If not for DNS (domain name systems), very few people would be able to visit Cointelegraph.com. They'd have to know that our server's IP address is something like

Needless to say, readership of Cointelegraph would probably never reach “mass adoption.”

Netki is a company that's betting that domain names will do for Bitcoin what they did for the Internet. But instead of visiting websites, you'd be visiting someone's wallet.

For about US$20 (bitcoin accepted), Netki will register your wallet addresses to a traditional ICANN-served domain (.com, .org, .net, etc.). For a much smaller fee (US$2), they'll register a Namecoin domain (.bit).

Don't want to trust Netki to register for you? It seems they counted on that. Founder Justin Newton writes:

“The Wallet Name Service is in no way exclusive to Netki. Anyone who follows the formats published on our developer and Github pages can register and serve Wallet Names themselves from their Internet connection at home.”

The open-source Netki software also supports HD (hierarchical deterministic) wallets, so you don't have to receive payments at the same address every time.

Newton continues:

“It was important to us when we designed this service to ensure that we met the overlapping goals of protecting user privacy, creating a solution that was resistant to censorship, and making bitcoin easy to use.”

The Netki software currently supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Namecoin, Open Assets Protocol, and Tether payments.

Netki is hoping that businesses will use their free software, too:

“[Our] Partner API allows companies to auto-register users under their own custom name space (e.g. username.company.com), providing partners with significant advantages in terms of end-user ease of use.”