Stephanie,

I got onto this track because of questions about the Bitcoin as a viable 
fiat/digital currency (which is a whole other question) but the deeper I 
dug and the more I listened to the research groups dealing with the 
blockchain technology the more it looks like there is something in 
blockchain for the domain name/WhoIS area that could apply to both 
registration and the payments issues, and the bigger part is with regard 
to registering and transferring ownership.  As for the payments issue, 
there are a zillion variations of Bitcoin in the works: BitGold, BitOil, 
and probably bigger moves to BitUS$, BitEuro, etc. There are Bitcoin 
researchers and blockchain researchers and I am searching to see if any 
of the latter have looked at the domain name registration issues. I see 
that Andrew Adams has provided a link to some thought in this area. From 
a technical perspective there may be something there. From a business 
perspective I can see why ICANN, registries, and registrars would not be 
too keen on exploring solutions using blockchain technology.

Sam

On 2015-06-11 2:13 PM, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
> So does this mean that the proposal we had for anonymous domain 
> registration (in the Experts Working Group report on WHOIS 
> replacement) is more doable, at least with respect to solving the 
> anonymous payment issue?  There still has to be a proxy WHOIS entry, 
> which I presume still requires a separate track.
> Stephanie Perrin
>
> On 2015-06-11 13:41, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
>> Sam,
>>
>> There is a fork of the bitcoin blockchain specifically designed with 
>> this in
>> mind:
>>
>> https://namecoin.info/
>>
>>
>> There has been also some academic work on using blockchain for domain 
>> name
>> concepts. See:
>>
>> Providing better confidentiality and authentication on the Internet 
>> using
>> Namecoin and MinimaLT
>> Frederic Jacobs
>> http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6453
>>
>>
>> Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications
>> April 2015
>> Difficulty control for blockchain-based consensus systems
>> Daniel Kraft
>> http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12083-015-0347-x
>>
>>

-- 

*--------------------------------------------*
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Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar)
Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3
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