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Escrow.com: 2025 Master of Domains

Escrow.com announced the winners of its 2025 Master of Domains awards. The awards are typically given out during NamesCon, but the conference isn’t being held until November. The Master of Domains award is given to the 10 highest grossing domain brokers measured by the size of the deals they closed via Escrow.com during the prior year.

Andrew Rosener won this year’s award for the seventh consecutive year. He and his brokerage, Media Options, have been on the list for nine consecutive years. This is an impressive achievement.

Notably, if you look at the top domain name sales of the year in DNJournal and NameBio, many of these brokers are under represented. This illustrates just how many undisclosed large domain name deals are closed each year.

Congratulations to these award winners.

Odyssey.com is Braden Pollock’s Largest Domain Name Sale

Andrew Miller from Hilco Digital Assets announced that his company oversaw the sale of Odyssey.com on behalf of Braden Pollock. According to the LinkedIn post, it is Braden’s largest domain name sale.

Commenting on the sale, Braden praised Andrew for helping to make the deal happen. “Andrew had to be creative to get this deal done. In the end it was a win-win,” he told me.

$50k .AI Sale is Now Just Noteworthy

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Tim Hargis alerted me to a LinkedIn post by Kushal Byatnal announcing that his company, Extend, had acquired the Extend.ai domain name for $50,000. The company had been using Extend.app, but it chose to spend mid-five figures to acquire the .ai domain name. You can see the rationale in the LinkedIn post:

Instead of covering this acquisition with a standalone article, I opted to post about it on X. I think this domain name sale was noteworthy, particularly because the Founder shared insight about the domain name and its importance to the company rather than simply sharing the acquisition price.

How I Choose LTO Length

I’ve been a big fan of lease to own deals for quite some time. Before Dan.com existed, I had several LTO deals, but they required quite a bit of legal review and discussion with the counterparties. Dan.com made the LTO process quicker and easier, although I believe the seller takes on more risk without a customized purchase agreement. Afternic has continued Dan’s efforts, allowing for quick and easy LTO transactions.

I have LTO enabled for most of my inventory quality domain names listed for sale on Afternic. The LTO length varies based on a few important factors that I want to share below.

Kickstart Acquires Kickstart.com

Rob Schutz, who made an Ask Me Anything appearance with the ICA yesterday, announced the Kickstart.com domain name was acquired by a company called Kickstart. Prior to the acquisition, Kickstart had been using KickstartFund.com, and that domain name now forwards to the brand matching Kickstart.com.

In Rob’s post, he mentioned that he worked with Andrew Rosener on the sale. Rob’s Snagged.com represented the buyer, but he was unable to share the sale price with me when I asked.

Although the acquisition price was not revealed, it looks like it held a $499,000 price tag on GoDaddy. The listing was still active this morning, so the former owner should have that listing removed. In looking at Archive.org, the Kickstart.com domain name has been priced around that level since at least 2020.

Acquiring Kickstart.com was a wise move for Kickstart. In fact, there is hardly ever a time that acquiring a brand matching .com domain name isn’t a great decision for a business that has the funds to do so.

I added Kickstart to the list of companies that upgraded its domain name. Perhaps the acquisition price will be shared at some point.

Instacart was Buyer of Fizz.com

A little over a month ago, I noticed the Fizz.com domain name appeared to have changed hands. Fizz.com, which had been owned by Digimedia, transferred from Tucows to Amazon’s domain registrar with Whois privacy enabled. I noticed this with the help of the Nameserver Monitor tool at DomainTools:

Recent Posts

Escrow.com: 2025 Master of Domains

0
Escrow.com announced the winners of its 2025 Master of Domains awards. The awards are typically given out during NamesCon, but the conference isn't being...

Odyssey.com is Braden Pollock’s Largest Domain Name Sale

0
Andrew Miller from Hilco Digital Assets announced that his company oversaw the sale of Odyssey.com on behalf of Braden Pollock. According to the LinkedIn...

$50k .AI Sale is Now Just Noteworthy

3
Tim Hargis alerted me to a LinkedIn post by Kushal Byatnal announcing that his company, Extend, had acquired the Extend.ai domain name for $50,000....

How I Choose LTO Length

2
I've been a big fan of lease to own deals for quite some time. Before Dan.com existed, I had several LTO deals, but they...

Kickstart Acquires Kickstart.com

1
Rob Schutz, who made an Ask Me Anything appearance with the ICA yesterday, announced the Kickstart.com domain name was acquired by a company called...