The Lowdown
February 2026 Archive

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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0224.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0220.htm

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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. 

(Posted February 16, 2026) 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/2026/posts/0216.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0213.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0211.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0206-2.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0206.htm

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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:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2026/posts/0202.htm

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