Domain Sales

Another leading AI company acquired its brand matching .com domain name. This time, it is Grok.com, which was acquired by xAI for its Grok chatbot. The acquisition was first reported and shared on X late in the day yesterday:

💬 Looks like Grok․com now has been acquired by xAi (Elon Musk).

⏩ Domain forwards to x․ai pic.twitter.com/p49Mu3CLEU

— ARIYAS (@domainretail) December 23, 2024

Whois records are currently “redacted for privacy.” However, an historic Whois record from DomainTools show the domain name was briefly registered to xAI at GoDaddy in early December:

Yesterday afternoon, Atom.com released its updated automated domain name appraisal tool. The tool is free to use and offers some insight into its value – as best as an automated appraisal tool may be able to do that. The company published a blog post to set expectations for the tool and how it can be used.

I spent a bit of time inputting my better domain names into the appraisal tool to see how it appraises higher value domain names. Although some of the appraisals were a bit light, some of them were higher than I expected. Perhaps I should raise some of their asking prices in alignment with the appraisal!

In addition to numeric values, the appraisal tool also highlighted some of the factors that contributed to the appraisal. The extension, number of alternative extensions registered, and number of developed domain names matching the keyword were all referenced. In addition, the tool provides some AI-generated guidance about what types of businesses would be a good fit for the domain name and what industries could make sense.

I have spent more money on non-.com domain names this year than ever before. My perspective is that startups are using them as less expensive alternatives to .com domain names, and the number of companies operating on non-.com domain names continues to grow. This, in my view, has led to more aftermarket sales of non-.com domain names – and for higher prices. That’s why I have been spending more money to opportunistically acquire some non .coms in expiry auctions.

This morning, Atom.com CEO Darpan Munjal shared a couple of graphics detailing the sales distribution of non-.com TLDs on Atom.com from the last three years. Although he did not share actual data, the illustration shows what domain name extensions are the most popular sellers on Atom over the last few years:

Atom.com is promoting a Black Friday sale with a prominent header banner on its home page. Atom CEO Darpan Munjal shared some insight and answered some questions about the sale:

I spent many years in retail, where Black Friday was more than just discounts—it was about creating excitement and connecting with customers.

This year, we are testing that concept in domains and the early response has been🔥. Excited to see how the rest of the week plays out

— Darpan (@darpanmunjal) November 26, 2024

This afternoon, Joshua Schoen reported the $199,995 sale of Fluid.io. The domain name was sold at his BIN price via Afternic, according to a screenshot of the sale email he shared on X:

I woke up to a great email this morning stating that https://t.co/hunpBobiWv sold at my BIN price of $199,995. I’ve had many big .io sales but this one tops them all! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/eHzgQG9WYx

— Joshua Schoen (@jstenn13) November 26, 2024

In looking at NameBio, this is the second largest .IO domain name sale reported publicly. Mint.io is the largest sale at $230,000. That domain name sold in 2021 via Park.io. There are several other .IO domain names that were sold in the low six figure range, according to NameBio. Once Ron Jackson records the sale in DNJournal, it will be just outside of the top 25 publicly reported domain name sales year to date.

Since the domain name was just sold, it is unclear who acquired it.

Congratulations to Josh on an exceptional sale. It’s nice to close a deal like this on a holiday week in the US that tends to be pretty quiet.

Notably, Josh also appears to own Fluid.com, as that domain name forwards to his LinkedIn profile.