For much of the domain name industry’s history, the aftermarket was shaped primarily by investors selling to other investors. Liquidity, pricing norms, and platform features evolved around domainer-to-domainer transactions, where speed, arbitrage, and pattern recognition mattered more than branding or long-term use. End users were present, but they were outsiders entering a system not designed…

For much of the domain name industry’s early evolution, due diligence was informal, inconsistent, and often incomplete. Buyers relied on experience, intuition, and hurried checks to assess risk before acquiring a domain. Some looked at trademarks, others glanced at historical use, and many skipped critical steps entirely. When mistakes occurred, they were chalked up to…

For a long time, domain acquisition was framed almost entirely around upside. Buyers focused on what a name could become, who might want it someday, or how impressive it felt to own. The question of exit was often postponed indefinitely, treated as something to consider only after years of holding or when an unsolicited offer…

For a long time, one of the quiet but persistent frictions in the domain name industry had nothing to do with pricing, availability, or branding. It lived deeper in the stack, in the mechanics of DNS management. Domain Name System settings were powerful, essential, and notoriously unfriendly to anyone without technical training. For engineers, DNS…

For most of the domain name industry’s history, premium value was tightly concentrated around a small set of extensions, with .com dominating nearly every serious conversation. Other extensions existed, but they were usually framed as compromises, regional identifiers, or low-cost alternatives rather than first-choice assets. This hierarchy began to shift as startup culture evolved, particularly…

For much of the domain name industry’s formative years, acquisition decisions were driven by intuition, pattern recognition, and personal conviction. Experienced domainers prided themselves on instinct, often describing purchases as things that simply felt right. This gut-driven approach was not irrational in its time. Data was scarce, markets were thin, and early successes reinforced the…

As the domain name industry matured, a widening gap emerged between mass-market liquidity and the needs of premium buyers and sellers. Public marketplaces excelled at scale, offering thousands or millions of listings, automated checkout, and broad distribution. This model worked well for most inventory, but it proved less effective at the very top of the…

For most of the domain name industry’s history, payments were constrained by traditional financial rails. Wire transfers, credit cards, PayPal, and escrow services defined how value moved between buyers and sellers. These systems worked, but they carried friction in the form of fees, delays, geographic limitations, and compliance hurdles. As the industry globalized and transaction…

As the domain name industry matured and portfolios grew in both size and value, the risks associated with inattention became increasingly apparent. Domains are uniquely vulnerable assets. They can be transferred, modified, dropped, or repurposed with little visible warning, often across jurisdictions and systems that do not naturally communicate with one another. For a long…

For much of the domain name industry’s evolution, commissions were an accepted but poorly understood cost of doing business. Sellers listed domains across marketplaces, registrars, brokers, and networks with only a vague sense of what each channel actually took in exchange for a sale. Fees were buried in terms, varied by circumstance, or changed depending…