On Saturday evening, Ammar Kubba shared a screenshot of his mobile phone home screen with an email notification from American Express Platinum showing a purchase of $18,888 at Park.io. In his tweet, Ammar asked people to guess what he just bought. What was most surprising to me wasn’t that Ammar spent nearly $20k on a .IO domain name, but that Ammar doesn’t use an AmEx Centurion card:
Guess what I just bought? #domains #domaininvesting #investing #amorfati pic.twitter.com/EmZ1Edo1KI
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
Lack of a Black card aside, people were able to guess that the domain name Ammar bought was XO.io. Domain investor Josh Schoen later asked Ammar if he could explain his thinking about spending nearly $20k for a .IO domain name as an investment. Being the good guy that he is, Ammar obliged, and I thought I would share his series of tweets discussing why he bought the domain name:
Yes, I agree, it’s A LOT to pay for a .io, and I was willing to go even higher 😉
Here’s my thought process, at a high level:— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
1. It’s a two-character domain name, which is rare in any extension.
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
2. It’s a .io, which is (depending on who you ask) the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th most desirable extension, and it’s the 2nd (and sometimes 1st) most desirable for crypto projects.
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
(Author’s note, #3 appears to have been deleted)
4. https://t.co/2uadhRlx66 is developed and will almost certainly never be available to purchase, BUT, if it ever did go up for sale, it would be worth at the very least $1MM and more likely $2.5MM+.
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
5. If we assume that https://t.co/2uadhRlx66 is worth at least $2.5MM+, then paying $20K is less than 1% (0.8%) of the value of the .com. Even if you think the .com is only worth $1MM, then $20K is just 2% of that.
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
At the end of the day, it’s a calculated risk. I’m confident that even if I don’t achieve my target return (which will include cash + equity), I still won’t lose money on the deal. My biggest risk is opportunity cost.
— Ammar Kubba (@AmmarKubba) March 31, 2019
I am not a .IO guy (perhaps to my detriment), but Ammar’s analysis of his acquisition is a great read.
There are a lot better ways to put $20k to work on domains right now and that’s on .COM.
Buy Ammar is a smart guy and probably has money to burn. So, why not.
But, he missed the .io and crypto frenzy boat though. Buying this domain 1 or 2 years ago would of been better timing IMO.
These extensions are not even registered with XO prefix and would of been cheaper investments with less risk:
xo.today $118.80
xo.services $79.20
xo.technology $79.20
and theres more.
So XO is not that rare of a 2 character domain name.
What is the renewal cost for .IO vs those?
I have seen far more .IO domain names being used – especially by funded (or funding pending) startups than any of those other extensions.
The purchase prices are renewal prices as well.
.io renewal is around $50 depending where you buy the domain at.
He paid an end-user price for the domain IMO. But you never know, he might be able to sell it for more. Good luck Ammar!
Besides the extensions that are purely targeted for their countries and regions( .de, ,eu, .asia, .uk/co.uk), which of the country code extensions that have been repurposed have the highest average domain sales in the aftermarket? .Me, .IO. .Ai, .IT. .CO?
Is there a link?
Per the xo.io purchase, I like Ammar’s reasoning — 2 letters, xo is common term. Wise investment. And I agree XO.com is worth 7 figures, so XO.io should be worth 2% or higher.
Looks like it’s .Me. The highest sales of these TLDs that can be found are:
meet.me
450,000 USD
2011-11-23
https://namebio.com/?s==EjNycTNwEjM
o.co
350,000 USD
2010-07-21
https://namebio.com/?s==cTNycTNwEjM
usa.tv
125,000 USD
2016-01-03
https://namebio.com/?s==UTNycTNwEjM
music.ai
101,500 USD
2018-01-14
https://namebio.com/?s==UjNycTNwEjM
like.it
75,900 USD
2014-04-09
https://namebio.com/?s==QjNycTNwEjM
lucky.io
67,000 USD
2018-09-28
https://namebio.com/?s==IjNycTNwEjM
w.to
53,000 USD
2012-05-09
https://namebio.com/?s==QTMzcTNwEjM
XO.company is taken as well
It might be hard to sell it to an end user because “XO” appears to be trademarked by the company at XO.com, which is owned by Verizon. I leased some servers from them 15-20 years ago, so they are a real company.
Thanks, Ethan
But I was more interested in the average aftermarket confirmed sale per extension.
I believe it may be either .io or .ai. I believe the average reported aftermarket sale for .me is about 2500 USD. .CO was higher, but it has declined.
Of course, .com is the king, by a large margin — not in average .com aftermarket sale, but when valuing domains (Date,com, Date.co, Date.ai, Date.me, Date.io) — although .io and .ai are better suited outside dating, and more suited for tech, so those really aren’t good examples. Robot.com is worth at least 50 X Robot.ai and Robot.io
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him carrying the black card. Bought me a meal at least once. Some people carry more than 1 card
I love the name, but he paid about 10x what I was willing to pay. He has a lot more experience than I, so I’m sure he will make his money back.