Namecoin is a domain name registry service and was the first coin to fork Bitcoin. Similar to registering a .com or .io domain name, you register a .bit domain on the network. This domain is censorship-resistant and impervious to activity tracking. Governments and large corporations control traditional domain name services (DNS) servers. This control is how the Chinese government, for instance, can block websites that go against their beliefs. To prevent this level of censorship, Namecoin uses blockchain technology to distribute its DNS amongst the users on the network. A pseudo-anonymous founder by the name of “Vince” created Namecoin in 2011. Since then, Vince has disappeared, but a core development team has kept the project alive. The project has several developers listed on the official website and benefits from the contributions of numerous anonymous developers as well. Namecoin has been fully functional for a few years, now, and the development team posts updates several times a month. Namecoin was the first cryptocurrency to use Auxiliary Proof of Work (AuxPoW) for its consensus. By using AuxPow, Namecoin and Bitcoin can be mined simultaneously. In this consensus, the child blockchain depends on the proof-of-work of parent blockchain, which means If a new block is created on Bitcoin blockchain, it will also be added to the Namecoin blockchain. NameID is another technology brought by Namecoin. It serves as an open service for securely registering human-readable names in a decentralized way. NameID is a combination between Namecoin and OpenId, where users can easily convert their Namecoin Identities into OpenIDs. This makes NameID a solution to Zooko's triangle, which states that there are three desirable properties (Human-meaningful, Decentralized, and Secure) for name participants in a network protocol and any participant can only inherit two properties at a given time. Namecoin is among some earliest cryptocurrencies. During its existence in the market, it has seen a high volatility on some occasions, which can be attributed to many reasons. Namecoin has been around in the cryptocurrency market much longer than most cryptocurrencies today; however, despite this, it has not gotten much attention until recently. In 2014, it was among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation, which is now changed due to the introduction of hundreds of new cryptocurrencies. Namecoin was abandoned by its creator which can be seen as a red flag by many. The project is currently being developed with the support from its community. The current team has been actively taking the project forward and also provides regular updates on social media channels.
Bitcore is a cryptocurrency that is a hybrid fork of Bitcoin. Although hard forks are heard of, a lot of people only know of Bitcoin hard forks such as Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold; instead, a few people know of Bitcore or hybrid forks. Using Bitcoin’s source code and technology, Bitcore created a new blockchain altogether; it made sure that the blockchain size is smaller, the scalability is better. Furthermore, block times are faster than Bitcoin’s while making mining ASIC resistant as well. Bitcore is not that different from Bitcoin as of now. In fact, it is rather inferior to Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies; it has no utility at the time of writing this. It’s only an investment prospect for those who believe the coin will kick on soon and reach great heights. The reason why one would want to invest in Bitcore is that of its unique practices. Bitcore created a new blockchain on November 2, 2017. It took a snapshot of the Bitcoin transaction and created 5 million transactions to fill all the public addresses belonging to people owning 0.01 BTC or more. The funding ratio is 0.5 BTX: 1.0 BTC, but if you had bitcoins at the time of the snapshot, then you can request your share of BTX at a 1:1 conversion until October 30. Bitcore is the first cryptocurrency to be a hybrid fork. But it is more than just a hybrid fork. It has tried to improve on Bitcoin and solve the issues that plague it. For instance, Bitcore uses timetravel10 consensus algorithm which is resistant to ASICs. This means that centralization of mining power is not possible as the playfield is levelled and everyone has an equal opportunity more or less. Moreover, Bitcore has 10 MB Segwit enabled blocks that make the network capable of handling 17.6 billion transactions a year or 48 million transactions per day. Bitcore is a cryptocurrency that has a lot of promise but nothing to show for as of now. Those investing in it believe that it will grow into a major force soon. But even after weekly airdrops, the user base is limited. Handling 46 million transactions per day won’t matter if there aren’t many people to use it. The development team’s efforts will go a long way into ensuring that more people start using BTX. A wallet that is on the way can help change things a little; however, Bitcore’s long-term future might depend on whether it can offer something different or not.