Sorry for the lack of posts guys, been working a LOT on my new book (almost finished btw) and dabbling in crypto here and there (like quite a few other domainers it seems haha).

And speaking of cryptocurrencies, one cannot help but notice that over the past couple of months (as of mid-2016 come to think of it), domaining hasn’t exactly been in the spotlight. As excited as the short domain mania of late 2015 to early 2016 made people about domaining, things fell off a cliff after the Chinese-driven boom cooled down.

Now of course, as always, your mileage may vary.

But as far as I’m concerned (based on my own experience and the feedback I got from those I keep in touch with), here’s how things stand in the world of domaining at this point:

1. Short domain liquidity has come down a LOT. Are short names still the most liquid domain assets? Yes but compared to the days of the short domain mania, when you’d list a domain on a forum and get literally assaulted with offers, things cooled down quite a bit
2. With respect to short domain prices, things are tricky. Did they fall a lot? Yes, currently at less than half compared to the peak. However, do keep in mind that for example several of the LLLL dot coms we now call chips (Chinese Premium domains, so names without aeiouv) used to be available at the registration fee in 2009-2010 and therefore, even if they’re “only” worth $850 now, it’s all relative I guess. If you bought around the peak, you’re obviously bummed but if you invested after the Great Recession, you’re still a pretty happy camper
3. Leaving short domains aside, the domain aftermarket itself is in a pretty sad state. If you think short domains are hard to move on the reseller market these days, let’s not even talk about two worders and other domain categories. The domainer to domainer market has seen better days, this much is certain
4. End users are of course still out there but as Rick tends to say, it’s one project at a time, one need at a time. Still, it’s healthy to remember that in the end, we should all be thinking about end users a lot more. Which, let’s be honest, people haven’t exactly doing during the short domain mania, so perhaps this state of affairs is therapeutic in a way
5. People still aren’t making money with new gTLDs, unsurprisingly. New g’s have been around long enough and by now, there should have been plenty of case studies about PROFITABLE new gTLD-related business models. Where people talk about how much they’ve made in terms of pure profits (revenue minus expenses!!!) and not about potential and how we need to be patient
6. As pretty much everyone can notice, a lot of speculation-oriented capital has been moving away from domains and towards… drum roll, please… cryptocurrencies 🙂 So yeah, the ultra-speculative energy we’ve witnessed with the short domain mania can now be found in the world of crypto and even domainers are talking about this. For example Rick Schwartz on twitter, Andrew Rosener with his new crypto buying/selling service and so on. Pretty fascinating

That’s it for now, feel free to share your perspective on the domain industry at the point.

The good, the bad and the ugly 🙂