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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.
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After
a 6-Year Absence India's DomainX Conference Staged
a Big Comeback With 2025 Event in New Delhi |
|
After a
six-year hiatus, the curtain went back up in India's
DomainX
conference August 30-31, 2025 at the Radisson
Blu Plaza Hotel, Delhi Airport
in New Delhi. One of the original founders
of the event that ran annually from 2014-2019 (and
its current CEO), Manmeet Pal Singh, helped
orchestrate the DomainX revival. The shutdown was
precipitated by the start of the Covid pandemic in
2020 but with the global domain industry enjoying
a rapid expansion and the popularity of new events
like London's Domain
Summit and Domain
Days Dubai, this looked like a good
time for the Indian domain community to step back
into the spotlight. |
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|
 Above:
The traditional opening ceremony that was a
hallmark of previous DomainX conferences kicked off
the 2025 event. Manmeet
told us, "We clocked approximately 140-150
participants on both days of the event with Dynadot
flying in VP of Aftermarket Hallie Cao from
the U.S. at the last minute and representatives from
Lars Jensen’s registry, .ICU, represented
by his local team based out of Mumbai." Another
one of this year's full-time DomainX organizers,
Growth Engineer and SEO Scientist Shailendra
Mishra (Founder & Director at Milestone
Machine LLP) told us, "On the event's opening
day, New Delhi experienced unexpectedly bad weather.
This resulted in some delays for arriving guests,
but it certainly didn't dampen anyone's
enthusiasm. All speakers presented stellar
insights and personal anecdotes. We were also happy
that Mr. Ajay Data, despite a sudden health
decline, was able to join us digitally via Google
Meet and give us some fantastic insights on the
use of AI in several aspects of brand
building and brand protection for businesses. 
One
of the highlights of DomainX 2025 was this Fireside
Chat featuring (left to right) Moderator Shailendra
Mishra, Manmeet Pal Singh, Harmandeep Singh
and Vinesh Bhaskarla. Shailendra
noted, "For the first time ever, we also held a
one-day Domain Investment Workshop adjacent
to the annual conference, which was very well
received. Manmeet Pal Singh, Vinesh
Bhaskarla and I hared details advice on domain
name investment, tips, and tricks." 
A
photo from the Domain Investment Workshop at Domain
2025 with a special guest,
Dyandot VP of Aftermarket Hallie Cao (3rd from
right). Shailendra
said, "I am glad that we had representatives
from ICANN, registries, and registrars
available for networking and learning" He also
pointed to several specific talks that were personal
highlights. "Mr. Manoj Dhanda, who
rebranded his cloud server company from Microhost
to utho.com
a couple of years back, shared great insights into
the 'ins and outs' of that process and its expected
and unexpected benefits. Mr. Rodney Ryder and
Mr. Ankur Raheja, both well-known legal
experts and IP lawyers, provided their respective
case studies and numerous recent domain dispute
cases they've handled, significantly improving our
understanding of brand protection and infringement
avoidance." "Also,
Mr. Manmeet Pal Singh presented his recent domain
sales and negotiation stories, making the
session tenfold more energetic and I had the fortune
to participate in a couple of panel discussions in
which we covered numerous sales tactics from both
business and domainer perspectives."
As
always, the biggest benefits from attending DomainX
come from new relationships made and existing ones strengthened. "The
Indian domain name market remains promising for both
new and established players," Shailendra said.
"The startup ecosystem is not just
growing; but maturing rapidly. There's a
noticeable shift towards a more sophisticated
understanding of domain assets as integral
components of digital strategy, rather than just
technical necessities."
"We saw an impressive and enthusiastic turnout,
filling the hall with a diverse mix of domain
investors, brand owners, legal professionals, and
digital marketers. The energy at the conference
clearly demonstrated a strong appetite for
knowledge, collaboration, and innovation, suggesting
a very positive trajectory for the Indian domain
ecosystem in the coming years," he concluded.
The
closing "class photo" from DomainX 2025!
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(Posted
September 8, 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/0908.htm
*****
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Scenes
from the 2025 Domain Summit Conference That
Completed Its 3-Day Run Wednesday Evening in
London |
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Editor's
Note: Our new full
Domain Summit conference review has
now been published so you can get a complete
summary of this year's event. |
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The 2025
Domain
Summit conference closed this evening
in London, England. This year's event was
held in a new venue, the city's roomy and
conveniently located Business Design Centre.
Domain Summit has been an annual event in London
but from this point forward it is branching out
with additional events around the globe
(the next of those will be Domain
Summit Africa, coming up next February
in Nairobi). With that expansion, this year's
London event was dedicated to the European
market, though it will continue to attract
attendees from all over the world as it did again
this week. |
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When the
conference releases their official photos from this
year's event we will put together a full review of
the conference for you. In the meantime, as an appetizer,
we gathered a few scenes posted by attendees on
social media to give you a taste of what transpired
in London over the past three days. 
Above:
London's Business Design Center
where the 2025 Domain Summit was held this week. Below:
While the conference ran Tuesday and Wednesday,
September 2 & 3, some of those who arrived
early were treated to a tour, drinks and
snacks at Team
Internet's London headquarters Monday
afternoon (September 1).
Above:
On Monday evening, the pre-show activities
continued with a Networking Party at a
classic UK pub nearby. Below:
Bright and early Tuesday morning Domain Summit
Founder Helmuts Meskonis (at left) made his way around the London Design Centre
to welcome sponsors and exhibitors (including DN.com's
Jack Dai, at right) to this year's show.
Above:
Three global partners signed on with Domain
Summit to support the event's global expansion.
They include .it.com
Domains, Freename
and Site.pro.
Here you see .it.com Domans Founder Antony
Insarov (at left) and Chief Strategy Officer
Joe Alagna (at right) visiting the aeserver.com
booth manned by Founder Munir Badr. Munir, of
course, is also widely known as the Founder of Domain
Days Dubai (the 2025 edition of that
popular event is coming up next month). Below:
Out on the Exhibit Hall floor, Sedo's
"Mr. Premium" Mark Ghoriafi (at
left) took the opportunity to chat with Jeff
Nyman (Digital New Media).
Above:
Dozens of business sessions were presented on
two separate tracks over Domain Summit's two
business days. You can see
the full agenda from the show here.
Photo credit: Gherardo Varani (Freename). Below:
The sessions began at 10am Monday with an
eye-opening Keynote from Team
Internet CEO Michael Riedl.
Above:
Above.com
Aftermarket General Manager Nathan Parker (at
right with Senior Account Manager Jodi
Chamberlain) joined Sedo's Mark Ghoriafi on
stage for Broker Talk, one of
Wednesday's most popular business sessions. Below:
Some more of the many familiar faces in the
Domain Summit crowd, (left to right) James Barker,
James Iles (GoDaddy),
Leanne McMahon (Crunch.id)
and Lee Lovell (DNX.com).
By
all accounts we've seen, just hours after
closing, Domain Summit 2025 is already
being hailed as another highly productive event for
those who were there to experience it first hand.
More to come!
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(Posted
Sept. 3, 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/0903.htm
*****
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Radix
Reports Their Best Six-Month Stretch of Premium
Domain Registrations to Date |
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If you
have been following our bi-weekly domain
sales reports this year, you already
know the domain aftermarket has been on fire.
However, that's not the only sector where sales
are exploding. Radix
(the administrator of ten new gTLDs including .tech,
.fun, .online and .store
among others) just announced the number of premium
domain registrations they had in the 1st
Half of 2025 (.pdf) soared 50%
higher than the same half last year. The
Radix onslaught was led by an eye-popping
expansion in .tech registrations as they
rocketed 70% above the previous half
(2H-2024). In the latest half alone .tech had 32
registrations at $5,000 a year, 10 at $10,000
a year a single-character reg at $25,000
a year (the renewal cost for premiums is the same
as the initial fee). |
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While .tech enjoyed the highest rate of growth,
.fun was also busy having a good time as they
brought in highest overall number of premium Radix
registrations as shown in the table below: 
Though
the cost for premium domains is substantial, Radix
saw solid renewal numbers for
theirs. 57% renewed after the first year. The
percentage of those who renewed for a second time
rose to 73% and once they reached a third
renewal (and subsequent ones), 85% of the
registrants re-upped. There are more interesting
details in the full report that you can read
here.
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(Posted
August 22, 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/0822.htm
*****
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India's
DOMAINX Conference is Back! After 6 Successful
Events Followed By a 6-Year Hiatus the Curtain is
Going Back Up in New Delhi |
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India
has always had one of the most passionate and
productive communities in the global domain
industry. In every field - investing, developing,
legal services, social media, entrepreneurial
ventures and more - the country is well
represented at the head of the class. Back in the
early 2000s, when the domain business was starting
to explode, people were speculating about
who among them might become the industry's first billionaire.
As it turned out it would be the first two
billionaires - India's personable Turakhia
brothers, Divyank and Bhavin, who
founded Directi and went on to create many
other wildly successful enterprises. So,
in 2014 we were already paying attention
when a new India-centric conference, DomainX,
was organized by its current CEO, Manmeet
Pal Singh, and fellow movers and
shakers in that country. The event was held in Hyderabad
and, though I wasn't there in person, I
participated remotely by doing a live video
interview with Michael
Castello for the audience. The next
year, ten years ago this month, I flew over to
speak at the 2015
event in Bangalore. The event, people
and country were amazing and many great
relationships came out of that unique opportunity
to connect with everyone face to face. |
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The
DomainX train kept right on rolling until the last
edition in New Delhi in 2019. At the time, no one had any idea that would be the
last DomainX for years to come but, as we all
know now, 2020 and the global Covid pandemic,
disrupted everyone's plans. Thankfully, those days
are behind us now and the DomainX curtain will rise
again when the show returns to New Delhi for
an August 30 & 31, 2025 event at the Radisson
Blu Plaza Hotel, Delhi Airport. As was the case
with all previous DomainX events, guests will hear
from an outstanding line up of speakers
and enjoy a diverse business and social agenda.
|
Manmeet
Pal Singh
DOMAINX CEO |
A lot of water has gone under the domain bridge
since the last DomainX event, so there will
be a lot to catch up on. Manmeet told us,
"The Indian domain investment market
has matured significantly over the past
decade, with domain investors becoming
more data-driven and globally connected.
While premium .com names remain the
strongest asset class, we’ve also seen
increased activity in ccTLDs like .in
and .co.in, particularly for startups
targeting the Indian consumer market" "The challenge many domain investors still
face is liquidity—moving inventory
at sustainable margins, especially when
end-users are price-sensitive. Plus, NIXI
(operator of .in and .co.in) aren’t
supportive of ccTLD domain investors.
However, the rise of AI-driven businesses
and digital-first ventures has opened
new opportunities for keyword-rich brandable
domains. The key for Indian domain investors
has been patience and an international
outlook, as many successful sales still
come from overseas buyers in .com and other
new gTLDs." |
|
Manmeet added, "What’s been working well is focusing on
quality over quantity—curating domain
portfolios with strong one and two keyword
.coms, short brandables, and premium .in
domains that align with India’s digital
growth story. Networking at global
events and platforms like DOMAINX has
also helped investors position themselves
better in the international market. Indian
domain investors who adapt to global trends,
build relationships with end-users, and
understand the nuances of branding are
seeing real success, while those relying
solely on bulk registrations are struggling.
I strongly feel that the real wins
are coming from domain investors who think
globally, but also understand the
branding needs of India’s fast-growing
digital economy." |
|
One of the many
leaders from India's domain community that I
first met and heard speak at that 2015 event
was attorney Rodney D. Ryder (Scriboard.com)
Mr. Ryder, who deals with a lot of domain
issues at the corporate level told us,
"Domain names are vital to the
Indian business and corporate ecosystem.
Brand owners and brand-driven organizations
are learning the importance of acquiring and
owning crucial digital real estate -
like the .com and .ai. In the
Indian context, we have also seen increased
awareness resulting in litigation, online
dispute resolution and digital brand
management. The domain name ecosystem and
online brand management is rapidly
scaling in India as brands are deploying
resources on an exponential scale in order
to prevail in a highly competitive yet
thriving start-up ecosystem." |
Rodney
D. Ryder
Founding Partner, Scriboard |
|
Mr.
Ryder will be speaking again at DOMAINX
2025, as will another top notch attorney
I met at the Bangalore event in 2015, Ankur
Raheja. ICANN will also be
represented alongside many successful
business leaders, brokers and individual
investors. All of that insight will be
available to attendees comes at an extraordinarily
low cost with ticket
prices starting at ₹3,499
(~ $40). |
|
|
(Posted
August 20, 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/0820.htm
*****
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PIR
to Distribute Over $200,000 to Newly Named 2025
.ORG Impact Awards Finalists at Ceremony
Featuring Celebrity Host Common |
|
Public Interest
Registry (PIR), the people behind the .ORG
domain, have named 35
finalists for the 7th annual .ORG
Impact Awards. These special awards recognize
outstanding mission-driven individuals and
organizations from around the world for their
positive contributions to society. The honorees
were chosen from seven different categories with
five finalists selected in each category.
All
finalists, which range from a women-led
nonprofit transforming lives in East Africa, to an
organization recycling hair into tools to help the
environment, to a .ORG using AI to teach sign
language across Latin America, will receive
donations of $2,500 each and that will be
just the beginning for many of them. The winner in
each category will receive an additional
$10,000 and the .ORG of the Year award
winner will take home a $50,000
donation.
Beyond the cash donations, being named winners in these award
categories and the prestigious .ORG of the Year,
will help raise the profile of the
honorees, ultimately driving donations,
funding, talent acquisition, partnership
development, and increasing audience reach. |
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The finalists,
who were chosen from a starting field of over 3,000
applicants, will be invited to Washington,
D.C. for a gala awards ceremony that
will be held there on October 7, 2025.
Each year PIR brings in a special celebrity that
is well known for their own good works to host
the Awards Ceremony. This year it will a man
of many talents - Common, the first rapper/artist to win a Grammy, Oscar and Emmy
and star of the Apple TV+ show Silo.
Common is also the founder of the nonprofit Free
to Dream, which works across four
pillars — education, justice, wellness, and
jobs — to create the conditions necessary
for dreams to come true. Free To Dream
reflects 20 years of Common's
leadership as a changemaker, using his
entertainment platform to advance critical
social causes.
“I’m passionate about making sure youth in the U.S. are able to
see positive role models and pathways
to achieve their dreams, especially those
involved in the |
Common |
|
justice system, so it’s inspiring to see people from all over the
world creating positive change for the next
generation in their communities,” Common said.
“I’m excited to celebrate the hard
work of these organizations and individuals
creating powerful change at this year’s .ORG
Impact Awards.” |
|
Jon
Nevett
President & CEO
Public Interest Registry |
Jon Nevett,
President and CEO of Public Interest Registry,
said “The .ORG Impact Awards continues to be one of the most
meaningful initiatives we look forward to all
year, and I’m honored to welcome the
extraordinary 2025 finalists to our global
.ORG Community. These finalists represent the
very best of our community — their
dedication and impact embody the very spirit
of the .ORG domain.
We’re thrilled to have
Common join us and help uplift the
forward-thinking changemakers honored at this
year’s awards. A long-time advocate for
criminal justice and youth empowerment,
Common is a changemaker himself and brings a
powerful voice to this celebration of
purpose-driven work.”
The
seven categories that make up the Impact
Awards are Community
Building, Quality
Education for All, Environmental
Stewardship, Diversity, Equity and
Inclusion, Health and Healing, Hunger
and Poverty and Rising Stars
(leaders under 30 making a difference in their
communities). You can see the full
list of finalists here, as well as
additional information at the Impact Awards,
|
|
|
(Posted
August 18, 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/0818.htm
*****
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Sedo's
Mark Ghoriafi Closes Law.ai Sale in One of the
Biggest .AI Transactions to Date |
|
In our
latest bi-weekly domain
sales report that came out last night
(August 13), the main takeaway was how thoroughly .com
and .ai were now dominating the high end of
the domain aftermarket. On our latest Top 20 Sales
Chart every entry except one was either a
.com or a .ai. So, it wasn't a big surprise to
learn less than 24 hours later that Law.ai
has just changed hands for $350,000 in the
3rd highest .ai sale ever reported, exceeded only
by You.ai at $700,000 in 2023 and Cloud.ai
at $600,000 last month. The
person who brokered the Law.ai sale - Sedo's
Mark "Mr. Premium" Ghoriafi, was not
a surprise either. Mark already held three of the
Top 20 publicly reported sales
year to date in |
Image
from Bigstock
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Double.com
($980,000), Pack.com ($600,000) and Dollars.com
($500,000). Now he has four with Law.ai to be added
to our YTD Top 100 when we publish our next
bi-weekly update August 27.
|
Mark
represented the seller in the Law.ai
negotiations and, as is the case with many
high end transactions, it took considerable
time, effort and patience to get the
deal done. As just one example, Arch.com is #2 on
our latest chart after selling for $701,000. Mark
Daniel at Domain Holdings Group
brokered that sale and he told me he had started
working on it 7 years ago! That kind
of tenacity is what separates the top
brokers from the pack and Mark Ghoriafi has
it as well.
Mr.
Premium told me, "I first
established communication with the
subsequent buyer of Law.ai in 2024 but
the initial talks didn't produce a final
outcome. Communication was re-established in
June of this year and after several more
weeks of talks the $350,000 agreement
was achieved."
Mark
added, "There will often be bumps in
the road with with domain sales. Being able
to find amicable and accommodating paths
to satisfy all parties is key for victory.
Follow-up, flexibility, and a polite flow of
conversation helped get this to the finish
line. Rather than wait for opportunity,
Mark's advice is to "go create
opportunity, and navigate to success!" |
Mark
"Mr. Premium" Ghoriafi
Sedo Outbound Premium Broker |
|
|
(Posted
August 14, 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/0814.htm
*****
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Titan
Teams Up With GoDaddy to Give Small Businesses in
Developing Markets Email Tools Designed to Spur
Growth |
It
was four years ago this month when we
first told you about an
ambitious new project launched by domain
industry pioneer and wildly successful
serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia
(the founder of
Radix,
Flock
and Zeta
among other well established companies).
That story was about Titan,
Bhavin's vision for a service designed to
revolutionize business email. Since
then, Titan has flourished, propelled by one
major partnership after another that has
helped Titan Email become a go to solution
for businesses around the world, especially
smaller enterprises that want tools
tailored to their needs. Today Titan
announced their biggest leap forward to
date, a new
strategic partnership with
industry giant GoDaddy.
The partnership will enable GoDaddy's Professional
Email offering in developing markets,
coupled with Titan's AI-enabled
business email platform, to empower millions
of entrepreneurs and small businesses with
tools to grow their brand and customer
engagement. Bhavin,
who serves as Titan's CEO as well as its
Founder, said, "Our
partnership with GoDaddy marks a pivotal
moment in making cutting-edge professional
email accessible to businesses of all sizes.
By combining Titan's innovative email
offering with GoDaddy's global reach and
trusted hosting and domain services,
we're helping entrepreneurs worldwide gain a
competitive edge with tools designed to
amplify customer engagement and drive
growth." GoDaddy
Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Oliver
Hoare added: “In today's digital |
Bhavin
Turakhia
TitanFounder & CEO
|
|
landscape,
small businesses need more
than basic email - they need intelligent
tools that make it easy to connect with
customers and stimulate growth. This
partnership with Titan enables GoDaddy to
offer small businesses in developing markets
advanced email that helps drive their
success." |
Shortly
after the initial press release came out his
morning, I got on a call with Bhavin, Ninad
Raval (Titan VP, Product & Design, who
Bhavin credits with building a world class product
in Titan) and Anuj Gupta (Titan Senior Director,
Strategic Partnerships) to get some more information
on the GoDaddy partnership as well as how much
Titan's service has grown since they first appeared
on our radar. Titan's growth has been fueled by a
unique suite of features designed to elevate
business communications, including: •
AI-powered
email composition and response capabilities •
Professional email design tools and branded
templates •
Advanced tracking for email opens, attachments, and
links •
Automated appointment scheduling •
Streamlined email campaign management •
Robust security features •
Industry-leading uptime and email deliverability
rates
In
the past a lot of those attributes were
available only in software designed for much
larger companies that could have 500,000 or
more employees. Bhavin's vision was to bring
that power to the much larger universe of
small businesses, typically solopreneurs
or those with less than a handful of
employees. You might be surprised to know
that 81% of small businesses have no
employees and of those that do, half have
less than 5 employees. Bhavin
noted, "Small businesses are the
foundation of the global economy, and
they deserve the same powerful tools that
large enterprises use to succeed. Our
partnership with GoDaddy will democratize
access to these advanced email
capabilities, empowering millions of
businesses worldwide to enhance their
communication and marketing
efforts." Bhavin
and his team recognized that the needs of
small businesses were much different
than that of major corporations. For big
companies email and communications tools are
designed for collaboration with far
flung employees. |
Image
from Bigstock |
|
What
small businesses need is tools that help
them acquire customers and grow.
Titan was designed with a focus on those
needs and it is paying off. The customer
base has grown to well over 2 million
mailboxes and the deal with GoDaddy is
expected help the company hit 10 million in
the next three or four years. |
While
you can point to the Titan feature set and say that
it is better and will improve numbers - nothing
speaks louder than data and Anuj Gupta
pointed out a treasure trove of it that was compiled
in a case
study of their 4-month pilot project
with GoDaddy in developing markets. It found that
Titan delivered a 76% increase in Average
Revenue Per User and a 65% uplift in customer Net
Promoter Score
(a metric
used to gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction
) compared to their legacy email
solution. Now the service will be rolled out to
GoDaddy customers across developing markets
globally, with initial deployment scheduled in the
current Q3-2025 quarter.
|
|
(Posted
August 12, 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/0812.htm
*****
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The
Domain Industry Gets a Valuable New Resource with
Freename's Launch of The Domain Standard |
|
The
domain industry has enjoyed extraordinary
growth over the first quarter of this century
but judging from all of the new applications
sprouting from the foundation laid by .com
and the other original domain assets, it's
starting to look like we haven't seen anything
yet. At the same time that top tier legacy domains
are exploding in value, Web3 innovations
are opening the door to a new world of "Domain
Finance" where domains can be used in
additional ways that seek to make them even
more valuable and indispensable in our
professional and personal lives. This
metamorphosis is creating a landscape where it is
increasingly difficult to keep up with everything
going on around us. The good news is that the
number of resources needed to cover it all is
growing too. One of the best we've seen to date is
a free publication from Freename
dubbed The
Domain Standard. The first
quarterly issue
has just come out in print and digital form. The
glossy print edition will primarily be distributed
at events but anyone can download
the digital edition |
|
|
that is so polished even it looks glossy online. The publication is
loaded with excellent articles, interviews with
industry leaders, charts and graphs that dissect
every aspect of the business (old and new) that make
it much easier to take in what is happening in a digital
financial universe that seems to be continually
expanding outward from the Big Bang ignited by
.com. Among those
featured in the inaugural issue are veteran domain
investors like Braden Pollock and Mike
Mann who share long list of example sales they
have made in recent years. There are top brokers
like Giuseppe Graziano (GGRG.com) and Jack
Dai (DN.com) and corporate leaders like
InterNetX CEO Elias Rendón Benger, Todd
Han, Founder of one of the world's fastest
growing registrars - Dynadot, and AEServer.com
Founder Munir Badr who also founded the Domain
Days Dubai conference. These are just a few of
the featured names most of you will already
know. Equally important are the Web3 leaders, like
Freename CEO Davide Vicini and his team, who
are playing an integral role in efforts to open up
new ways to monetize and utilize domains (fractional
ownership being one big example). You
will also find a variety of timely articles led by
the cover piece on The Rise of Domain Finance.
Then there is The Role of AI in Shaping the
Domain Industry by InterNetX's Simone
Catania, and other enlightening details on the
ongoing .ai boom. All of the bases are covered,
including .com, new TLD and ccTLD sales and trends.
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For
me, it was especially refreshing to see one
particular thing The Domain Standard
got right that so many others got wrong over
the past 25 years. If you've been around
that long you've seen various new things
come along that proponents declared
would "make .com obsolete" only
to blow up on the launch pad. While
competition and choice is always a good
thing, they failed to realize that credibility
is even more important and you lose it with
outlandish claims backed by |
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nothing but hot
air. Competing
successfully with a colossus like .com and
becoming a viable option requires
bringing something to the market that either
adds value to the .com foundation or
brings enough new value (and proves
it by winning market share) to stand on its
own (as .ai has done). The smartest
people in Web3 know that and are putting in
the intense work needed to build the
structure required to make their vision a
reality. They understand we are not in a
zero-sum game - there is room for many
winners in this arena and The Domain
Standard team has shown they get that by
illuminating and respecting the full
spectrum of possibilities that we are
fortunate to have in front of us now. |
Image
from Bigstock |
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(Posted
August 6, 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/0806.htm
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D3
Mission to Supercharge Domains With Web3 Fuel Gets
Major Boost from InterNetX Partnership |
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At the
start of this year we published a profile of D3, a new company founded by
domain industry pioneers Paul Stahura and Fred
Hsu (the company's CEO), that set out with the
ambitious goal of merging the Web2 and Web
3 domain worlds. The reason that is such an
appealing prospect to so many is that it would let
legacy domains take advantage of some unique
features made possible by their Web3
counterparts. One
of the most enticing of those is the ability to tokenize
existing and future domains. That would make
them more like other financial assets that can
fractionalized, staked, or bundled into different
financial products, enhancing the financial
utility and accessibility of domain ownership.
Decentralized Web3 domains are also one-time
purchases with no renewal fees. |
D3
Co-Founders Fred Hsu and Paul Stahura
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As
we noted in our previous article, to make
this all work D3 has to convince multiple
third parties to get on board, including domain
owners, registries and registrars.
Thanks to the track record of the founders
and the convincing case that Fred Hsu has laid
out, showing how all of those parties can
benefit from D3's DomainFi network
and Doma Protocol, D3 is
making significant progress on that front. A
prime example is a newly announced
partnership
between popular registrar and IONOS
Group member InterNetX
(with 22 million domains
under management) and D3. InterNetX
CEO Elias Rendón Benger said,
"We are excited to partner with D3 to embrace the Web3 era and
redefine domains as tokenized assets
with real-world value. This integration with
Doma Protocol opens up new investment
opportunities for our clients and
resellers, including domain trading,
fractional ownership, and DeFi utilities,
while creating valuable revenue streams.
By bridging traditional domains with
blockchain, InterNetX is empowering
businesses and partners to thrive in the
decentralized digital economy while
maintaining our commitment to innovation,
security, and trust.“ |
InterNetX
CEO Elias Rendón
Benger |
With
this partnership bringing Fred Hsu and his team a
big step closer to realizing their vision, Fed added
"InterNetX's massive scale and
commitment to innovation make them the ideal partner
to demonstrate the transformative potential of
DomainFi, Doma Protocol, and the ecosystem of
registrars, investors, and users around it.“
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(Posted
August 4, 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/0804.htm
*****
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Dave
Evanson Closes $1 Million Sale of ZH.com for Sedo
Giving Them 8 of Top 20 Sales Reported Year to
Date |
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Sedo's
Senior Sales and Brokerage Consultant Dave
Evanson has been ringing up big money
domain sales for the past 20 years and he
is still hitting them out of the park. His latest
towering blast, just closed today, was a $1,000,000
sale of ZH.com on behalf of a U.S.
seller who has owned the domain since 1994. The
buyer was undisclosed but given the fact that ZH
is the ISO code for Chinese language, it looks
like a natural for any major investor/developer in
China. Dave
has brokered many two-letter .coms over the years
with most falling in a range between $1 million and
just under $5 million. He is representing
another one right now in QW.com. Even though
two-letter .coms are trophy assets it can take a lot
of work to close a sale at |
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this level and
ZH.com was no exception. Dave told us,
"It took five months to
find the right buyer. I reached out
globally and extensively about ZH.com by email,
phone, X, LI and Meta. Then I heard from Jim
at DDD.com
who found the buyer." This
is the 7th publicly reported seven-figure or
higher sale reported year to date. We will be
adding ZH.com to our YTD
Top 100 Sales Chart when it is updated
August 13, the release date for our next bi-weekly domain
sales report. As of this writing, ZH.com
gives Sedo 8 of the top 20 positions, including
another in 7-figures in GX.com at
$1,200,000. Even without ZH, Sedo already has three in the top 10 right now.
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(Posted
August 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/0801.htm
*****
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