The value of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have fluctuated a lot. Prices have fallen from their highs this year, but are still up substantially compared to a year ago when you could buy one ether for less than $1,000. Although cryptocurrency markets don’t technically have anything to do with domain names, appreciating cryptocurrency prices actually have an impact on the domain aftermarket which people use to buy and sell domain names. In this post we’ll review the impact soaring crypto values have on the domain market and discuss a few ways you can profit from cryptocurrency trends with your domain name investments.
Impact On Domains
As the value increases on popular cryptocurrencies, it impacts the domain market in two ways. First, people who have made money investing in crypto are investing some of those gains into domain names. Domain brokers report that many buyers are asking to acquire domain names using cryptocurrency rather than dollars. These types of buyers are sometimes willing to pay more for domain names because they’re buying with “house money.” If someone purchases a domain for one bitcoin today, it’s worth tens of thousands of dollars (whatever the current price of Bitcoin is) to the seller, but the buyer might have only paid a few hundred dollars for that Bitcoin years ago. Therefor, it doesn’t seem as expensive to the buyer. The second reason crypto appreciation has boosted domain sales is that companies which offer crypto-related services are buying domain names for their businesses.
Types Of Domains
Which types of crypto-related domains have value, and how can you take advantage of this trend? Here are a few quick examples..
Exchange Terms
Domains with the letter x rarely sell for much because only a few words in the English language actually start with that letter. But the letter x is short for exchange, and the right domains ending in X have value for this reason. In addition to just x, domains with DEX in them are popular. DEX is a short abbreviation for decentralized exchange. A recent dex-related domain sale was NFTDEX.com for $25,000.
ETH And Other Coin Abbreviations
Domains which include the names of popular cryptocurrency coins are selling like hotcakes. Ether, the cryptocurrency for the Ethereum blockchain, is abbreviated ETH. Since April, ETH.gg sold for $50,000 and ETH.co sold for a whopping $300,000. (This shows another thing about cryptocurrency companies: they often use extensions other than .COM) BTC.com, which is short for bitcoin, sold for $1 million in 2014, and BTCexchange.com sold for $55,000 in 2019. BitcoinPoker.com sold for $65,000 last year.
NFTs
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are extremely popular right now. NFTs are unique assets on the blockchain, such as a piece of digital art. The domain registry Donuts reported a surge in domain registrations include the NFT acronym this year. Whereas last year perhaps a dozen or so domains were registered in any given month, people registered nearly 1,600 domains containing NFT in Donuts’ extensions in March. Recent aftermarket domain sales including NFT include NFT.app for $50,000, BuyNFT.com for $10,589, and the aforementioned NFTDEX.com for $25,000.
Generic/Dictionary Words
Crypto-related companies usually buy domains related to crypto terms, but not always. Cryptocurrency marketplace SushiSwap bought the domain name Sushi.com. The price it paid for Sushi.com is unknown, but the exchange’s own cryptocurrency has a total value of over $1 billion as of May 21, 2021, so the company has plenty of money to spend on domains. It appears that SushiSwap also bought the domain Pancake.com, which is the name of a rival exchange.
How To Invest In Crypto Domains
Even if you’ve never bought a cryptocurrency before, it’s still possible to jump on the crypto wave with domain name investments. Perform some searches for crypto-related domains in marketplaces. On top of that, experiment with various combinations that you can register in extensions like COM, CO, IO and others. Cryptocurrency prices are volatile (can go up or down quickly), and the same can be said about the value of crypto-related domain names. However, if you believe in the future of blockchain-enabled technology like cryptocurrency coins and NFTs, investing in relevant domain names might be a profitable bet.
