BITCOIN PROTOCOL used to assign and manage unique names : this is NAMECOIN

Namecoin (sign: ℕ; code: NMC) is an alternative distributed Domain Name System (DNS) on the basis of Bitcoin software. Namecoin could avoid domain namecensorship by making a new top level domain outside of ICANN control, and in turn, make internet censorship much more difficult, as well as reduce downages.

Like Bitcoin, Namecoin is a peer-to-peer system, which, assuming an honest majority of participants, can not be controlled by a single state or a company.

Changes to the namespace of the rightful owner of a domain with a public key signature are distributed to all peer-to-peer users. The inclusion in the block chain, as the everlasting logfile is used, verifies that the transactions are authentic. The block chain grows whenever new transactions are added by any of the participants.

Through a fairly intense proof-of-work process, a matching result of a cryptographic hash function is found that may be verified by all other participants. Due to the computational effort, it is impractical for a counterfeit blockchain to be created.

Currently, the top-level domain .bit used in the official domain name system is not awarded. To resolve domain name you need either the current block chain or use a public name server that participates in the Namecoin system. Namecoin uses a separate block of Bitcoin chain. The software is open source and is hosted on GitHub.

As a cryptocurrency, Namecoin price is going up... and down... and up :)

Source : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Namecoin

BITCOIN PROTOCOL could be used for voting & democracy ?

The BITCOIN PROTOCOL can be used for various things. Let's see how it could be used for creating an independant democratic voting system, controlled by the people... and a blockchain.

Basically, each person would register an address with proof of citizenship to a central authority. The central authority issues 2 different colored coins, 1 for yes, 1 for no. Each person votes by sending the coin that they want back to the central authority. If you want to let someone vote for you, you send both coins to the person you trust.

Since it's a public ledger and each address needs the private key to vote, the votes are guaranteed to be legit.

The only problem, however, is that you'll now know who voted for what. Look up any person's public key and you'll see in the public ledger (blockchain) what they voted. It's a little hard to tell if it's a YES vote or NO vote, but can be figured out by tracing the payments back.

This doesn't necessarily have to be just a government. You can do something similar for any large entity that requires a democracy.



Sources :http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1q4nws/online_votingliquid_democracy_using/