Highly-sought after domain name Crypto.com sold for $12 million to Crypto Visa card company Monaco
Nickie Louise
Posted On July 6, 2018
One of the hottest and highly sought-after domain names in the world, Crypto.com, has been sold to Crypto Visa card company Monaco for millions of dollars. TechCrunch first broke the news. The Hong Kong-based company raised $25 million in crypto from its first ICO in June 2017. Monaco is a cryptocurrency startup that is attempting to the bridge the gap between crypto and the traditional payment infrastructure through the Monaco Card. The Monaco Visa Card is a debit card that allows customers to load up funds by selling their crypto holdings on the Monaco app. The company is already using Crypto.com to unveil its new MCO Visa Card portfolio and MCO Private service.
Crypto.com was previously owned by cryptologist Matt Blaze, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a well-regarded cryptography researcher who is credited with the phrase and concept of “trust management.” Blaze first registered the domain 1993. Some domain experts told Verged that the domain could be worth as high as $10 million. Niko Younts told Verged: “It’s actually an unbelievable domain.” Younts sold BitcoinWallet.com for $250,000 back in 2014 and currently holds a portfolio of more than 1,000 cryptocurrency-related domains. “That word ‘crypto’ is very powerful to industry leaders, and from a marketing perspective. It could be quite literally a $10 million domain.”
Investors who missed out on Crypto.com may be able to acquire a similar domain name, CryptoHQ.com, for just a quarter of a million dollars ($250K).
Blaze said on Twitter back in January 2018: “For anyone else trying to contact me for this reason, don’t bother. Not for sale.” That was then.
For anyone else trying to contact me for this reason, don't bother. Not for sale. https://t.co/S8yKT4J5IF
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) January 5, 2018
According to his profile, Matt Blaze directs the Distributed Systems Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Matt said: “This site does not trade in or provide services related to cryptocurrencies. It is concerned with cryptography, computer and network security, and technology policy research.”
Blaze is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a well-regarded cryptography researcher who is credited with the phrase and concept of “trust management,” an important framework for modeling the authenticity and reliability of parties in information security.
A visit to Manoco old website (https://mona.co/), redirects visitor to the new Crypto.com website with the message: “Monaco is now Crypto.com.”
Update: Tanaya Macheel of Cheddar just pegged the sale price of the Crypto.com domain name at $12 million. According to the post, “Monaco, a Swiss payments and cryptocurrency platform start-up, paid $12 million for the URL as part of a rebranding strategy, Cheddar has learned.” I am not sure whether or not this has been confirmed by the buyer or seller.
