,Welcome to Domains Insider for July 15th, 2022.
We’ve got a great issue today, chock-full of info, opportunities & ideas.
New here? Read our primer on Investing in Domain Names.
July 15, 2022 | ± 5 minutes
CONTENTS:
- A primer on crypto domains
- 105.eth available on Rally
- Alts community domains for sale!
- Quality aged domains from our partners Odys
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
Investing in crypto domains
In our last issue, we talked a bit about ENS domains and why they’re valuable.
Think of ENS domains as short URLs for your Ethereum address (“0x…”). ENS lets you create a universal nickname for your crypto addresses, providing a more easily accessible way to make crypto wallets that live on a variety of other platforms.
The two most popular ENS domains are .xyz, and .eth. This week, Rally is offering an ENS domain for the first time, which we’ll get into below.
But first, a bit more on crypto domains. While the DNS domain name market is a billion-dollar market (GoDaddy alone did $3.8 billion last year), it’s a bit of slow-moving environment. There isn’t much new happening, and the existing players are well-defined.
Crypto domains have recently been the fastest moving part of the domain name market, and it’s not yet clear who the kingmakers are. Opportunities exist for totally new players.
The energy around domain trading has begun to shift towards these crypto domains, and now make for an intriguing and somewhat unique investment opportunity. I think these crypto domains are a great way to get indirect exposure to the crypto ecosystem without the volatility.
There are a relatively low number of users in the industry. According to TechJury, over 100,000 domains are registered every single day. But that number is much lower when it comes to crypto domains. And it’s an especially intriguing time given a) We’re in the ENS early days, and b) We’re in the middle a crypto winter.
Companies offering ENS domains have certainly done well over the past year. Unstoppable Domains and Cloudname, for example. Cloudname is interesting because they provide a platform for buying, selling, and renting both crypto and traditional domains. They offer a solid variety of extensions and their user interface is pretty easy to use.
The average price of a .com domain on primary markets is about $14.50. But, if we take a look at secondary markets, the price skyrockets to $1,660 (increase of +11,757%). With that in mind, ENS domains on secondary markets like OpenSea are starting to shoot up once again…
Marketplace domain drops
105.eth on Rally
This week Rally is IPOing 105.eth
- Market Cap: $40k
- Inferred Value: [Insiders Only]
- Date: July 14th on Rally
- Our View: [Insiders Only]
Rally’s been hyping this one up pretty heavily. It’s their first time fractionalizing an ENS domain, though not their first time fractionalizing any domain.
The first domain Rally ever fractionalized (to be fair, the first domain any company ever fractionalized) was directions.com back in January. In my opinion, it was an odd choice with poor pricing. The domain sold out at $140k, though it hasn’t opened up for secondary trading yet.
Being an ENS domain, this certainly has more utility. Sending funds to a simple 3-digit ENS wallet will be considerably easier than sending to a longer string of characters. And the fact that it’s a 3-digit ENS domain means owners will be a part of what’s become known as “the #999 club“, referring to the first 999 numeric ENS domains.
But does being in this 999 club really make that big of a difference? Is it really that much more convenient or status-establishing than the 10k club? Or the 100k club?
Remember there’s no monopoly on this stuff. Sure, low digit domains have plenty of hype today among early ENS/crypto bulls. But how much will 3-digit ENS domains really matter in the future? And why is 105 a significant number? Does 105.com matter today? 711.eth I could see (7-11 corporation might pay up for it) Or 911.eth (emergency funding) Or 555.eth (movies, etc)
But 105? So it’s three digits, okay. But why does this particular number actually matter in the scheme of things?
And let’s not forget that there are many different types of ENS domains! Sure, .eth could become the .com of ENS. But they’re fundamentally not any different than .xyz, .crypto, .nft, or any of the countless ENS domains that will certainly pop up in the future.
Rally’s market cap on 105.eth is $40k, and our inferred value is [Insiders Only] based on the average sales price of the highest-selling 3-digit numeric ENS domains over the past week.
It’s not necessarily a bad IPO, it’s just that there are better opportunities out there right now. We’re entering fire sale territory on lots of assets right now. (Heck, we’re entering fire sale territory on stocks!) But this certainly isn’t fire sale pricing. If nothing else it’s a proxy bet on the popularity of ethereum, without direct exposure or (as much) volatility.
Personally, I do see some value in ultra-simple, single-word ENS domains. But I’d be more bullish on brand name ENS domains. Some people are hoarding these in hopes of an eventual sale to a forward-thinking company with deep pockets.
Do you own any brand name ENS domains?
— Lyre.eth (@BasedBaguette7) July 13, 2022
My theory on brand domain squatting is that you don’t actually want to go too far upmarket. It sounds easy enough to register nike.eth or coke.eth and hope for an eventual sale. But companies like Nike and Coke have hordes of legal armies that will ultimately try to protect their branded terms, and prevent you from using it. History has shown they’d rather fight you than pay you.
Instead, you want to go after the smaller companies that don’t have deep pockets, but want to protect their small but growing brands at all costs.
And on that note, we have a community member who has done exactly that…
Domains from the Alts community
NakedHarvest.com
One of our community members, Julia, is super health-conscious. She buys green powders, plant protein, and vegan hot chocolate every month from a growing business called Naked Harvest, a company that makes delicious products with top-notch ingredients.
As a result their organic traffic has skyrocketed.
But here’s the thing: Naked Harvest doesn’t actually own the nakedharvest.com domain!
That’s right, their domain is the unbelievably long and ugly, “nakedharvestsupplements.com” Ugh. 🤮
Recently, Julia realized that nakedharvest.com was actually available to hand-register. So she did exactly that. This is exactly the sort of company that would want to own the .com domain for their business.
Click below to make an offer on nakedharvest.com. It’s a great domain regardless. But the fact that a rapidly growing company has the exact same business name is icing on the cake…and could be very profitable.
Other Community Domains
We have a few more primo domains from Alts community members:
- SmallHolding.farm. “Small holding” is an agricultural term for land smaller than a small farm. This site is active and gets 600 organic visits per month. Make an offer.
- WhaleWatcher.co. Not an active domain, but huge potential to turn this into a crypto wallet/NFT tracker. Make an offer.
- MicroStartups.io and MicroExits.com. MicroAcquire has really paved the way here. Sell to them or to a competitor. Owner is offering 2 for 1. Make an offer.
DAO Domains
Finally, Alts community member Jan is a crypto domain entrepreneur who has been building the world’s largest DAO domain portfolio. Last time we checked in with him he had 670. It’s now over 2,500 premium DAO names.
He’s sold a bunch of these individually (VacaDAO.com, EvilDAO.xyz, BarrelDAO.xyz, ShellDAO.xyz, LegionDAO.xyz, SoulDAO.xyz), but has now decided to sell his entire portfolio as a single bundle because he needs capital to launch a startup in the nutrition industry.
Oh, and he’s been documenting his journey on our Discord.
This is a very intriguing opportunity for the right investor. Good DAO names routinely sell for thousands of dollars each, and he’s got some terrific ones, including:
- RapperDAO.com
- PirateDAO.com
- StonksDAO.com
- HamburgerDAO.com
- EagleDAO.xyz
- And over 2,500 more
He’s currently speaking with crypto entrepreneurs, and dropping the asking price each week until someone snaps it up (what’s known as a Dutch Auction).
If you’re interested in finding out the current price, email Jan at [email protected], message him on WhatsApp at +420-721-435-559, or on Telegram @DAOHatchery
Two premium domains to consider
We’ve talked a lot about buying aged domains in the past — specifically through a company I love called Odys.
Investing in one of Odys‘ premium domains is always a wise decision. Here are 2 you should consider:
HowsBusiness.org
Help people be more productive
Use this premium domain to build out an authority site focused on business productivity solutions. Fill it with content that includes descriptions, how-to guides, reviews, and articles providing useful and relevant information on various tools, software, and apps for business productivity, analytics, and other related matters. Monetized via affiliate marketing and sponsored content.
Weeleo.com
A brandable domain for your startup
Weeleo is the former domain of a FinTech website that facilitated the exchange of currencies between individuals. We strongly recommend building a website that reviews finance products in France like mutual funds, ETFs, trading platforms etc, monetized via affiliate programs.
That’s it for this issue!
Do you have domains you’re looking to sell?
Let us know. We’d love to include them in the next issue.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this domain investing wisdom:
Domain branding wisdom from @iamjohnoliver as he trolls the Sackler family by buying the matching .com to their .info fluff site, that they were too cheap to spend $2500 to acquire. “What kind of f—ing idiot would set up an important website and not buy the .com?” https://t.co/IpnVpCxqSQ
— Nat Cohen (@domainarts) August 9, 2021
Until next time,
Stefan
