other attendees, and we won’t be publicly disclosing the content of those conversations, because I want people to be able to talk to us at conferences without worrying that off-the-cuff comments will be broadcast to the public. That said, a practical result of one of those conversations should be getting its own announcement in the next day or two.
Namecoin will be at 38C3 and FOSDEM 2025
2024-12-16 We’re happy to announce that at least three Namecoin developers will be at 38C3 (the 38th Chaos Communication Congress) in Hamburg, December 27-30. Additionally, at least two Namecoin developers will be at FOSDEM 2025 in Brussels, February 1-2.
For the latest news go to the Namecoin forum or check out r/Namecoin.
Official anouncements will also be made on this BitcoinTalk thread.
Donate
Help keep us strong. You can donate to the Namecoin project here.
Participate
With Namecoin you can make a difference. We need your help to free information, especially in documentation, marketing, and coding. You are welcome at the forum. There may be bounties, too.