NFT.ai From 3 Figures to 6 Figures in Less Than a Year

Someone I trust shared a swath of private .ai domain name sales with me. Among them was the six figure sale of NFT.ai. The sale price is impressive, but the ROI was even more notable. I was told that NFT.ai was acquired in an expiry auction for $100 in August of 2020. It was reportedly resold earlier this month for $105,000. The domain name was bought via Namecheap. Paying $100 for a domain name and selling it for more than $100,000 less than a year later is an eye-watering flip.

I was also provided with a list of other .ai domain name sales closed by the same seller. I did not verify the sales, but I was told the domain names were brokered by Grit Brokerage. I reached out to Brian Harbin of Grit Brokerage to ask about these .ai domain name sales. “Over the past 9 months we’ve seen not only a significant uptick in interest in short brandable .ai domains, but also a large increase in offers and sale prices,” Brian told me. “We expect to see that trend to continue,” he said.

From my perspective, the typical end user buyer profile of .IO and .AI domain names is pretty similar. My observation has been that the .IO domain name aftermarket has been more active than the .AI domain name aftermarket. In fact, in the past 5 years, NameBio has recorded 5,563 .IO sales for a total value of $6.7 million and 4,387 .AI sales for a total value of $3.2 million. I presume the person who reported these sales to me will also report to NameBio, so those figures should increase.

For those who are unaware, .AI is the ccTLD for the country of Anguilla. One of the most common AI acronyms is for “artificial intelligence,” and I think that is one reason some types of .AI domain names have been in demand.

I don’t think I own a single .IO or .AI domain name, but it’s pretty interesting to see this sale report.

AI Sales Shared:
4/10/17 rich.ai $15,000.00
6/22/17 graph.ai $26,000.00
8/29/17 hybrid.ai $18,000.00
9/30/18 behind.io $2,950.00
5/9/19 tod.ai $5,000.00
7/8/19 lark.ai $25,866.00
5/17/20 digits.ai $17,500.00
5/19/20 dash.ai $9,500.00
5/21/20 reach.ai $22,243.25
5/29/20 sit.ai $12,000.00
6/5/20 spot.ai $19,765.35
6/26/20 lineup.ai $12,500.00
7/9/20 nps.ai $15,000.00
7/28/20 gai.ai $5,000.00
7/29/20 church.ai $5,000.00
8/9/20 rio.ai $6,521.00
8/13/20 pano.ai $12,000.00
8/19/20 techno.ai $10,000.00
8/20/20 pitch.ai $10,000.00
8/28/20 conserve.ai $7,500.00
9/8/20 orchestrator.ai $5,000.00
9/18/20 potion.ai $2,500.00
9/21/20 viki.ai $7,500.00
9/25/20 topaz.ai $12,000.00
10/4/20 payments.ai $25,000.00
10/5/20 huxley.ai $6,180.00
10/9/20 spark.ai $10,550.00
10/9/20 fr8.ai $7,000.00
11/2/20 stor.ai $6,000.00
11/11/20 leapfrog.ai $5,000.00
11/19/20 peggy.ai $1,500.00
11/30/20 reef.ai $10,240.00
12/8/20 blackdiamond.ai $900.00
12/15/20 rhino.ai $17,500.00
12/15/20 standout.ai $10,000.00
12/15/20 nile.ai $12,000.00
12/15/20 bharat.ai $9,488.00
12/17/20 pando.ai $9,488.00
12/21/20 account.ai $22,000.00
12/22/20 enzyme.ai $4,680.00
12/26/20 brainware.ai $810.00
12/28/20 forage.ai $3,750.00
1/6/21 bangladesh.ai $6,000.00
1/6/21 hits.ai $3,000.00
1/11/21 hired.ai $10,000.00
1/15/21 minutes.ai $11,888.00
2/5/21 signals.ai $10,000.00
2/8/21 joy.ai $8,840.00
2/8/21 heirloom.ai $3,600.00
2/22/21 mainstay.ai $20,000.00
2/24/21 nami.ai $6,750.00
3/1/21 hentai.ai $8,800.00
3/2/21 mahi.ai $5,000.00
3/22/21 supermodel.ai $34,488.00
3/31/21 archive.ai $14,000.00
4/6/21 weave.ai $20,000.00
4/6/21 nft.ai $105,000.00

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

7 COMMENTS

  1. My thought is on .ai is is to acquire and hold. Just like the good .coms that nobody cared about in the late 80s early 90s are worth a lot today, great .ais will be worth a lot in a few years. I personally prefer .ai over .io but startups seem to like .io I know holding costs are a pain but that may be part of the investment

    • This is a trend extension, in 10 years it will be some other technology and this will look dated,

      Make money right now!

    • NFT = non fungible token = a virtual digital thing that it being touted as an asset but doesn’t really exist, but is being hyped as very valuable and rare/unique.

  2. The expired AI auction sales each month fetch high prices on even mediocre keywords. I used to buy some for low xxxx up until 2019. But prices/bids for short premium key words have skyrocketed. Telecom.ai for sale at 150 K is too much for my budget. End-user, maybe.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Squadhelp Adds Escrow.com as a Payment Option

1
Squadhelp has added Escrow.com as a payment option for buyers. The addition of the Escrow.com option was shared by ARIYAS on X this morning: 👍...

Some Thoughts on .AI Domain Names

19
There is no question that .AI domain names have become a hot topic of late. With considerable amounts of venture funding flowing into AI...

Handoff to Dan on Imported Leads Can be Confusing

0
I've been using the lead import option at Dan.com more regularly. Although the 5% commission is not ideal, transactions tend to move more quickly...

ArtificialIntelligence.com Goes Up for Sale

11
I tried to buy the ArtificialIntelligence.com domain name multiple times over the last 10 years. The emails I sent to the registrant went unanswered,...

EU Gives More IP Protection to Food & Drink Producers

0
Did you know that some well-known food and drink varieties are protected intellectual property regulations? Popular types of drinks and foods that are protected...