Namecheap

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall announced that he is looking for early beta testers for the company’s under development “registrar and digital product platform” known as Spaceship. Beta testers should be people who already own domain names and are looking to register more. They should be also willing to provide feedback about their experience using the platform:

Looking for some early beta testers for the new https://t.co/qcBPOYEcFU registrar and digital product platform. Will be limited for now. Prefer people with at least a few domains and that are looking to register more and share feedback. Slide into my DMs if you fit the profile.

— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) November 23, 2022

Richard followed this tweet by telling potential beta testers that they will be able to register domain names at cost for the time being:

Namecheap has a large presence in Ukraine, and many of its employees work in offices around the country. A look at Namecheap’s job opening page gives an idea of the breadth of the company’s footprint in Ukraine.

Over the weekend, Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall spoke out about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

War is always a terrible thing, it’s even worse when many of our own team members are on the ground. Our company stands firmly against Russian aggression and war crimes being committed against the people of Ukraine. Insuring the safety of our colleagues is our number one priority

— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) February 26, 2022

In a press release distributed this morning, Namecheap unveiled its domain name marketplace platform for users to buy and sell domain names. In addition, Namecheap will also auction its expiry stream of domain names instead of sending expired domain name to GoDaddy Auctions. The marketplace quietly launched a few weeks ago, and there are now over 300,000 active listings.

From what I can tell, it looks like Namecheap customers can list their Namecheap-registered domain names for sale with a buy it now price or send them to auction. In addition, there’s a section called “Closeout Auctions,” and those appear to be expired domain names that are registered at Namecheap.