Escrow.com has released their quarterly Domain Investment Index (.pdf file) for the 3rd Quarter of 2022.  The company reported a big drop in domain sales revenue from the same quarter a year ago when they rang up $105 million in sales. In 3Q-2022 the number took a 28% dive to $75 million. Escrow.com CEO Matt Barrie said there was no mystery behind the precipitous slide noting, “The decrease in Q3 sales can almost all be attributed to a drop in multi-million dollar mega domain name transactions, which have been a result of the recent crypto crash and tech wreck."

Barrie added, "Venture capital was down in the third quarter by 53%, for example, so we saw a decline in startups seeking a premium brand to launch. The crypto space also experienced a large decline, and crypto ventures have been a large purchaser of $10 million + domains in the last year. The general climate in domains, which we confirmed at NamesCon recently was that many decided to hang up a sign saying ‘gone fishin’ for the summer”.

The good news is that Escrow.com saw the sales trend reversing over the past month. “Domain sales have shot back up strongly in October with significant sales in the first two weeks of the month," Barrie noted. Escrow also pointed out that sales volume was still up 8% year over year jumping from $449 million in 2021 to $489 million in 2022 (across the trailing 12 months).

The following graph  breaks down Escrow.com's quarterly domain sales volume for the past there years. 

Additional information is available in the full press release that Escrow.com distributed today (.pdf file).

(Posted November 1, 2022)  

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