PIR Comments on Potential .Org Price Increases

Elliot Silver
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5

One of the hottest topics in the domain industry has been the proposed sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR), operator of the .org registry. A $1.135 billion deal had been in place for Ethos Capital, a private equity company, to acquire PIR from the Internet Society. At the end of April, ICANN withheld consent on approving the change of control. As a result, PIR will not be sold to Ethos Capital. PIR has further indicated that the company is not for sale, and that PIR will continue to operate the .org extension as it has done for many years.

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Your Most Ridiculous Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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14

There’s a popular thread on Twitter started by Eve Porcello asking people to share their most ridiculous domain name. Not only are there some funny domain names that were shared, but there are also some pretty good domain names that were listed by people who responded to Eve’s tweet:

Let’s kick off the week on a fun note by sharing the most ridiculous domain name in your portfolio. Mine is probably HappyEnding.com. How about yours?

My Observations This Week

Elliot Silver
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27

I maintain a relatively small domain name portfolio with approximately 1,000 domain names. Nearly all of my company’s domain names are available for sale, and I would guesstimate that somewhere between 85-90% of the domain names are considered general, nothing special, inventory. I am also regularly buying domain names in auctions and in private, although this has slowed a bit this year.

With the coronavirus seemingly slowing the domain aftermarket, I want to share a few observations of my own from the last week. I want to emphasize that my portfolio is relatively small compared to many other full-time investors, so I don’t think my observations are necessarily reflective of the general state of the aftermarket.

In the last week, I have closed 5 sales:

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What Are You Doing About Leases and Payment Plans?

Elliot Silver
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6

As things continue to develop, the unemployment rate will likely increase, making it difficult for people to pay critical bills like mortgage payments. While domain name lease payments and domain name payment plans are probably not considered “critical bills,” I think people will find deal partners asking to restructure payment plans or asking to put them on hold. People may also opt to forego lease payments or payment plan payments. I am interested in knowing how domain investors will respond.

The way I see it, domain investors who have ongoing leases or payment plans will have three options if the counter party can not pay on time or asks for some sort of lease forgiveness:

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Rob Monster: “a worldwide bull run on domains has started”

Elliot Silver
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28

In a Twitter thread started this morning, Epik CEO Rob Monster said, “I am increasingly certain that a worldwide bull run on domains has started. What is driving this?” I certainly hope Rob is onto something here because that would come as good news to domain investors, but that is not really what I have been seeing right now.

For the past few weeks, I would say that inquiries have been fairly steady, but most are lowball offers for high value domain names. This is not much of a difference from how things normally are, but there has been a bit of an absence of offers on the average inventory that makes up the bulk of my portfolio. My business regularly goes through ups and downs, so I am accustomed to going for a bit of time without substantial deals, but I am not really identifying this as the start of a bull market. Of course, my portfolio is relatively small, so I may not have as good of a view of the market as others.

Here’s the tweet thread from Rob. I would also welcome your observations and thoughts about the current state of the domain name aftermarket:

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COVID19.com Forwarding to World Health Organization Website

Elliot Silver
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2

Domain investors often get a bad rap during various emergencies and tragedies. Sometimes the criticism is warranted when speculation on tragedy-related domain names is distasteful to many. There are always going to be journalists who look at speculative domain registrations as a way to show examples of people attempting to profit from domain names. Even when domain speculation is not done by domain investors, these types of articles portray the business of domain investing in a poor light.

When it comes to the COVID 19 coronavirus outbreak, this is no different. There have been quite a few articles written about related domain names, with a particular focus on scams and schemes involving domain names that are associated with the ongoing, worldwide pandemic.

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