So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?