During the last several months, I've noticed quite a few "coin" domain names selling at various aftermarket venues like Sedo, GoDaddy, Afternic, and NameJet. Most of the names that appear to be selling seem to be of the brandable variety rather than exact match keyword domains.  I think a big reason for this is that most of the primary keyword .com names are already owned by end users.

The reason that the best exact match keyword domain names are owned by end users already is likely because Bitcoin and other crypto coin currencies have become popular during the last few years, and the domain names weren't picked up by many speculators. In addition, because of the growth trajectory of Bitcoin, major players in the space had more money to spend to acquire aftermarket coin domain names (see BitcoinWallet.com and Bitcoins.com links below for more details about those domain names).

Some examples of exact match Bitcoin and other coin related domain names that are (or appear to be) owned by end users are listed below. Many of these → Read More

Arguably one of the most popular topics of 2013 was the emergence and growing popularity of bitcoins. Thousands of publications have covered all aspects of bitcoins, and you can see the jump in popularity in bitcoins in this Google Trends chart.

A website was recently launched on  Bitcoins.com, and I did a bit of research to see if I could contact the original registrant of the domain name.  I was able to get in touch with the original registrant, a native of Argentina  who asked that I not publish his name for privacy reasons, and he was kind enough to share his story about the domain name . Bitcoins.com is now owned by Tibanne Co. Ltd., the company that operates the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange.

"Back in 1998 (dot.coms) I created a Business Plan for a new kind of (more…) → Read More

There has been considerable news about bitcoins and the rising value of bitcoins. There was an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and other publications have written extensively about bitcoins. You can search Google News and see hundreds of mainstream articles about bitcoins and bitcoin values.

I know a few people who have been involved with bitcoins and bitcoin mining, but I haven't gotten involved yet (as you can see from the QR code I added with 0 BTC). I've considered putting a few domain names up for sale in exchange for bitcoins, but I still have a number of questions about them before being willing to accept bitcoins for valuable domain names. Volatility is an issue for me; I wouldn't want to sell a domain name for $10k worth of bitcoin and see the value drop 30% before I collect the funds. I assume some buyers would have the same issue, too.

Namecheap is one domain registrar that accepts bitcoins for payment. This proved to be a smart move for the company, as the value of a bitcoin has increased → Read More