In 2018, the Crypto.com domain name was reportedly acquired for $12 million. Perhaps because the sale price was never confirmed, it was not added to the DNJournal sales archive for 2018, where it would have ranked at the top of the chart. Since that time, Crypto.com has become a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrency with “a mission to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency.”

It appears that Crypto.com is looking to turn itself into a well-known, mainstream cryptocurrency brand. I’ve noticed a big increase in television for Crypto.com over the last several weeks. Yesterday, it was announced that Crypto.com purchased the naming rights for the Los Angeles, California arena that has been known as the Staples Center since its opening in 1999:

Every once in a while, someone asks domain investors if there is a tool that would be helpful if it existed. I think it would be helpful if there was a domain name price monitoring tool. The tool would allow investors to keep a list of domain names listed for sale on Sedo, Afternic, Dan…etc. and notify them if the price hit a level they set or below. Investors could also have the option of being notified if a domain name gets listed for sale on a marketplace.

There are many names I see listed for sale on marketplaces that are priced above what I would pay for them. They are names I would love to add to my portfolio, but even the minimum offer is above what I would be willing to pay so I can’t express interest or make an offer at all. Domain name sellers may adjust prices from time to time, and unless I happen to come across the name around the same time, I will end up missing out on the opportunity.

Albert Schimmel, Owner and Founder of BuyMyName.com (and formerly of Sedo), shared a comic on LinkedIn that resonated with me. “A domain name is like a joke… if you have to explain it, it’s not that good”

You can see the comic on Albert’s LinkedIn page:

People don’t seem to understand that domain investing is a business, and domain investors run their businesses to make money. In the last handful of days, I was asked if I would be willing to ‘let [a domain name] go’ for offers that were not even close to what I paid to buy them.

In both instances, the prospective buyers were hopeful startup founders. Both of these offers, if you can call them that, involved two different one word .com domain names that have substantial liquid value.

According to data from Betalist, as shared by Marc Köhlbrugge on Twitter, .com usage amongst early stage startups has been on the decline. The data that was shared shows .com usage was 78% ten years ago and it has declined to 56% most recently:

📉 .com usage amongst early stage startups has declined from 78% to 56% in the last 10 years

source: @betalist pic.twitter.com/XXpwvRJP0G

— marckohlbrugge.eth (@marckohlbrugge) October 10, 2021

In subsequent tweets in the thread above, Marc shared some other interesting domain name related data from Betalist that you can have a look at as well.

You’ve probably heard the news that Facebook has been down for most of the day. Instagram, too. For those people who operate businesses exclusively on those social media websites, today was a very bad day. While Facebook appears to be slowly returning online, one LinkedIn post caught my eye.

I think Avishai Abrahami, CEO & Co-Founder at Wix.com, said it best – “Today is a good day to have a website.”