Why crypto domains are now hot properties? Today, you will find terms like Bitcoin, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and other crypto related words in most of the dictionaries which proves that these have become mainstream.
All these terms have a lot of value when you link them with a web domain, especially those related to digital currency.
In fact, today, crypto domains are common topics for discussion. These crypto domains have become hot and prime real estate that often sell for a huge amount, often of up to seven figures!
You will find a lot of businesses and even individuals who buy a crypto domain with an intention to sell it off later on for profit.
Now, you may wonder why crypto domains have become hot properties today.
Well, the first most significant reason is that these domains are making things much easier for the crypto users.
However, that may not be enough for you to understand why exactly these crypto domains sell for such exorbitant amounts.
This is why you will need to go through articles like this one.
In this article you will come to know about the reasons as well as the possibilities of crypto domains in the near future.
Once you know the reasons and other important aspects of crypto domains you will surely be interested to try and dig your luck in this gold mine.
Contents
Why Crypto Domains are Now Hot Properties?
The crypto market has grown exponentially over the past decade spreading its tentacles all over, thanks to several contributing factors.
Some of the important factors are incredible growth and advancement in blockchain technology on which the crypto space is heavily dependent, the rise in the number of crypto exchanges and broker services, safe and reliable wallets and more.
Another important factor is a unique web domain.
There are several such crypto domains over and above Blockchain.com and Bitcoin.com and the value of each of them can be well estimated with reference to the domain value calculator.
Some of them today sell for several millions of dollars.
It was not very long ago that the web domains were tradable but ever since these were made so, ‘domain squatting’ has been so widespread in the crypto space.
This is the process where a person buys up a set of website names related to blockchain and then sells them at a time when it is profitable.
In the crypto industry, these people are called ‘Domain squatters’ and there are a lot of them as of now.
They include both individuals and large and small businesses.
With so many competitors now in this particular market segment, the domain squatters therefore have to deal now with the continual pressure.
This is because the best domain names can be taken away early.
It is for this rising pressure and competition among the domain squatters as well as the rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies, especially after the bull run of the crypto market in 2017, that there is such a surge in demand for websites related to blockchain.
This has made them hot properties and is now selling for millions of dollars.
Possibilities of a Crypto Domain Price Peak
There is a huge possibility of the crypto domains reaching its peak in terms of value. A few good examples will make things much clearer to you.
Way back in 2009 when cryptocurrency came into existence, the Eth.com website sold for a meager amount to a company that owned it till 2013.
In fact, the value of the website was under $20000. It was then sold to another owner who used a WHOIS history privacy protection plan.
The website was again sold for the third time in October 2017 for $2 million. Since then and till now, the website is dedicated to Ethereum mining.
Then, in 2018, Binance supposedly bought the Cryptoworld.com domain from Mike Mann for $195,000.
The owner however bought that domain way back in 2011 for a paltry amount of only $15.
Also, there were other crypto domains that have been sold such as the Globalcoin.com was sold in 2017 to someone from Shanghai for $35,516 and Cryptotrading.com in January 2018 was bought by William Thomas for $35,000.
All these examples show that the time period of the change in ownership is almost the same – 2017, which is when the crypto market experienced a bull run.
This signifies that the prices of crypto domains peaked in 2017 and it has continued and will continue to rise in the years to come.
In fact, it cannot be said for sure whether or not crypto domain prices have reached its peak on this day.
Today, you will find a magnanimous list of crypto domains up for sale in different marketplaces all over the world for thousands of dollars.
Some of the most sought after crypto domain names are:
- Coinsbio.com
- 360crypto.com
- Bitcointransfer.co
- Block-chain.com.de
- Btcwallet.club
- Tokenpay.es
You will also come across several individuals on Twitter who are willing to sell crypto domains and they are also finding a lot of buyers for it as well.
Rise in Sales of Crypto Related Websites
As said before, you will find a lot of people wanting to sell or buy crypto domains even at high prices if you search through the depths of different crypto community forums and social media platforms.
This shows that the real estate market of crypto domains is really in a very high tempo right now.
A lot of websites related with crypto names have been sold over the past few months, a few search results and survey reports show.
A little research will enable you to know about the different names and the values at which they were bought and sold.
Just as the number of sales of these crypto domains increased steadily after 2017 after the bull run, the prices of these also increased significantly.
For example, if you consider the average price of these crypto domains it rose from a thousand dollars back then to tens of thousand dollars today.
However, experts say that the most significant reason for the rise in popularity of the crypto domains to such an unbelievable extent is all due to the ever growing popularity of the digital currencies itself because the names of these domains are related to this exciting and prospective industry.
They say that the price of the crypto domains simply follow the market prices which however is ideally a bit on the higher side due to too many domain squatters gambling with them.
It is therefore pretty hard to tell whether or not a specific crypto domain name will be able to entice one or several buyers in the future or whether or not it will be a good brand on the internet.
However, looking at the price charts and the overall pattern of the buyers, it can be safely said that the prices of the crypto domains will be higher in the near as well as in the distant future given the fact that the momentum has moved from bearish to bullish in the crypto market.
This change is good news for the crypto investors as well as the crypto domain investors and hoarders.
The crypto space will see more new startups emerging in it and the blockchain technology will go on evolving which will enhance the options and variety of crypto domains to choose from.
However, the market experts say that if you want to invest in crypto domains, you should focus on the keywords specifically.
You should go for safer options and names that include .com, .co, .io, or .org and keywords like Bitcoin, Btc, Bit, Coin, Crypto, Chain, Blockchain, Block, Token, Airdrop, and Faucet.
Making Them Private
This continual and significant rise in the crypto domain segment however raises some concern among the market critics and experts.
They feel that people will come up with new kinds of domain names to make them unique and attractive but that would make it just the right recipe for abuse by the cyber criminals.
Therefore, being cautious while choosing a crypto domain name as explained at the end of the paragraph above may not be enough for the users to stay safe.
This is why the blockchain is making the domain names more private now.
Microsoft has recently issued a Digital Defense Report which includes a gallery of cyber threats by the malicious actors.
This includes ransomware, phishing, and supply chain attacks, and blockchain domains, which however is the most unusual name to be included in the list.
However, it is true and therefore more precautionary measures are necessary, and making the blockchain domain names private is the first step towards ensuring safety and security to the buyers and users.
Microsoft considers the crypto domain names to be ‘The next big threat’ in their latest annual security report because it is written into the blockchain or the distributed ledger which is maintained across an assemblage of computers.
The fact that it is not stored in a centralized traditional registry makes it all the more vulnerable to cyber attacks, they say.
This is because it will be very difficult, if not impossible to trace the owners or shut down the system in the case of any mishaps since the domain names will be stored on a blockchain and distributed all across the network.
This means that without using any specialized software program or settings it will be hard for anyone to find the source and react accordingly if and when the crypto domains are integrated into cybercriminal operations and infrastructure.
Therefore, with all good intentions, Microsoft proposed that the potential for cyber abuse and creation of an unquestionable criminal network should be taken seriously.
It needs leveraging blockchain or crypto domains and making them private seems to be a good move as of now.
Another significant aspect of the crypto domains is that these cannot be taken back.
These are totally owned by the users and they do not have to pay any renewal fees for it. They have full control over it, for life.
Therefore, this called for trademark compliance requirements and policies.
Other measures like preventing registration of domains that may be linked with pirating software or known for fraud and IP theft are also imposed.
Few service providers can even take back the domain if the owner gives it to a custody service rather than transferring the domain to their own crypto wallet.
All these will increase the functionality of the crypto domains and trust for crypto transactions as these are not optimized for malware.
These domains will create one single non-changing endpoint that is easy to memorize. However, the anonymity factor here is quite questionable.
Also, there is a need for a special browser to use the crypto domains for custom routing and therefore these are considered to be pretty inefficient for cyber attacks.
This feature eliminates the chances of spreading malware by those garden-variety web browsers that do not support these crypto domains in the first place.
The good news is that there is less likelihood that there would be an expanded browser support for the blockchain domains anytime soon.
This means that the willingness to switch browsers, custom configure the Domain Name System, install browser extensions, and adoption of crypto domains will be left on the users themselves.
DNS comes with security vulnerabilities of its own which however is due to its centralized structure partially, but putting the crypto domain names on the blockchain surely gives it a new set of security hazards.
And, as of now there is no categorical statement to make that would tell about the magnitude of such risks.
However, the potential and usefulness of the blockchain domains can be used for better and in a much less riskier manner if a different type of incentive structure can be created, experts say.
It can also be a one in which the users will have greater control over their own transactional and personal information.
This they say will prioritize societal benefit over pure profit making the best use of its potential.
Good or Bad
Quite a few people think that crypto domains are exceptionally good because it has paid their owners rich dividends, 30x to some.
Though it is quite early to forecast its future, the rate at which it is growing indicates that it is not going anywhere soon.
However, it also comes with some downsides and therefore whether it is good or bad is for you to decide after you weigh the pros and cons of crypto domains as mentioned hereunder.
Crypto domains are much better than traditional domains that usually are known to have flaws.
The blockchain domains in comparison try to improve the infrastructure so that it offers a few significant advantages. These are:
- Decentralization, that offers full access, control, and power to the users
- Censorship resistance, since there are no central authorities or governments controlling them and
- No domain fees, which mean that the users own it forever.
It also allows making smoother and faster crypto transactions since it does not need copying and pasting a long hexadecimal wallet address which may lead to error and wrong transfer.
The short crypto domain is easy to remember and very simple to type which acts as the wallet address. This reduces time significantly.
As for the downside of crypto domains it includes:
You may be locked out of your domain. In that case, if you lose your private keys you will not be able to get control over the domain once again.
This is because no one apart from you knows the combination of the key. In such a situation, you may have to leave the crypto domain altogether.
Limited SEO visibility is another significant disadvantage of the blockchain domains.
This is because these are still in their early stage and therefore are not or less SEO-friendly.
This will make it pretty difficult for the users to search for a crypto domain on popular search engines such as Google or Bing.
Finally, you will have little or no control over the spammers. This is because it is decentralized.
This means that you will not be able to filter the bad-faith users out.
They may cause a lot of trouble during operation and even post unwanted and abusive content on your platform.
Conclusion
Crypto domains buying and selling is in high tempo today but unless you know the risks, benefits, potentials, and prospects of them it will be unwise to get involved with it. This article along with your own due diligence will be of great help.
I have special interest in crypto and intend to help common people to gain knowledge about the digital asset as well as its potential. Follow Me at Linkedin.
