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 $105,000.00
so now the dot com domains can command 1000 times the prices!!!
If dot whatever sold for 100$, then the dot com can sell for 100000$ or more
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!
Don’t get it…
nft.app also sold. If you don’t know what NFT’s are then you are behind the 8 ball.
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.
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.