The Lowdown

Welcome to the 
The Lowdown from 
DN Journal - your source for notable news and information from all corners of the global domain name industry! 

The Lowdown is compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher 
Ron Jackson.

Bot.ai Brings $1.2 Million in Record-Breaking Sale at Sedo as AI Boom Continues to Send Domain Prices Into the Stratosphere 

Over the past 25 years we've seen prices paid for highly desirable domain names move steadily but incrementally upward. However, what we are seeing now - in the wake of the artificial intelligence boom - is something we've never witnessed before. The recently announced $70 million sale of AI.com didn't just surpass the previous mark for a publicly reported sale by a healthy margin (even five or ten million would have been remarkable)  it obliterated the previous mark of $30 million paid for Voice.com, more than doubling it in a single $40 million leap. 

Now comes word today from Sedo that they have sold Bot.ai for $1,200,000 in the first publicly reported 7-figure sale of a .ai 

Image from Bigstock

domain name on record. Again,  the old mark, set just five months ago when Wisdom.ai sold for $750,000), wasn't eclipsed by a hundred thousand or two (or even three) - it raised the bar by 60% in one fell swoop. If this is what is happening with the few high end sales that get publicly reported, it boggles the mind to think what might by happening overall at the highest level of the marketplace where non disclosure agreements are included in most sales contracts. 

Another amazing aspect of the Bot.ai sale is that it was a Buy It Now purchase. The buyer, who as of this writing has not been identified, saw the Sedo listing and didn't give the price - or negotiating in hopes of a better deal - a second thought. The mindset was obviously we had better grab this before someone else does. Time will tell how good the investment was but it is a truly great domain and industry history is filled with people who have regrets about passing up an opportunity to buygreat domains at the prices they used to be.  

The Bot.ai news is also another life is stranger than fiction chapter in the story of Anguilla's .ai country code TLD. For that tiny Caribbean nation, the good fortune to have been assigned those two letters back in 1995 (when artificial intelligence was relegated to science fiction) has exceeded anything they could have dreamed of. Many experts expect that half of the Anguilla government's total revenue this year will come from .ai registrations and renewals. As for the aftermarket, we've already seen .ai leap over all other TLDs except .com in terms of high end sales. Where we are in the .ai arc remains to be seen. Some think a return to earth is inevitable, but whatever happens, it will have been one of the most unique chapters ever written in domain industry history.

We will be adding the Bot.ai sale to our sales charts when our next bi-weekly domain sales report is released Wednesday evening, March 4th.

(Posted February 24. 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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The Stage is Set for the Debut Edition of Domain Summit Africa February 23 & 24 in Nairobi

We've always described the domain industry as a global business because a domain name and hosting account allows you to connect with people all over the world ( and do it at a cost that is amazingly affordable). While most of that business connectivity has been in the virtual world, a remarkable and constantly growing array of in-person conferences is turning  the industry into a face-to-face business on a global scale. The latest evidence of that is Africa's first major commerce-oriented domain conference, Domain Summit Africa 2026, that is coming to Nairobi, Kenya next week. 

The event, that we first told you about last summer, will be staged Monday & Tuesday (February 23 & 24) at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel. For those who wondered if a first time event in a new market could draw a crowd, that question was answered earlier this week when conference Founder Helmuts Meskonis announced tickets had sold out.

(Posted February 20, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Ryan Colby Reimagines Domain Industry Events with Upcoming AI-Themed Domain2Demo Hackathon Featuring Cash Prizes and a Social Focus

The domain industry is blessed to have many great events around the world that give investors, developers and service providers a chance to get out from behind their computer screens and meet face to face. Those gatherings provide opportunities to create new relationships and business connections (and strengthen existing ones) that can be invaluable on both the professional and personal levels for years to come. In most cases those take the form of conferences like last month's Internet Commerce Association Annual Member Meeting in Las Vegas and the annual NamesCon Global conference, the most recent of which was held in Miami in November. However, something new is on the horizon now - an innovative approach incorporating the AI revolution that is being engineered by domain industry veteran Ryan Colby. 

Ryan, who entered this business in 2010 as a Senior Sales Consultant at Sedo, moved on to creating well-organized tech events that have drawn as many as 4,000 attendees and 200 exhibitors. His new baby, the first Domain2Demo event coming up April 25-26 at Dogpatch Studios in San Francisco is a unique domain-first hackathon where teams draft premium domains, build AI-powered products, and ship clickable demos in a single weekend. Powered by a vibe-coding technology leader, Lovable, and modern AI tooling, builders go from domain to MVP 

Ryan Colby
CEO &  Founder
Domain2Demo

(Minimum Viable Product) to live pitch in just 36 hours. Running along side the Domain2Demo competition will be a Builder's Summit with rotating tech talks and curated networking for founders, domain owners, and investors exploring agentic AI, domains, and the future of digital real estate. Ryan has already rounded up an all-start list of speakers with many more to be added in the weeks ahead. That group includes super broker Larry Fischer, who just closed the all-time record $70 million domain sale of AI.com (representing the seller), as well as industry pioneer and RightOfTheDot.com Founder Monte Cahn who will also be there to run an AI-themed ROTD live domain auction.

While Domain2Demo is different from the traditional domain conference format we've come to know and love, it is also different from most hackathons. Ryan noted, "Most hackathons start with an idea. We start with a domain. Draft one, build fast, and demo for cash prizes with $10,000 going to the winner, $5,000 to second place and $2,000 to third. Domain owners will love this as we are going to bring a lot of media attention to domains in the heart of Silicon Valley. The venue is right down the street from OpenAI in Mission Bay. Over 250 names have already been submitted for the competition and we expect over 500 attendees. It will be a curated social experience including off-site VIP networking and private dinners."

Registration is open now and you can get all of the details by visiting the Domain2Demo website. 

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Industry Expert Jeanette Eriksson Delivers Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Next Round of New TLDs in a Series of Articles You Won't Want to Miss

With ICANN about to open the door for hundreds of new TLDs this year there is a hunger among potential new domain registry operators, registrants and service providers for information on how they can best take advantage of the new opportunities this will present. I've just read some of the most insightful writing I've seen anywhere on this topic in a series of three articles that industry veteran Jeanette Eriksson has written on behalf of Fairwinds for the prestigious World Trademark Review (WTR). In addition to having worked in this field for the past 17 years, Jeanette is the author of two books about the domain name system, domain name law and domain name strategies that have been published internationally. 

Her WTR articles were initially published behind that publication's paywall but now you can read the first two at no charge (WTR subscribers can read the third one now with a a public release expected to follow). If you want to get fully up to speed on the next round here's the Lowdown on the where you can read the first two: 

Jeanette Eriksson
Online Brand Protection and Domain Industry Consultant & Advisor

Jeanette posted article #1 in the series on her Linkedin page. Titled "How industry shifts, emerging threats and new opportunities are reshaping online brand protection" it features background from Jeanette and commentary she assembled from major industry figures who will be key players in the next round, including, to name just a few, Jeff Neuman (JJN Solutions), Todd Han (Dyandot), Robbie Birkner (OpusDNS), Ben Crawford (MarklMonitor), Lars Steffen and Thomas Rickert (eco - Association of the Internet Industry).

The graphic below notes some of the key components that have to be 
considered with the roll out of hundreds of new TLDs.

:

Jeanette's second article dives into another big question that corporations have to consider now - To Apply or Not to Apply for a dotBrand in 2026? It can be read by all at World Trademark Review. In this article, Jeanette draws on insights from industry veterans and  examines the strategic benefits of owning a branded TLD, the psychological barriers that can derail decision-making, lessons learned from the previous application round, and the cross-functional preparation required to make this rare opportunity count.

The third and final article - From strategy to execution: the cornerstones of modern online brand protection - is available to WTR subscribers (who are getting more than their money's worth from this series alone) and will, as we noted, likely go into general release as well. If you read the first two articles, I'm sure you are looking forward to the rest of the story!

(Posted February 13, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Verisign Reports Domain Registrations Surged to Nearly 387 Million Worldwide in 4Q-2025 With .Coms, ccTLDs & New gTLDs All Contributing to Record High

VeriSign, (the administrator of the .com and .net TLDs) has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) covering the 4th quarter of 2025. This update showed the total number of domain registrations across all TLDs worldwide ended the year at 386.9 million. That is a surge of 22.7 million domains compared to the same point a year earlier - a very strong 6.2% jump year-over-year.

.Com, the dominant TLD on the Internet, accounted for 161 million of those global registrations. That is a 4.7 million gain from a year earlier, representing a 3% rise. .Net remained unchanged from the previous quarter as 12.5 million but that is a dip of
about 200,000 .nets since the end of 4Q-2024.

The ccTLDs ended 4Q-2025 with 145.6 million domains registered. That is up 4.8 million YOY for a growth rate of 3.4%. 

The new gTLDs, working from a smaller base, continued to show the highest rate of growth in percentage terms. They ended 4Q-2025 with 47.8 million registrations, up 11 million from a year ago, representing a 29.9% leap in the last year. 5 million of those were added in the fourth quarter alone, indicating growth in that group was accelerating,

Verisign also has a category they call "other legacy TLDs" which are extensions that existed prior 2012, with almost all of those being .org (~ 11 million), .info (~ 5 million) or .biz (~ 4 million). Verisign reported total registrations for the group stood at 20 million at the end of 4Q-2025, up 2.4 million (a healthy 13.7%) year over year.

 There is much more interesting data you can review in the full brief here. 

(Posted February 11, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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AI.com Sold for $70 Million in Biggest Domain Name Sale Ever Recorded - Owners of Crypto.com Bought the Name for New Business Launching With Super Bowl Ad

It was widely-known that the AI.com domain name was sold last spring to an unknown buyer for an undisclosed price. Most experts assumed it would have taken an all-time record price to get the name and we now know that was indeed the case. The Financial Times, who was given an exclusive to break the story, has revealed the buyer - the owners of Crypto.com - paid an eye-popping $70 million to acquire the domain. That price is more than double the previous record price of $30 million paid for Voice.com in 2019.

Larry Fischer, who was profiled in our April 2025 Cover Story, brokered the landmark sale on behalf of the seller who originally bought 

Image from Bigstock

it because his own initials were A.I. - not because of any future connection it might have to artificial intelligence.

On Friday (Feb. 6), Kris Marszalek, the co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, announced his company was the buyer and would be officially launching a new business on the site with a Super Bowl commercial Sunday evening (Feb. 8) during the Seattle vs. New England championship game.

Marszalek said AI.com will offer be an Autonomous AI agent offering for consumers, saying " With a few clicks, anyone can now generate a private, personal AI agent that doesn't just answer questions, but actually operates on the user's behalf - organizing work, sending messages, executing actions across apps, building projects, and more. The key differentiating feature is the agent's ability to autonomously build out missing features and capabilities to complete real-world tasks. Such improvements will subsequently be shared across millions of agents on the network, massively increasing the utility of each agent for ai.com users."

Marszalek built Crypto.com from the ground up to become one of the largest global crypto platforms in the world with over 150 million retail users, the industry's leader in licenses, registrations and certifications, and the world's leading USD-supporting crypto exchange. With AI.com, Marszalek is working to mainstream AI agents and AGI in the same way he led mass consumer adoption of cryptocurrency. Marszalek will lead both AI.com and Crypto.com as CEO. 

We will be charting the AI.com sale and adding it to our YTD Top Domains Sales Chart with the release of our next bi-weekly domain sales report on Wednesday evening, February 18. The 

(Posted February 6, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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DomainSherpa Turns the Table on Ron Jackson Who Has to Answer Questions Instead of Ask Them

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of connecting with MediaOptions Founder & Chairman Andrew Rosener and CEO Jonathan Tenenbaum who also serves as the Host and Producer of DomainSherpa, the company's media and educational arm. Since being founded by Michael Cyger 15 years ago this month (February 2011), then acquired by MediaOptions in 2017, DomainSherpa's informative and entertaining series of video podcasts has turned it into an invaluable industry institution. 

As long-time friends, I'm happy to hang out with Andrew and JT anytime the occasion arises but the latest get together had a special purpose - recording the latest episode of DomainSherpa that dropped last night.

MediaOptions Founder Andrew Rosener
 (left) and MediaOptions CEO/DomainSherpa 
Host & Producer Jonathan Tenenbaum (JT).

I'm used to being the one that asks the questions but Andrew turned the tables  on me with this invitation. I think it was to get even with me for grilling him for 3 hours on a 2023 Zoom call asking the questions that produced one of our most widely-read cover stories ever - Andrew Rosener's Amazing Ride From Historic New England to Domain Sales Nirvana.

Further evidence that retribution was his primary goal came when JT began the discussion by noting it was a DomainSherpa Short (a series of briefer interviews with one person as opposed to Sherpa's usual panel discussion format). An hour and 20 minutes later the "short" was still going on with Andrew smiling way too much along the way (JT was clearly in on it too).

Clockwise from top left, JT, Andrew and Ron

I tried to avoid the inquisition by starting with an absurdly long monologue, assuming that if they couldn't get a word in edgewise, I would have fewer embarrassing questions to answer. In the end that tactic failed because even I got tired of listening to myself ramble! From that point on we covered a lot of interesting ground regarding how far the industry has come and where we're  headed now.

That is also the topic of our new 2026 State of the Industry Cover Story that features 29 experts from every corner of the industry, notably including JT himself (read his insightful comments here). I have Andrew in it most years too, but for some reason he insists on spending some of his time selling domain names rather than taking 3-hour calls from me. Go figure! However, in that way, I guess I've played a role in keeping his mind on business, so you could say I'm partly responsible for him being the world's #1 broker on the Escrow.com platform for an unprecedented 7 years in a row! 

Near the end of the new Sherpa episode I did manage to restore the natural order of things by asking Drew a question. He has built a world class domain portfolio of his own over the years and acquired enough capital to look into diversifying into other assets as well. So, I wanted to know what assets had he found that would be a better investment than domains at this point in time? His detailed answer to that topic and explanation of "the compression of value" was undoubtedly the highlight of the episode and something no one should miss (feel free to fast forward past the guy in the black shirt to get to the good stuff)! You can enjoy the new DomainSherpa episode here - and a big thank you to Andrew and JT for the always enlightening conversation!

(Posted February 6, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Saw.com Founder Jeffrey Gabriel Cuts to the Chase on .Com vs .AI and How a New Breed of Buyers is Changing the Sales Game in a State of the Industry EXTRA!

As I mentioned in my previous post Friday, we've gotten some bonus commentary from interviews conducted for our 2026 State of the Industry Cover Story that was published last week. Since since then we've completed missed connections with three industry leaders that we invited to be part of our 22nd annual panel of experts. So, we are sharing their comments in a short series of State of the Industry EXTRAs! The kind of high level insight they can provide is invaluable -  as we saw in the commentary from Team Internet CEO Michael Riedl that we shared Friday - and you'll see again in today's comments from Saw.com Founder & CEO Jeffrey Gabriel.

We've followed Jeff's career since he entered the industry with Sedo in 2009 and have always been been able to count on him to cut through the noise and deliver sound advice. Ten years ago this month, we profiled him in a DNJournal Cover Story titled Jeff Gabriel's Journey From Small Town Boy to World Record Breaking Domain Broker. In December 2019 we flew up to New England to meet with him and break the news about the launch of Saw.com. Today, we are happy to share more insight from a true master of the game.

Jeffrey M. Gabriel, founder and CEO of Saw.com, is a domain industry veteran with over 15 years of experience and over $550 million in completed transactions. Known for high-profile deals like the Guinness World Record-breaking sale of Sex.com for $13 million, the top .ORG sale of Poker.org for $1 million, and the recent sales of Diamond.com, AI.com, Media.com, Data.ai and countless others. Previously, he held key roles at Uniregistry, Igloo.com, and Sedo. An active industry expert, Jeffrey has contributed to Forbes and is a member of the Internet Commerce Association, frequently sharing insights on domain acquisition, sales, and strategy.

Jeffrey M. Gabriel

As the CEO of Saw.com, Domain Brokerage and Marketplace, I have the opportunity to see trends from two different angles…That of what our domain investor customers are buying, selling, and adding to the marketplace, what buyers are predominantly inquiring about, and what buyers who have hired us to purchase domains on their behalf are wanting. I can say with conviction that one word .COMs are still the most sought-after. It is made clear by the consistent offers they receive, further supported by the size of the sales they support. There is a dark horse that has been sneaking in over the past few years, and that is dot AI. We are finding ourselves in situations where our clients prefer the .AI over the .COM even when the price of .AI is MORE than the .COM. Does this signal a shift? I do not think so, I think it is a trend. When AI becomes something that all businesses employ, it will change. 

Despite other industries and businesses slowing, we have not seen a slowdown in opportunities, sales volume, or average sale price. Unless there is a major economic downturn, I do not see it slowing in 2026. We, as a company, respond to this by doing what we have always done: education. History repeats itself. We have seen different extensions of varying popularity come and go, as well as different types of domains and spellings. On our seller side, we provide as much data as possible so they can make the right choices to maximize their business returns. 

Jeff Gabriel hosting a popular Guru Table at the 2026 Internet Commerce 
Association Annual Member Meeting in Las Vegas January 16th.

 I think buyers in general are a lot more sophisticated than they were a number of years ago. When money could be borrowed very cheaply and was flowing out of VCs, buyers would reach for the stars to get the budget to buy that domain name. Now it is not that way. VCs are now asking about profits rather than growth and hiring. Buyers seem to be a lot more concerned about ROI, the board, the business, and are very quick to make a hard and fast line in the sand. If that number cannot be made to work, they will have no trouble walking away, and either not purchasing anything or immediately leaving .COM. In general, companies are not necessarily married to Com or AI either, and feel at certain points it becomes physically irresponsible to spend over X amount and they will just decide to do nothing. 

On the other hand, many sellers have had it good for many years, and the expectations for the value of their names seem high; in other cases, the motivation to sell is not there, or they do not believe the final offer is the true final offer. Trying to balance a more frugal group of buyers with sellers that think their domains are rising sharply in value is challenging at times, and difficult to find a meeting of the minds to make sales work. So far, 2026 has kicked off to be one of our best years, and hopefully, if you are reading this, your year has as well.   Let’s make it our best! Giddyup! 

(Posted February 2, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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State of the Industry EXTRA! Team Internet CEO Michael Riedl Revisits a Monumental 2025 and Predicts a Pivotal 2026 

One of the situations that sparked this idea was getting an email from Team Internet Group CEO Michael Riedl yesterday. Michael knew the SOTI deadline had passed but since I had asked for his thoughts he still took the time when it opened to answer them. In addition to striking me as being very considerate (which would not surprise anyone who knows Michael) the content also struck me as commentary everyone else would like to read too, so here we go! 

Michael Riedl is CEO of Team Internet Group PLC, operating global platforms in domains, digital identity, and performance-based online marketing. Guided by the belief that “Everything begins with a name,” he is focused on the next evolution of naming and customer acquisition at the intersection of domains, AI agents, and emerging digital identity models.

2025 was a defining year for the domain industry because it showed how domains are evolving from simple web addresses into core digital infrastructure. One of the most visible developments was the continued surge in demand for AI-related domains. This was especially clear in .ai, but also in premium keyword .com names tied to automation and next-generation software. The aftermarket remained resilient, and strong digital real estate continued to attract entrepreneurs and long-term investors. 

At the same time, domains are increasingly being viewed as  part of a broader identity and  trust layer. Corporate clients are putting more focus on security, abuse prevention, portfolio governance, and brand protection. The credibility of the namespace is becoming more important every year. Another important trend was the rise of new transactional use cases. Crypto payments became more mainstream in cross-border commerce and digital services. As adoption grows, naming becomes more valuable as a human-friendly interface for payments and identity.  

Michael Riedl
CEO, Team Internet Group

We also saw domains increasingly used as wallet proxies. These systems make blockchain addresses readable and consumer-friendly. They are still complementary to DNS, but they reinforce a key direction of travel. Naming is expanding beyond navigation into ownership and value transfer. 2025 also continued the professionalization of the industry. Scale, compliance readiness, and operational excellence are becoming the real differentiators. At Team Internet Group, we focused on strengthening our platform, investing in recurring customer relationships, and positioning domains as trusted digital infrastructure for the long term.

Michael Riedl in a recent interview conducted by Soeren von Varchmin

2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for the domain industry, driven by namespace expansion, platform evolution, and new models of digital identity. The biggest structural event ahead is the next new gTLD round. The upcoming expansion will happen in a very different environment than the last one. Brands are more sophisticated, governments are more engaged, and digital sovereignty has become a strategic issue. The opportunity is to create meaningful new categories and global diversity. The challenge is to do so while preserving trust and avoiding unnecessary complexity. 

At the same time, the industry will keep moving toward domains as a service, not domains as a standalone product. Customers increasingly expect domains bundled with security, verification, productivity tools, and corporate-grade portfolio management. Operators will differentiate through software platforms, not commodity registration alone. Crypto-native commerce is also likely to accelerate. As crypto payments become easier and more regulated, domains may serve as identity anchors in transactional ecosystems. Wallet naming, merchant routing, and digital credentialing are early examples of this shift. 

AI will remain a dominant force, and 2026 may be the year AI agents break through at scale. Businesses and consumers will interact with automated agents that search, recommend, transact, and manage workflows on their behalf. This will increase the importance of trusted naming, authentication, and persistent digital identifiers. We also expect voice-based navigation through AI assistants to accelerate. In a conversational internet, memorable and trusted names become even more valuable, not only typed, but spoken. Blockchain naming will continue to develop alongside DNS. DNS will remain the global standard, but parallel systems may influence expectations around portability and identity ownership. 

For our business, 2026 is about building on our scaled platform across domains, identity and software, expanding corporate services, and preparing strategically for the next namespace expansion cycle. The domain industry has always been durable. The next year will be defined by how we evolve from naming the web to naming the next era of digital identity, commerce, and agent-driven navigation.

(Posted January 30, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Editor's Note: We are back from the 2026 Internet Commerce Association Annual Member Meeting that was held at the Park MGM Hotel in Las Vegas January 15-17. Our complete start to finish review has now been published and you can read all about it here. 

View of the Park MGM Hotel in Las Vegas taken on opening day of the 2026 
Internet Commerce Association Annual Member Meeting held there January 15-17.  Photo taken from the Hard Rock Cafe directly across from the Park MGM on the Las Vegas Strip.

(Posted January 19, 2026)

Seven-Figure Sale of Midnight.com Gets New Year Off to a Great Start for Sedo's Mark Ghoriafi - "Mr. Premium" Added Another Six Figures for C4.com 

Sedo Outbound Premium Broker Mark Ghoriafi, AKA "Mr. Premium", earned his nickname with a long string of high end domain sales in recent years. Mark's extraordinary marketing skills have played a major role his uncanny ability to make one big splash after another. The latest example of that being a $1,150,000 sale of Midnight.com that he just closed. Talk about starting a new year on the right foot! As if that weren't enough, Mark was also able to confirm he has closed another deal for C4.com at $265,000 (a record-breaking price for a 2-character L/N .com domain). For most people, those two sales would add up to a great year by themselves, yet he booked them before we could even get through the first week on 2026.

Image from Bigstock

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Verisign Reports Total Domain Registrations Worldwide Reached Over 378 Million at the End of 3Q-2025, Leaping by More Than 16 Million From a Year Ago 

VeriSign, (the administrator of the .com and .net TLDs) has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) covering the 3rd quarter of 2025. This update showed the total number of domain registrations across all TLDs worldwide ended the most recent quarter at 378.5 million. That is up a healthy 16.2 million from a year earlier, representing a 4.5% year-over-year increase.

.Com, the dominant TLD on the Internet, continued to bounce back from what had been a slow decline in total registrations earlier in the year. At the end of the 3rd quarter .com regs stood at 159.4 million, an increase of 1.5 million from the end of the previous quarter and 2.7 million from the same point a year ago. .Net however continued in the opposite direction, slipping to 12.5 million registrations at the end of 3Q-2025, down about 400,000 registrations year over year.

The ccTLDs ended 3Q-2025 with 144.8 million domains registered. That is up 4.8 million from last year, giving them a YOY growth rate of 3.4%.

The new gTLDs, working from a smaller base, continued to show the highest rate of growth in percentage terms. They ended the last quarter with 42.9 million registrations, up 7.4 million from a year ago, representing a tidy 21.0% leap in the last year. There is much more interesting data you can review in the full brief. 

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The Internet Commerce Association's Invaluable Role Underscored By Joint UDRP Review With WIPO

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has announced that they've completed a collaborative review of the UDRP with the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center (WIPO Center). The UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy) is ICANN's framework for settling domain name disputes. With such valuable assets at stake, it is vitally important to have the fairest possible policy in place.

Toward that end, a series of consultations with industry leaders, legal experts, and stakeholders was conducted with the goal of identifying best practices, establishing areas of consensus, and pinpointing potential improvements to the policy. The project team, coordinated by Zak Muscovitch (General Counsel to the ICA) and Brian Beckham (WIPO) team, called on experts and UDRP stakeholders from around the world.

The Final Report (PDF file) is now being shared, including submission to ICANN for consideration in any future UDRP review undertaken by its Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). By clearly identifying where stakeholder agreement and disagreement lie, this independent report is expected to significantly benefit and streamline ICANN’s official review process, ensuring any future changes are well-informed and reflective of community input.

If this piques your interest in the ICA and you are in this profession, the non-profit organization that fights to protect domain owner's rights would certainly welcome your support. This would be a great time to join too, just in time for  the ICA's annual meeting coming up January 15-17 in Las Vegas.

(Posted December 3, 2025) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Exclusive Review of What the 2025 InterNetX/Sedo Global Domain Report Revealed Shows How Much We Can All Learn by Responding to the 2026 Survey 

Editor's Note: InterNetX and Sedo have issued an industry-wide open invitation to take part in a survey now being conducted to gather insights from domain professionals that will be used to produce their Global Domain Report 2026 (at the same time you can preregister to receive the new report on its release date). These highly anticipated annual reports provide an unparalleled analysis of market demand and aftermarket performance both globally and in individual regions around the world. All survey responses are anonymous, and you only need to answer the questions relevant to you. The deadline to participate is January 5, 2026.  

To give you a better understanding of the valuable information that comes out of this project each year, InterNetX's Simone Catania (one of the key architects of the Global Report series) agreed to provide us with the exclusive review below of the key findings (with supporting data and facts) that came to light thanks to the publication of Global Domain Report 2025.

Domains in a Slower Market, Faster Future: What the 2025 Survey Signals for 2026  

By Simone Catania
Global Content & Communications Manager at InterNetX

As we moved into 2025, the domain industry was juggling mixed signals.

On one side, the hard numbers showed a cooling market: in 2024, global domain registrations grew by just about 1.2%, reaching around 364.3 million domains at the beginning of 2025. Growth was modest, with legacy gTLDs losing ground while new gTLDs and ccTLDs provided most of the uplift. On the other side, sentiment among domain investors and industry professionals was noticeably more upbeat.

For the past few years, InterNetX and Sedo have run a global sentiment survey before publishing the Global Domain Report. That survey – answered by domain investors, brokers, registrars, registries and digital professionals – adds something raw data alone can’t provide: how the people who live off domains are actually thinking and planning.

How did sentiment line up with what really happened in 2024/2025? What does it tell us about where domains are heading next?

Demand vs. reality: a cautiously optimistic industry

Last’s year survey by InterNetX and Sedo painted a clear picture: more respondents expected to increase their registrations in 2025 than to cut them. Roughly:

• Close to four in ten expected to register more domains in 2025.

• Only about one in four expected any contraction, and just a small minority anticipated a sharp drop.

So even as macro conditions stayed choppy, the people closest to the market leaned toward expansion, not retreat.

Set that against the actual market data: global domain registrations in 2024 were up just over 1% year-on-year. What does that gap between sentiment and growth say? Investors aren’t expecting a gold rush – but they are still playing offense. Activity is shifting away from indiscriminate volume toward more selective registrations: new gTLDs that match verticals, ccTLDs for local presence, and premium targets rather than pure “hand-reg and hope”.

For 2025, sentiment was mildly bullish in a slow-growth environment. The next question is whether that confidence holds – or fractures – as we head toward the next new gTLD round and a much more fragmented landscape.

AI, policy, Web3 and new gTLDs: the big forces reshaping namespaces

When we asked which emerging trends are shaping the domain industry the most, three themes dominated:

1.      AI & machine learning

Almost half of survey participants pointed to AI and machine learning as the top force reshaping the domain space. For investors, AI is both a topic (AI-themed keywords, .ai domains) and a tool that will sharpen competition in discovery and pricing.

2.      Digital policy & regulation

Digital policy came in just behind AI in the survey. Unsurprisingly, the acronym that keeps popping up is NIS2 – the EU’s updated Network and Information Security Directive. Even though the survey was global and NIS2 is an EU piece of legislation, respondents clearly sense its importance:

·         Only a relatively small minority feel very familiar.

·         Yet more than half already worry about compliance costs, and about half are concerned about the technical adjustments it requires.

3.      New gTLDs

The data behind the report confirms what many in the survey expect: New gTLDs have grown to nearly 37 million registrations, roughly a 922% increase over a decade. They now represent around 10% of the global domain base. With the next new gTLD program expected to land around 2026, the namespace is likely to undergo another big expansion.

4.      Blockchain/Web3 domains

The survey results around blockchain and Web3 domains were particularly nuanced. On the familiarity front:

·         Roughly two-thirds of respondents said they’re at least somewhat familiar with blockchain-based naming services.

·         About one-third said they’re not familiar at all.

Ownership and intent tell a similar story:

·         More than half do not (yet) own or seriously consider owning Web3 domains.

·         But roughly a third already do, or are actively considering it.

When we asked how important blockchain will be for the future of domains:

·         Nearly four out of five respondents see it as at least somewhat important for the long term.

·         Only around one out of five believe it won’t matter.

In other words: most of the industry is watching closely, a meaningful minority is already experimenting, and only a small group is outright dismissive.

Meanwhile, InterNetX has taken an important structural step: It has announced plans to tokenize domains partnering with D3 leveraging the Doma Protocol, a DNS-compliant blockchain platform designed for DomainFi. The partnership aims to bridge traditional Web2 domains into major Web3 ecosystems (including networks like Solana, Base and Avalanche), enabling use cases such as fractional ownership, crypto-based trading and new DeFi-style domain financing models.

That’s exactly the kind of move survey participants were anticipating: Web3 not as a novelty extension living in a separate universe, but as an additional layer of utility and liquidity for the domains investors already own.

Premium names sales: steady, selective, tech-heavy

Premium domains remain central to many investors’ strategies, and the survey reflects an overall view of steady but not explosive demand: around one in six respondents expected demand for premium domains to increase in 2025, nearly half expected it to remain about the same, and the remainder anticipated some level of decrease.

On the data side, several signals stand out: InterNetX saw strong premium creation activity in specific new gTLDs, with .art, .click and .help generating a notably high volume of newly created premium domains.  

While Sedo’s 2024 aftermarket stats point to a stable market rather than boom or bust, with an average sale price of about $2,345, a median just under $600, and roughly 350 different TLDs changing hands. The gap between average and median tells an important story: a handful of very big sales pull the average up, but the typical deal is still in the mid-three-figure range.

TLD mix and keywords from Sedo reinforce themes from the survey:

·         .com continues to account for the lion’s share of trades by volume, with .de a powerhouse ccTLD and .org/.net still well‑established alternatives.

·         Keyword trends lean heavily toward AI and technology, crypto and finance, plus e‑commerce and online services – exactly the sectors most survey respondents expect to remain hot in 2025.

If your portfolio is skewed toward these areas, the data and the sentiment are aligned. The bigger challenge is differentiating within those highly contested spaces.

The mood of the market: mature, realistic, still leaning forward

Finally, we asked a simple but revealing question: How optimistic are you about the future of domain investments in 2025?

The answers clustered into three almost equal groups, with just under 40% feeling optimistic or very optimistic, roughly four in ten expecting things to stay about the same, and just under 20% feeling pessimistic or very pessimistic.

This is what a mature asset class looks like. Most investors no longer expect every hand-reg to turn into a big win, but they also don’t see the market collapsing, even with slower growth and more regulation. Instead, the overall mood is one of cautious optimism. Investors are spreading their bets across different TLDs, regions and niches, while also showing more interest in new layers such as Web3 and AI-driven tools.

Take the Survey 2026 and Secure Your Early Access to the Global Domain Report 2026

Everything you’ve just read comes from last year’s survey and the data that followed. Now it’s time to write the next chapter.

Before InterNetX and Sedo compile the Global Domain Report 2026, we’re once again asking the people who live and breathe domains – DNJournal readers, investors, brokers, registry and registrar professionals, brand owners, service providers – to share how they see the road ahead. Here’s the ask:

* Take this year’s survey – add your perspective as an investor or domain expert.
* Preregister for the Global Domain Report 2026 – you’ll be among the first to receive the full report, including this year’s survey results, fresh market data and expert commentary from across the domain universe.

The numbers in the report tell us what is happening. Your survey answers tell us why.

(Posted December 1, 2025) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2025/dailyposts/1201.htm

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