Been a blessing. Will it be curse? — China has

China’s hunger for domain names has lifted all boats. What happens as the tide recedes?

There’s no doubt that China has had a profound impact on the domain name industry over the past 6-12 months. Chinese buyers have enriched people with short domain names and also boosted revenue at domain name marketplaces and registries.

How big of an impact? Take a look at these two slides:

The first image shows how much business Escrow.com receives from China. The second shows that over half of Domain Name Sales’ sales revenue last year came from China.

China has similarly boosted the fortunes of NameJet, SnapNames and Sedo.

This is awesome and was certainly a mood-booster at NamesCon this year.

But what happens if this dries up? Or when it dries up.

Even without a fall in domain prices, there’s only so long that trades will go through sales platforms. Joseph Peterson has written regarding how domain names popular with Chinese buyers are dropping with less frequency; Buyers are not purchasing them directly from owners.