2018 was a busy year for the domain industry, with plenty of policy changes, high value sales, and trends that kept us on our toes. Here are the top stories that caught our attention this past year.
Cryptocurrency Domain Names – Hot or Not?
After peaking in early January, cryptocurrencies crashed in 2018, making headlines as investors lamented over plummeting market values. The enthusiasm for crypto-related domain names paralleled this trend, evidenced by the decreasing interest in crypto-related names. To put things into perspective, a year ago, it was reported that cryptocurrency domain names were selling like hot cakes – in fact, crypto-related names dominated trending domain name keywords in December 2017. Crypto domains are still valuable, but much of the enthusiasm waned as the price of one Bitcoin dropped from a peak of over $19,000 in December 2017 to its current price (on December 28, 2018) of around $3,700.
How the GDPR Impacted Domaining
There’s much more to this regulation than what can be covered in this post, but here it is in a nutshell: The GDPR is an EU regulation which had a widespread effect all over the Internet (cookies consent banners, anyone?). The domain name industry was no exception. In short, GDPR, which stands for General Data Protection Regulation, addresses the protection of personal data and privacy for people within the European Union and the European Economic Area. The regulation has a wide reach and much of it is still open to interpretation, there has been plenty said about its impact on the domain name industry. The GDPR came into force on May 25th and although the GDPR does not specifically cover the Whois, most registries and registrars interpreted it to mean they must keep their European registrants’ Whois information private, lest they be penalized with hefty fines. Many Whois records were wiped of information. Some records were left blank, while others were replaced with contact forms and privacy emails. In June, ICANN proposed an accreditation system that would allow select parties to access Whois information. Eligible users would include parties such as intellectual property rights holders, police, lawyers, and even individual registrants. With much discussion and debate still ongoing, this is far from over and it will be interesting to see how things continue to unfold in 2019.
.COM Fee Hikes
Things were just starting to settle after the GDPR hit when it was announced that Verisign would be allowed to hike prices of .COM domain names by 7%. Domainers had plenty to say on the topic. The ICA, which represents domain name investors, wrote a letter to speak out against this fee increase. Parties that will be impacted include registrars, ICANN, and of course, consumers, with individuals who have sizeable domain name portfolios being heavily impacted. Luckily, there’s still some time before the increase rolls out. Price hikes will start in about 2 years, and Verisign will still need ICANN’s approval to increase fees (although this will likely be granted).
Notable Acquisitions and Consolidation
The constantly evolving world of the domain industry saw a few notable acquisitions this year. In September, Donuts, the new TLD registry, was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm Abry Partners. In the following month, Neustar acquired Verisign’s Security Services business for up to $120 million. And most recently, Web.com took full control of NameJet after acquiring the outstanding portion of the company owned by Tucows. The domain name aftermarket platform was initially launched as a joint venture in 2007 between eNom (later acquired itself by Tucows), and Network Solutions (now a subsidiary of Web.com).
Top Domain Name Sales
The Internet kept growing in 2018, reaching 342.4 million domain name registrations. The aftermarket was busy as well with several high profile acquisitions making headlines.
The most notable was Elon Musk’s purchase of Tesla.com for $11 million. The domain was sold in 2016, however, the actual figure was only revealed late this year. Musk tweeted that acquiring the name took over a decade and required an immense amount of work.
Other top sales include the 3-letter domain Ice.com, which sold for $3.5 million. Sitting at just under half the amount, Super.com sold for $1.2 million. Meanwhile, Great.com was just shy of the $1 million mark, selling for $900,000 at Namescon.
These were just the sales that were made public. Most big sales are kept private. Some are revealed much later in financial filings or interviews. We’ll probably learn of other big sales from 2018 in the months ahead.
Here’s to a bigger and better 2019!
DomainAgents Blog 