Namecoin (NMC) on AltQuick

Namecoin is the first altcoin, launched in April 2011 as a Bitcoin fork for decentralized names.

Namecoin stores key/value names — flagship use is the .bit TLD — on its own SHA-256 chain with a 21 million cap and ten-minute blocks. Merged mining with Bitcoin (AuxPoW, from block 19200 / October 2011) lets BTC miners secure NMC at no extra hash. NMC pays for name_new / name_update, not just speculation. It was also an early answer to Zooko's triangle: secure, decentralized, human-meaningful names. We list NMC because the first fork still deserves a Bitcoin book.