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There are a number of "alt coins" which appear legitimate, and are used by a wider community. This thread on the Bitcoin forums has a good overview, it also includes the less popular and dead crypto currencies: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0

I like the idea of PPcoin very much, being an ecologic alternative to Bitcoin. They still have mining, like Bitcoin and all other alts, and this will consume as much electricity. But when all coins are mined, the power needs will drop significantly. The creators devised a very clever way to record transactions in the block chain without the need to do all the calculations which are done when mining. Website, including the white paper with a detailed explanation: http://www.ppcoin.org/

Probably the oldest alt coin still in use today is Namecoin. It integrates a naming system in the block chain, effectively creating a decentralized alternative to DNS.

The most popular alt coin is Litecoin. By some it's called the silver to Bitcoin gold, as it provides faster transactions and more coins generated.

When that happens they should look into getting a .bit TLD, a potential solution to DNS cencorship: http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page

It's about time we started investing in the decentralized name server alternatives. .P2P fizzled because they couldn't figure out a decentralized distribution mechanism. Thankfully, Namecoin is at v3.5 and only requires adding a DNS resolver to the system.

Thanks for bringing those up, I had forgotten about them. I would have modded you up, but .bit and .p2p don't really solve the namespace problem, they just allow a different organisation (or none) to control DNS. Anyway, really cool. Here's a link to .bit, http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page . The .p2p site seems to be down.

Namecoin still uses money for registration, it just uses bitcoin currency. See: http://dot-bit.org/Namecoin

To register a name, you must own some namecoins (NMC, the internal cryptocurrency used by the software).

Forgot two more links:

http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page
https://mining.bitcoin.cz/

We are sick and tired of being threatened by our governments on behalf of failing business models (MAFIAA)

We want distributed DNS (like this: http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page)

(For non-techies: Think of DNS servers functioning like BitTorrent.)

You know, I keep hearing on Slashdot about the need for some kind of non-hierarchical peer-to-peer name resolution to replace DNS. What I haven't seen is a working proposal for such a system; the closest I've seen is Namecoin.

well... time to start using namecoins http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alternative-based-on-bitcoin.html

So get everyone to use http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page

Ofc being a wiki page someone has just ruined it but anyone who should know enough about torrents should also have it in their locker to get dot bit running and then by using piratebay.bit they'll never have to worry about this sort of rubbish again. (check our previous revisions for all the information)

The alternatives are either remembering a static IP address (which could change at a moments notice) or use an alternative DNS root which has its own worse problems.

The distributed name resolution system you described already exists: Namecoin

Namecoin is one option, decentralized so that it can not be shut down. Namecoin is an addition to DNS and can be added to a regular linux nameserver. http://dot-bit.org/

Namecoin is a piece of that puzzle. http://dot-bit.org/

NameCoin is a non-centralized, peer-to-peer DNS using the .bit TLD. It cannot be confiscated unless the entire p2p DNS network is shut down.

There are an unlimited number of domains. They expire 12,000 blocks after the last renewal (so you have to continue spending resources to maintain a name, just like you have to keep paying money to maintain a .com), but there can be multiple renewals per block.

You can check over here to see recent transactions (of which there are usually several per block): http://explorer.dot-bit.org/

I'll second doublec on namecoins. It's a slick system of holding name information in a blockchain that cannot be stripped and shutdown by a simple will of authority. Come check it out at http://dot-bit.org/ and on FreeNode IRC #namecoin.

Let's get this idea out so that it gets implemented and leads to the decentralization of the DNS process...

An approach that is currently in development is Namecoin. It's a decentralized DNS approach based on Bitcoin. Names are registered and stored in the namecoin blockchain. More information is available at the dot-bit project website. Currently the software is there for registering and looking up names. What's needed is easier to use software like browser plugins and DNS proxies that lookup via namecoin. Some of this is in progress like the proxy, DNS and whois capability provided by namecoin.us.