Com Laude Hosting DotBrand Webinar with ICANN’s Andee Hill

Elliot Silver
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2

The second application round for new gTLD applications seems to be gearing up. ICANN has slowly been releasing new information about applying for a TLD in the 2nd round of applications. According to ICANN’s website, the next round of applications is expected to commence in April of 2026.

I couldn’t even take a guess at how many new TLD strings will be applied for, but I suspect a good portion of them will be brand-related TLDs. Some brands that weren’t created when the first round of applications started in 2012 as well as those that may have missed out will likely have an interest in applying for a brand matching TLD.

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Namecheap CEO on Registry Price Increases

Elliot Silver
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2

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall has always spoken his mind freely. The other day, I replied to someone who asked about why domain registries raise their fees. I think it’s pretty clear that they raise their fees because they can and because the want to increase their revenue.

Richard’s response to this was better than mine:

Richard has a good point. Once a user is using a domain name, it can be very expensive, risky, and time consuming to switch domain names. Most won’t do it over the inconvenience of a renewal fee increase.

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.Bet Domain Name Acquired for 5 Figures, Reportedly Resold for $600k

Elliot Silver
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10

According to a tweet from Identity Digital (formerly Donuts), the Bet.bet domain name reportedly sold for $600,000. I have not verified or researched the veracity of the sale report, but it was indexed in NameBio today.

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Dropping my One Premium Fee .XYZ

Elliot Silver
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17

I currently own fewer than 30 .XYZ domain names. I acquired most of them via Afternic, Dan, or in auctions on Namecheap. With the exception of Embrace.xyz, I am pretty sure I paid less than $500/each for the domain names I bought.

One important aspect to my acquisition strategy was to acquire domain names that did not have a premium renewal fee. Not only do I not want to pay hundreds of dollars a year (or more) to renew a domain name, I did not want to have to explain the premium renewal fee to prospective buyers. I’ve always felt this was a deterrent.

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Can You Get to the End of Endless.Horse

Elliot Silver
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2

I saw something amusing that Twitter highlighted for me today that I want to share because of its domain name relevance. This has probably gone around before, but I don’t remember hearing anything about it.

If you visit Endless.Horse, which may be the only .horse domain name I have ever visited, you will see a nearly endless horse. If you can scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll find a surprise.

Here’s a video of someone scrolling to the end of Endless.horse for those without the patience.

Mega.xyz Buyer Opts Out of LTO

Elliot Silver
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16

Lease to Own deals have become quite popular at Dan.com. The buyer can pay for a domain name monthly over a set period of time while Dan.com holds the domain name. If the buyer opts out of the LTO deal, the seller will receive the domain name back and can keep all of the funds paid, minus the monthly commission fee.

Domain Gang and DNW recently reported on the $129k LTO sale of Mega.xyz. As Theo reported, the five year lease to own plan had a total value of $167,000 had all payments been made. When the LTO deal was struck, the seller, domain industry veteran Kellie Peterson, posted on LinkedIn about this LTO deal and prior experience with .XYZ domain names.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a tweet from Domainler.com asking if the sale had been cancelled because Mega.xyz was now resolving to a Dan.com “for sale” landing page:

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