A couple of years ago, the valuable MJ.com domain name was offered up in fractionalized shares on the Rally platform. People could buy shares of the domain name at a $950,000 market cap via Rally in the hopes the domain name would one day be sold profitably.

Apparently, that day has come. According to Andrew Rosener, who helped bring domain names to the Rally platform, people who invested in MJ.com at the start made a little more than 40% return on their investment. I understand that Andrew agreed to sell MJ.com for the $1.4 million price because over 70% of investors (not including Andrew) voted to sell.

Someone recently commented to me that the price of a domain name I own is so high that I will probably die with it and my kids will inherit it. The comment made me laugh – and that person made be right. His comment made me think about great .com domain names as generational assets.

Families have passed down valuable assets from one generation to the next forever. Real estate, artwork, jewelry, collectibles, metals, businesses, and many other asset classes can appreciate considerably over time. I think exceptional domain names, one-word .coms for example, can be considered in the same class of assets that can drive wealth for the next generation.

Atom.com recently enabled its Instant Domain Appraisal tool to show amounts above $1 million. Prior to the change, the maximum appraisal amount was shown as > $1 million. This is a neat change for some who hold 7 or 8 figure assets, but it’s a bit of a vanity feature since an automated appraisal on a domain name at that level is unlikely to have much bearing on its actual sale price.

I am unsure when Atom made the change to its appraisal tool to show figures above the $1 million mark. I was recently using the tool to evaluate a couple of acquisition targets, and it capped at $1 million. When I checked again yesterday, I noticed the change.

When I started my career 20+ years ago, I was a Project Manager at a direct marketing agency and then I became a Marketing Manager at an insurance company. When people asked what I did for work, those two jobs were pretty easy to explain to people.

People have a more difficult time understanding what I do as a domain investor. Oftentimes, when I tell someone out of the domain/tech bubble what I do for work, they don’t really understand. Sometimes, people don’t even know what a domain name is.

I received a suspicious looking email yesterday, and I want to share some details. The email subject was “Atom x Embrace.com,” and it came from an email address using a .CO domain name that does not appear to be associated with the Atom.com platform.

Within the email, it had the following messaging:

“I’m Will from Atom. We run a marketplace and naming platform with 400,000+ brandable domains, plus appraisal, brokerage, and naming services.”

I’ve been a proponent of offering buyers the option to lease-to-own (LTO) my domain names. The primary benefit of an LTO deal is that it enables a fledgling business to secure a domain name today while paying for it as the business grows. It’s a win win if the seller gets the desired price.

Despite a reasonably good track record with LTO deals, I’ve been opting against offering an LTO option for my highest value domain names.