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Namecheap Auctions from $400 —> $10

I’ve been bidding on and following Namecheap expiry auctions for .AI and .IO domain names. Most auctions have a standard starting bid of $15 plus the renewal fee. There are some that have $5 or $10 minimum bids, but most seem to be $15.

One thing I noticed is that some auctions have a starting bid of $400 with standard renewal prices. I believe these higher bid amounts are set by the registry operator, Identity Digital, and they impact certain names the registry identifies as “premium,” or some other designation they choose.

Spaceship Hits 5 Million DUM

Spaceship announced a big milestone this morning. The registrar now has more than 5 million domain names under management (DUM). This metric is used to compare the size of a domain registrar, and it can also be used to show growth. In fact, the company highlighted that it only took two months to go from 4 to 5 million DUM:

AWS Outage Causing Afternic Landing Page Issues

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There’s a major AWS outage that is causing problems for websites and web-based services around the world. GoDaddy is one of those businesses that is impacted by the outage, I learned this afternoon.

When I visited one of my Afternic-listed domain names that resolves to a GoDaddy landing page, the incorrect landing page was shown. Instead of the newer “custom” landing page with BIN, Make Offer, and Lease to Own options shown, the older BIN landing page was displayed. This particular landing page doesn’t include camel casing.

Keep Tabs on That Domain Name: Lesson from deBridge

deBridge is a “cross-chain interoperability and liquidity transfer protocol” startup that has operated on the deBridge.Finance domain name. As one might have imagined, the company pined for its brand matching deBridge.com domain name, but it did not have any luck trying to acquire it – or even receiving a reply to its inquiries and offers.

That changed this past Spring when the company was able to acquire deBridge.com in an expiry auction on NameJet. The company acquired deBridge for $50,999. In a long post on X, deBridge Co-Founder Alex Smirnov detailed the efforts he went through to try and acquire the domain name, and he shared how the domain name was ultimately acquired.

DomainNames.com: GoDaddy’s “Ultra Premium Domains” Marketplace

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A couple of weeks ago, Afternic hinted that it would soon be launching a new domain name marketplace on the ultra generic DomainNames.com domain name. The launch was today, and the DomainNames.com platform marketplace was introduced for the first time:

At a quick glance, the marketplace appears to be stocked with some top quality inventory from the start. Domain names like Harmony.com, Natural.com, FL.com, Invitation.com, Encourage.com, Bankroll.com, and others are exceptional and must be in high demand. Each listing has its own logo, and there is an informational landing page with some suggested uses for each domain name.

Tracking Outbound Interest via Atom

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Yesterday, I thought I would try something a bit different. I did some outbound marketing to attempt to sell a .AI domain name I have listed for sale via Atom.com. In the pitch, the call to action was directing prospective buyers to the Atom landing page:

“You can visit [Redacted].ai to see the purchase price and payment options.”