Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain domain name startup, announces the most expensive sale of a domain name NFT ever recorded

Back in late 2019, we wrote about Unstoppable Domains after the Draper-backed startup launched a $1 million grant to help wallets, browsers and decentralized applications integrate blockchain domains. The San Francisco-based Unstoppable Domains is a registry business similar to Verisign, the owner of .com domain, except that domains are on a blockchain.

Unlike traditional .com, domains, blockchain domains are domain assets on a blockchain that replaces cryptocurrency addresses with human-readable names. Unstoppable Domains enables users to use their .zil and .crypto domain name when receiving crypto payments while improving their overall user experience.

Fast forward almost two years later, Unstoppable Domains announced today the sale of its “win.crypto” blockchain domain NFT for a record $100,000. The sale — which occurred on March 3, 2021 — stands alone as the most expensive domain name NFT ever recorded. The purchase of the “win.crypto” blockchain domain highlights the growing interest in the NFT phenomenon beyond digital art.

The colossal growth of the NFT market is historic. In February alone, NFT sales across the top three platforms topped $342 million USD — a 400% spike from the previous month, according to DappRadar. Additionally, with February NFT sales surpassing the entirety of 2020 NFT sales, there is mounting speculation that the market capitalization for NFTs could surpass $1.3 billion by year’s end.

Founded in 2018 by Bogdan Gusiev, Brad Kam, Braden Pezeshki, and Matthew Gould, Unstoppable Domains is a San Francisco-based company building the universal naming system for the decentralized web. The company is backed by Draper Associates and Boost VC and has received grants from the Ethereum Foundation.

Unstoppable Domains launches domains secured by blockchains and builds uncensorable websites. With Unstoppable Domains, users can register for the .zil domain extension, enabling them to create websites that leverage the decentralized storage network, InterPlanetary File System, for data storage. These domain names can also be used to replace crypto addresses, enabling users to use their .zil domain name when receiving crypto payments.

In line with the spiking NFT market growth, Unstoppable Domains unveiled its 94 premium sports and gaming NFTs for public sale, with domain name NFT offerings including “win.crypto”, “baseball.crypto” and “gambling.crypto”. Within the first three days of March, Unstoppable Domains was able to facilitate the largest domain name NFT sale in history with the “win.crypto” blockchain domain.

“The NFT market is experiencing unprecedented growth, and is drawing more attention to the space,” said Brad Kam, co-founder of Unstoppable Domains. “While most people assume NFTs are digital art, the reality is there are a substantial number of NFT use cases that don’t center around art — like domain names. Domain name NFTs, much like .com names can act as homes for decentralized websites, in addition to replacing complex cryptocurrency wallet addresses with a human-readable name. The surge in NFT excitement supports the idea that ownership — whether physical or digital — is incredibly valuable. Unstoppable Domains aims to put true, verifiable ownership in the hands of users with domain name NFTs.”

The influx of notable celebrities, athletes and recording artists into the NFT space is paving the road to mass mainstream adoption. The phenomenon has allowed creators and enthusiasts to monetize their digital work through NFTs, providing verifiable ownership to buyers, and accessible to new users.

“Unstoppable Domains’ blockchain domain NFTs can be purchased through Unstoppable Domains and OpenSea, or traded on decentralized NFT trading protocol NFT 20,” continued Kam. “While anyone can buy a traditional domain name through a registrar, users cannot buy permanent ownership. Traditional website domains sell for an average of ten dollars, and require a yearly registration fee to renew the domain. The historic sale of ‘win.crypto’ shows that users see value in permanent, verifiable domain ownership.”

Following the successful sale of the premium sports and gaming domain name NFTs, Unstoppable Domains will unveil a new batch of premium domain names on a weekly basis, with categories spanning travel and transportation to electronics and finance. Premium domain names are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

The record sale of the “win.crypto” blockchain domain comes on the heels of Unstoppable Domains’ February announcement that allows any internet browser access to the .crypto extension just like a .com to view a decentralized website with a single DNS setting change. To date, Unstoppable Domains has registered over 540,000 domain names.

Below is a video overview of the blockchain domain.