The .bit pTLD has already been copied by various actors , the new site dotbit.org is just a mirror of the already known did.id. Another actor is btc.us, the successor of OneName, which used the Namecoin chain as a backend from 2014-2017. They headed over to Bitcoin afterwards, using the OP_RETURN data field in dummy transactions, because Namecoin's mining power was relying on Discus Fish (F2pool) for more than 50%. Indeed, this was a problem some time as one can see in the statistics. Anyway, they can use whatever handle for their ID services, it won't affect Namecoin, as they have completely their own infrastructure.

I recently introduced 38 new Namespaces, including 13 IDNs, and wouldn't be focused to much on one single TLD anyway:



Above you see the Namecoin DNS Resolver in HTTPS mode. For an attractive blockchain DNS / Web3 ID service, a project of course needs more than just a single TLD. I don't care about collisions with Unstoppable Domains etc. as they were not really interested in discussions about that, besides they have their own "ecosystem" which doesn't affect Namecoin in any way. Every user can always decide which browser add-on to install and activate. About the claims for the .bit TLD from did.id, they won't succeed anyway. Whatever they do, the .bit TLD will most likely always be reserved for Namecoin within the ICANN namespace. At least, if it's actually used - what will be the case once I released the new add-ons for the public (soon). So far Namecoin has only gotten attention from the NFT community, which unfortunately doesn't have the slightest interest in Namecoin's DNS functionality. But at least the NFT community is highly interested in using the .bit TLD as a Web3 ID for their Twitter/Discord/Telegram display name etc, which is why I finally adapted this requests in the new specifications.