Do you believe all the .XYZ domain sales the past year? (2.Viewing)

If you've been watching domain sales reports, you've seen single word .xyz sell regularly for thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars.

Very hard to believe at first, but it seems some of these domains are getting websites built on them.

Do you believe these sales are real, anyone have any insight into what's going on?

I can see .co because it's similar to .com and could mean company, I can even see .io because of the 1's and 0's for coding with tech companies, but .xyz??

Example of recent sales in .xyz

Glow.xyz $79,888

Cafe.xyz $7,450

Soba.xyz $4,995

Guy.xyz $4,850

domains said:

Example of recent sales in .xyz
Glow.xyz $79,888
Cafe.xyz $7,450
Soba.xyz $4,995
Guy.xyz $4,850

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Wow..those are great numbers, especially the top one. How much do you think the .ca would be worth then??

domains said:

Cafe.xyz, Guy.xyz

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Great news, Guy.xyz and Cafe.xyz is now available for $150,000 each

The extension has a real chance at becoming the new #2 to .com, especially because of google.

However, I still think ultimately you will see a lot of upgrades to .com if the company can afford it/ acquire the .com.

Having to say square.xyz is still quite a bit more cumbersome than saying square.com

This debate will probably go on forever but if I had to make a new business name I would rather make one up and use the .com than use the .xyz

MapleDots.xyz just does not carry as much weight as MapleDots.com


PS. All that said, if I can make money on one I will register it in a New York minute.

In the first few years of .xyz it would have been so easy to pick up a lot of short keywords that appear to be selling as of late. Who would have known except the more optimistic speculator?

I would have given .ws more of a chance than .xyz

Part of this price spike because of how XYZ is trying to integrate into Web3, starting with eth.xyz, which provides a link between Web1/2 and Web3 for Ether users/wallets.

DomainRecap said:

XYZ is trying to integrate into Web3

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Great point.. heard about it but didn't click initially.

Crypto moves markets!

DomainRecap said:

eth.xyz

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Yes, I believe them. If we don't believe them what other level of verification would be possible?
*The vast majority have been submitted to NameBio and the transaction was verified.
*Also, most were covered in DNJournal.
*The names sold by Swetha, she routinely posted visual verification.
*The sales essentially all happened on the main marketplaces, Afternic, Dan, Sedo, a few on Alter, at least one on SH. Don't you think these places would have spoken up if they were not true?
*I did an analysis about 7 months ago, and Ray did one recently, that shows that 50% + of recent major .xyz sales are already developed, a higher percentage than similar analysis of recent major legacy extensions.
*Essentially none of the sales are registry in recent years, and in fact almost none are even registry premium renewals.
What exactly would be required to believe the sales, if all of this is not enough? It is a higher level than we routinely accept in lots of sales that no one questions.

The prices for .xyz are eye-popping, I agree, and top marks to Swetha for moving a portion of the market almost single-handedly at first and amassing a superb portfolio and holding out for good prices.

There are definitely businesses looking for .xyz in certain sectors (blockchain, collaboration, NFTs, crypto, defi, etc.). I don't have a great or large .xyz portfolio, but I monitor the ones I have listed at Alter and many of them routinely get more people searching than the legacy extensions I have listed. I sold one .xyz for 4-fig at end of 2021 (too cheaply, the BIN came through literally the day I was planning to increase my .xyz prices somewhat on Alter), and the company was operating on it within 2 weeks.

Will use of .xyz broaden? I suspect so, as .io has broadened outside of tech focus to a large degree.

So please, can we stop questioning .xyz as though we are still back in the year of the penny promotion when the registry destroyed its reputation. Things have changed, and for a variety of reasons, .xyz is emerging as an accepted alternative to some startups.

Sorry, off my soapbox now.

Bob

PS I agree that the Web3 integration is a major factor. So far, in recent years, I think the registry has been smart in keeping the renewal reasonable, about the same as .com, and it would appear to me not further designating names as premium just cause someone held them for awhile, as some other cc and new registries do.

I was domaining during the .xyz launch when it was ridiculed by many and also though the penny promotions, which is probably why I think these sales at first are hard to believe and amazing, it's my own bias.

If it's a lot of blockchain, crypto, defi, nft market sales, they've targeted the right market.

I think the sales are great, because it shows the domain market is robust if people are willing to pay those prices for .xyz

Just think back in 2014, all we had to do was buy bitcoin and .xyz premium words to be kajillionaires!

Swetha has priced majority of her names. And she has the same price across all the platforms.It's all BIN and no leasing or make offer. Gives the option for the buyer to pick the platform they trust to buy the domain from.

For example: hag


Have to be careful when buying xyz domains though because of premium renewals on some. Use epik.com to check if a domain has premium renewal.

Kudos to Swetha and what she is able to accomplish.

I hope none of her buyers or potential buyers see this article, ouch!

https://www.spotvirtual.com/blog/the-perils-of-an-xyz-domain/

And yes, I am starting to get startup clients asking me for help buying .xyz domains; that is something new just the last few months.

Interesting you are recently seeing buy requests for .xyz, Bill.

Your rule of thumb on what other TLDs might go for relative to .com, that you published a few years ago, has been widely referenced. Have you an idea of what currently would be the ratio for .xyz vs .com?

The link you posted did not work for me, but presume it was the blog post by the person who started on a single word .xyz, reported problems sharing link's with his wife's cell phone provider in text messages, and saw traffic increase when switched to two-word .com (that gets traffic redirected from the single word .xyz they still have). It is of course one person, and a number of businesses have operated successfully on .xyz for many years, so there may be something unique to their startup journey that reflected on that one name (just speculating).

I just checked and 9 of the largest sales reported on NameBio in 2022 are .xyz. That may not hold up as year goes on and more big .com sales come on, but the tidal wave is impressive.

Have people checked out https://block.xyz/? A rather unique sort of splash page. Can see appeal to the code community, but wonder how others will react. It is interesting to see the diversity in TLDs on the different companies, cash is on an .app, tidal on .com, square for now SquareUp on .com, and spiral (as well as block) on .xyz.

Bob

Here is some Wednesday morning trivia.
Who can first post the name of a significant domain industry provider who has operated on an .xyz for years? (no I don't mean the registry)
Bob

Bob Hawkes said:

Here is some Wednesday morning trivia.
Who can first post the name of a significant domain industry provider who has operated on an .xyz for years? (no I don't mean the registry)
Bob

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Maybe you're referring to abc.xyz ? "operated" would be a strong word in this case though.

Bob Hawkes said:

Interesting you are recently seeing buy requests for .xyz, Bill.

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It may be short-lived. Ask me again in a year, LOL.

Bob Hawkes said:

Your rule of thumb on what other TLDs might go for relative to .com, that you published a few years ago, has been widely referenced. Have you an idea of what currently would be the ratio for .xyz vs .com?

Click to expand...

.xyz seems to be having a very frothy period at the moment, not sure if that will be sustained. But based on the current frothy-ness, it would seem like buyers are willing to pay as much as 1/10th of the .com price to get the .xyz version. Or, put another way, .xyz might be worth as much as 1/10th of .com. Your mileage may vary, yadda yadda.

Bob Hawkes said:

The link you posted did not work for me, but presume it was the blog post by the person who started on a single word .xyz, reported problems sharing link's with his wife's cell phone provider in text messages, and saw traffic increase when switched to two-word .com (that gets traffic redirected from the single word .xyz they still have).

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Yes, that was the article. Kind of blew me away when I saw it. I am actually pretty neutral about all TLDs and nTLDs and ccTLDS ... I will help my clients buy whatever they want, I don't judge, but of course I will share my opinion of they ask for it.

I will say that startup founders do tend to play follow the leader, meaning that if they see a prominent founder in their circle using or launching on a .whatever, they will (rightly or not) seriously consider doing the same. This is how .co and then .io and .ai and most recently .gg took off.

That being said, I get a ton of work from startups that started on .whatever and now want to, or need to, upgrade to the .com. 99.9% of the end-user buyers I speak to would, if they could, buy the .com, it is their first choice, almost without exception.

FM said:

Maybe you're referring to abc.xyz ? "operated" would be a strong word in this case though.

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No, although agree Google is in domain business, so maybe it qualifies. But since that is site basically for the Google founders to discuss ideas, and share reports, with investors, don't really regard it as a domain site.

The site I had in mind is West.xyz, the English language International site for the large Chinese registrar West. I did not check exactly when they started using their .xyz but they have been on it at least 2-3 years. In a few things they have great prices, although not as much difference as was once the case.

Bob

Thanks for illuminating answer, [notify]MaiTaiMan[/notify]- really appreciate it.

Yes, I think the big question is whether the valuations and sales momentum will keep rolling. I know that a relatively few investors were involved in some of the country code extensions that grew a market, but I don't know of a situation akin to Swetha where she has more than 16000 (from a total portfolio of 19,000) of the very best mainly single word .xyz. Admire her courage to keep renewing when number of sales per year was modest, and lately she has really benefitted. She announces her sales in one or two sets a week, but for example on today's NameBio he has 6 of the top 10 sales of the day, including positions 1, 3, 4.

-Bob

Does anyone know of a significant Canadian business or organization that is operating on .xyz, not just as a redirection but as main site? For awhile there was a popular 3D printing lab that grew out of a university operating on one, but I don't think still operational. They used the xyz positional idea for it.

There are a few blogs, etc. There are a ton of what seems to be copy sites of legitimate sites. That is a big issue for the TLD - they should police more strongly. But I can't actually name a Canadian business on one myself.

I think the adoption of block.xyz by a well known business, and the many sales to global web3 startups many already in use, but I think to broaden use people need to see some regional businesses on them.

Bob