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.
PolySwarm in 60 Seconds. Polyswarm is a decentralized threat intelligence market made possible by Ethereum smart contracts and blockchain technology. Polyswarm incentivizes rapid innovation in the $8.5B/yr anti-virus and automated cyber threat intelligence space with precise economic incentives that reward timely and accurate threat intelligence concerning the malintent of files, network traffic and URLs. PolySwarm defines a real-time threat detection ecosystem involving enterprises, consumers, vendors and geographically-diverse security experts. Experts develop and hone competing “micro-engines” that autonomously investigate the latest threats, attempting to outperform their competition. PolySwarm’s “Proof of Work” is threat detection accuracy: the market rewards experts who are best able to defend enterprises and end users. Relative to today’s ad hoc market, PolySwarm will lower the barier to entry, provide broader coverage options, discourage duplicative effort and ensure interoperability among products and threat intelligence feeds. Economically, PolySwarm functions as a skill-required twist on a prediction market2 with thousands of micro-engines (“workers”) investigating the latest in malware evolution at machine speed - no human in the loop. PolySwarm will be developed by Swarm Technologies, Inc. (“Swarm Technologies”) with funding derived from the sale of ERC20-compatible Nectar (“NCT”) utility tokens. As a utility token, PolySwarm economically disincentivizes Nectar speculation by rewarding honest market participation through the collection and distribution of Fees (details on page 6) to valueadding, active participants.