To date, the largest ICO (initial coin offering) in terms of funding raised is a company that operates on a new gTLD domain name. A company called Block.One, which utilizes a .One domain name, raised over $4 billion in its ICO, according to an article in CNBC:

A Cayman Islands start-up has raised $4 billion, eclipsing the world's biggest initial public offerings on stock exchanges this year. But its flagship product is not even live yet. https://t.co/QUpQMbIhtq

— CNBC (@CNBC) June 1, 2018

The .XYZ Registry will be celebrating its fourth anniversary by offering two deals on renewals and registrations of .XYZ domain names. The offers will run from May 30 - June 30, 2018. I was told that 30 domain registrars have signed up to offer special promotions to customers, and the Registry is anticipating that other registrars will sign up shortly. Some of the participating domain registrars include Name.com, Namecheap, Uniregistry, Alibaba, and Chengdu West.

Here are the two special offers (suggested by the registry but may differ at each registrar):

• $6.99 for 1-year .xyz renewals


• $6.99 for 2-year registrations (total cost)

A startup using a .Finance domain name has raised an $8.2 million round of funding from some of the leading venture capital firms, according to TechCrunch. Compound Labs, which can be found by visiting Compound.Finance, was founded in 2017. The VC firms that reportedly invested in Compound include Coinbase's venture fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, and Bain Capital Ventures. .Finance is a new gTLD domain name extension operated by Donuts.

I think this news is notable for two reasons.

The lack of a .com domain name did not stop the company from getting this large funding round. It would seem that owning the matching Compound.com domain name was not deemed critical to its launch. Assuming a deal to acquire the domain name has not been reached, it would seem that the startup is cool with proceeding sans the matching .com domain name. Having a major funding round publicly announced can make the matching .com domain name more expensive. For what its worth, DomainIQ values it at $156,000.

The company is branded as → Read More

Google has repeatedly stated that new gTLD domain names do not receive any type of boost over .com domain names or domain names with other extensions. In a 2016 Google Hangout that Barry Schwartz hosted with Google's John Mueller, it was stated that the keywords in the new domain extensions do not count for ranking purposes (Google supposedly ignores them).

Despite Google's repeated reminders of this, people still seem to speculate that the opposite could be true, and that the new gTLD extensions could have a positive impact in search.

Google recently launched the .App domain name extension to much fanfare. As of yesterday, the company has sold over 210,000 .App domain names, as reported by Google engineer Ben McIlwain on Twitter last night. Without a doubt, this is one of the most successful launches for a new domain name extension.

Since the launch, I have seen (more…) → Read More

According to a press release from the .Club registry, Namecheap is now offering a financing option for customers to buy select new gTLD domain names that have premium pricing. The domain names that are eligible for the financing option (called Namecheap Easy Payments) are a part of the Names.Club program.

Registry participants include the .Club registry, MMX, and GMO. In light of the MMX acquisition of the ICM Registry, I would imagine those extensions may be included once the deal closes. When customers use Namecheap to find a domain name to buy, it will have a "Finance" button if the domain name is a part of the Namecheap Easy Payments program.

I had a look at the Names.Club website and saw the Games.Shop domain name listed for sale for $61,000. A buyer could pay $12,200 down and finance the balance at $813.33/month for 5 years. There is apparently no interest charged for this financing option.

I think this is a smart idea for (more…) → Read More

The .NYC registry (operated by Neustar) organized a sale of travel and tourism related .NYC domain names. A domain name auction concluded on Sedo yesterday. This was the culmination of a campaign to generate publicity about .NYC domain names focused on the travel sector.

I was only aware of the Sedo auction, but there was more to the campaign than the auction. Here is a bit more background about the campaign shared with me by Neustar:

"Our campaign initiatives focused on a headlining auction with several high value premium domain names in the .nyc namespace, as well as an additional set of “buy now” travel and tourism-inspired premium domain names available directly through registrars. Having both the auction and buy now premium domain names available created significant demand and interest in the .nyc namepace."