It looks like one of the most valuable domain names has changed hands. Diamond.com recently had a registrant change, and it appears as if the domain name was sold. In 2006, Diamond.com reportedly sold for $7.5 million. According to NameBio, the $7.5 million sale is the eight largest public domain name sale of all time.
Prior to the recent Whois change approximately a week ago, the domain name had been owned by a Montreal-based company. It appears to be the same entity that has owned it since the sale in 2006. The domain name is now registered to a different entity located in Toronto called Gonumerical Ltd.
When you visit Diamond.com, you can see a very limited “coming soon” page, so it is not clear how the domain name will be used going forward. I did a Google search to learn more about Gonumerical Ltd., and I found a press release about a recent funding round. Perhaps Diamond.com will be used for something related to cryptocurrency. Interestingly, it appears that company does business as CoinSquare, and it looks like the CEO is someone named Cole Diamond.
In 2016, I reported that Diamond.com was listed for sale via GoDaddy. At that time, the domain name had a minimum bid of $1 million. I am pretty sure the domain name was not sold via GoDaddy.
I reached out to the current registrant and the former registrant seeking comment, but neither replied to my email. As a result, it is not clear if the domain name was sold or if something else is going on with the domain name. If I hear anything from either party, I will be sure to provide an update.
Thanks to Andrea Paladini for letting me know about the registrant change.
CoinSquare.io is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Canada. Seems like there is good money in these exchanges, Coinbase took in over $1 billion in fees in 2017. If crypto heats up again this year many of the existing and new companies in the space will be flush, and some looking for domains. As for Coinbase, seems there are more investors wanting to finance them but they don’t need it!
Should add, one of the arguments for domains is that there are always new companies and new industries coming along that need domains. Crypto is a great example of this, something that barely existed 5 or 10 years ago.
Yes, I can confirm Diamond.com was sold for 7 figures USD, all cash upfront transaction. 🙂
Congrats to buyer and seller!
Given the smallish size of the funding round and the fact that the valuation on the company isnÂ’t huge it seems this name has likely sold at a pretty steep loss.
I am actually able to confirm this is a good domain.