Great+Chain+of+Numbers+A+Guide+to+Smart+Contracts,+Smart+Property+and+Trustless+Asset+Management+-+Tim+Swanson

Economists and legal experts have suggested that Bitcoin is not a real “thing” with some pointing out
that, in some jurisdictions, cryptocurrency is currently beyond proprietary classification. 15 I note below,
they would be correct: it is nothing more than a virtual ledger entry. Yet, despite this level of
abstraction, there are those who find utility in subjectively valuing its scarcity relative to other assets,
namely, fiat currencies. Whether your neighbor or your favorite blogger values it the same way as you is
not fundamentally important in the long run. 16 Ultimately what matters is, what additional units of
utility both the token and the protocol could provide for you or others. Furthermore, if physical
manifestations of value were all that mattered, then all of the abstractions humans use on a daily basis –
from signing documents that represent contractual obligations and financial instruments, to swiping a
credit card that sends electrons to a payment processor – would simply be a futile exercise in mental
gymnastics. 17
Altcoins
If you are new to the cryptocurrency world, you may have arrived through a variety of paths, including
the altcoin world. An altcoin means “alternate coin” – which commonly means any cryptocoin or
cryptoledger that is not Bitcoin. Sometimes an altcoin is an exact replica of the Bitcoin codebase: in
other instances, it is drastically modified.
Namecoin is widely considered to have been the first altcoin. Namecoin is designed to act as a
decentralized DNS system that makes domain name censorship difficult, if not impossible. 18 It was
created in 2010 as a modified version of Bitcoin, and in 2011 the mining of namecoins (after block
19,200) was effectively merged with Bitcoin through a software update (e.g., pools had to use a new
software release). 1920
While Namecoin provides DNS functionality, it can also be utilized as a messaging system, torrent
tracker, and even a notary (which other cryptocurrencies can do as well). While it is uncertain that any
or all of the altcoins or the ongoing “2.0” (next-generation) projects described below will ever be
successful in accomplishing their goals, these potentially new innovations, like Namecoin before them,
show that cryptoledgers can be integrated to provide rich functionality beyond the current token system.
This is not to say that the cryptocurrency community has uniformly embraced disruptive change: far
from it. Like all inclusive groups, there are varying amounts of elitism, rigidity, and openness throughout.
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