Domain Investing News, Strategy & Tips

Dan.com Holding Up LTO Payouts

GoDaddy

Elliot Silver

July 28, 2023

On July 13th, Afternic announced it would begin allowing sellers to implement a Lease to Own (LTO) offer for domain names. This meant buyers shopping for domain names on GoDaddy or GoDaddy’s network would be able to purchase a domain name using monthly installments. This was an expected update following GoDaddy’s acquisition of Dan.com, a platform that pioneered the automated domain name LTO sales.

In conjunction with the Afternic news shared on the 13th, Dan.com also shared some platform and product updates. Update #9 is one I completely overlooked but could have some negative consequences to some sellers who rely on monthly LTO payments to fund business activities. This update covers payments, and apparently, payout timing.

Namecheap

Elliot Silver

July 28, 2023

This morning, Namecheap published its Domain Insights & Trends Report for the first half of 2023. It is a look at domain name trends and insights highlighted by the company, which is the second largest domain registrar in the world. Because of the size and reach of Namecheap, this report gives a good overview of the domain name market from the perspective of a large retail registrar.

Some of the topics in the report, highlighted in the accompanying press release, include the following:

Domain Sales

Elliot Silver

July 28, 2023

Last week, Tim Hargis shared with me Brett Farmiloe’s LinkedIn thread announcing that his company rebranded from Terkel to Featured. The company moved from the Terkel.io domain name to Featured.com. The upgrade was added to the list of companies that upgraded domain names, published on Embrace.com.

This morning, I was emailed a press release from Gerard Michael of DNPost.com. In it, he announced that he sold the Featured.com domain name. The sale price, which is subject to a non-disclosure agreement, is reportedly “in the mid six-figure range.” In addition, “an equity position in Terkel/Featured.com” was also reportedly included in the deal.

Although I did not seek to verify the veracity of this press release, because of the NDA, the sale price will not be recorded publicly on domain name sales charts.

The press release I received is below:

Domain Registrars
Namecheap

Elliot Silver

July 26, 2023

Spaceship.com is a domain registrar launched by Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall. The website, which was seeking beta testers last November, launched in beta a few months ago. According to its Founder, the registrar is growing pretty quickly with more than 100,000 domain names under management (DUM):

After just a few months in open beta, Spaceship .com has now surpassed 100,000 domains under management. More than 25% of those are transfers in from other registrars. One small step…..

— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) July 25, 2023

Sedo

Elliot Silver

July 25, 2023

According to a LinkedIn post from Sedo’s Sr. Broker Dave Evanson, the SolarEnergy.com domain name was sold via Sedo for $175,000:

GoDaddy
Legal News

Elliot Silver

July 25, 2023

A week ago, I shared how I am cautious with offering a Lease to Own option on some of my domain names. I do not want to put my valuable domain names at risk by allowing buyers to pay for them over a long period of time while potentially putting them at risk.

With GoDaddy now offering LTO to some buyers and a roll-out to all buyers expected soon, IP attorney John Berryhill shared some commentary on Twitter regarding the risks for sellers based on the GoDaddy LTO Terms of Service (TOS):

1...100101102...1,535 Page 101 of 1,535

Pan-Mass Challenge

Looking to Buy One Word .coms

Efty

Domain Capital

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DomainInvesting.com

Dan.com Holding Up LTO Payouts

Namecheap Shares Insight and Trend Report for 1st Half of 2023

Featured.com Reportedly Acquired for Mid-Six Figures + Equity

Spaceship Now Has 100k DUM

SolarEnergy.com Sold for $175,000 via Sedo

John Berryhill Highlights Risks in GoDaddy LTO TOS

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