.com prices, Ethereum Name Service, Epik: Top domain news
These are some of the big stories in the domain business so far this month.
I send out a monthly recap newsletter highlighting the most popular stories on Reglike. (You can subscribe here.)
This month I sent a mid-month note regarding what is happening in our business. I’ve received good feedback on it, so I’m counting it here as a blog post as well.
Here’s what has happened in the domain business so far this February:
- No surprise here, but .com prices are going up again in September. You can renew your domains early to avoid the price hike. The price increases are notable for Verisign since its domain base is shrinking. Thankfully, the firm doesn’t get an automatic price hike for the next two years.
- Speaking of registry price hikes, Namecheap has sued ICANN since it hasn’t acted on an Independent Review Panel decision over .org and .info price hikes.
- A long-running dispute over the fate of eth .link — an notable domain for the Ethereum Name Service Community — might be settled for $300k. But do .eth names make much sense anymore? ENS just launched a gasless mechanism for connecting real domains to ENS, and GoDaddy is on board. (Which is a bit interesting given that the eth .link lawsuit pits ENS vs. GoDaddy.)
- A prolific UDRP panelist known for his reasoned decisions has passed away at the age of 77.
- GoDaddy stated its aftermarkethad an excellent Q4. Some of that is likely thanks to a one-off portfolio sale and its NameFind auction.
- The USPTO has denied OpenAI’s trademark registration for GPT, which ought to be music to the ears of many domain investors.
- We now know who purchased Epik, I think.
- I started creating how-to videos last month and would appreciate your feedback. Here’s one regarding how to search by keyword at ExpiredDomains.net. Speaking of which, here are some keywords that you ought to search for.
- I have published two interesting podcasts so far this month. In episode #472, listen to how a domain investor sold $300k of domains through outbound marketing. In episode #473, two domain investors share their actual results from last year.
