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- Americans and ICANNers avoid Kigali in droves
- RDRS stats improve a little in June
- Unstoppable Domains goes down after domain hijack
- Four more gTLDs in emergency measures
- New gTLDs and ccTLDs drive domain universe growth
- Eight interesting recent dot-brand registrations
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- Unstoppable announces another new gTLD bid
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- ICANN takes over gTLD after Whois failures
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- RDRS usage hits all-time low
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- Crawford returns to industry to head up Com Laude
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- ICANN names new CEO, and it isn’t Costerton
- ICANN: We will NOT police content
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- Secret new gTLD application revealed
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- Barrett gets second term on ICANN board
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- A new way to game the new gTLD program
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- Community revolts over ICANN’s auction proceeds power grab
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- Alibaba, Name.com among new RDRS opt-ins
- .my domains to be sold globally next month
- The Swiss can register .swiss domains from next week
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- Alibaba hit with ICANN breach notice
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- ICANN content policing power grab may be dead
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- Germany crosses 10,000 dot-brand domains milestone
- Founders out as Com Laude gets equity injection
- PIR’s Diaz to leave domain industry
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- ICANN opens $217 million Grant Program
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- .ai registry fights deadbeats with tweaked auction rules
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- .ai registry advises buyers not to use GoDaddy
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- Team Internet spends $41 million on content farm
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- ICANN 79: anonymous trolls and undercover lawyers
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- Governments back down on new gTLD next round delay
- Private auctions could be banned in new gTLD next round
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- GoDaddy’s GlobalBlock supports blockchain names
- Police .uk domain takedowns dive in 2023
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- Dueling domain blocking services to launch at ICANN 79
- Freename tries to bridge DNS and blockchain
- Olive retires from ICANN
- Whois policy published without life-saving disclosure rule
- UK gov takes its lead from ICANN on DNS abuse
- Tucows reports 2023 results
- Twitter “completely unresponsive” on clickable domains
- ICANN spends $5 million more than planned in first fiscal half
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- KeyTrap ‘the most devastating vulnerability ever found in DNSSEC’
- Freenom settles $500 million Meta lawsuit and will exit domain business
- New gTLD lottery to return in 2026
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- Domain universe grows on new gTLDs despite .com shrinkage
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- D3 announces fourth crypto new gTLD client
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Unstoppable valued at over $1 billion after huge new investment
Unstoppable Domains has received a huge new funding round that the company says means it now has a valuation in excess of $1 billion.
The $65 million Series A round was led by Pantera Capital, with a whopping 17 other venture capital firms taking part, according to the company.
Unstoppable is an alt-root player, offering blockchain-based domains in nine TLDs such as .nft, .blockchain, .crypto and .wallet.
Much of its work to date has been on persuading crypto currency users to use Unstoppable domains to replace the otherwise cumbersome and confusing addresses of their crypto wallets, but the names can also be used to address web sites if you use the right browser software.
Unlike the regular domain name industry, where much of the investment attractiveness comes from the possibility of high-margin recurring renewal revenue, Unstoppable sells its names for a one-time fee. It presumably has other revenue sources in mind for long-term growth.
The traditional domain name industry, ICANN, and potential new gTLD applicants should pay attention.
If, as seems likely, some of the TLD strings Unstoppable is using in its alt-root are applied for in the next new gTLD round, a well-funded competitor that has already proven itself litigious when it comes to name collisions could prove a formidable opponent.
Of course, some potential applicants might see a well-funded alt-root player as an invitation to apply for colliding strings in the hope of a quick pay-off at private auction.
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