Yes, but it’s not clear how much.
It might seem crazy to talk about the domain name market losing steam. After all, this week will be the sixth in a row that Ron Jackson reports a seven figure transaction on his domain sales reports.
But what about the investor-to-investor market? At some point, it’s hard to imagine that some of the more active domain investors spending over $1 million on a Bored Ape Yacht Club jpg does not mean money that would have gone into domains is going into NFTs.
I posed this question on Twitter this week and received a lot of responses, both public and private via DM. Here are some of the people who said yes, they are spending money on NFTs that would be going to domains:
I did buy 2 names this week but yes, absolutely.
— ariel.btc (@takelightly) August 24, 2021
Yes. Domains are boring and overpriced at this point
— barman (@ppcbz) August 23, 2021
Via DM, a domain investor told me he’s absolutely focusing more on NFTs. He said he has made much more from NFTs during the first half of the year than from domains. A couple of other domain investors told me they’ve diverted money destined for domains to NFTs, but they’re also continuing to invest in domains.
People are certainly making quick money in NFTs. And the domain market was getting a bit overheated, as Josh Reason points out:
No. I’d love to buy more domains however the wholesale market has been overpriced for too long and until it comes down to something more reasonable I’m in a holding pattern.
— Maximus | The most colorful ape 🎨 (@Maximus_NFT) August 24, 2021
The bigger question is if this is just a flash in the pan.
Stay tuned for Monday’s podcast with Shane Cultra, where we talk about domain investors piling into NFTs.
100-percent yes. I’m baffled why someone would buy a jpg file for so
Much money but now buy a great domain name if the same value. There are some like myself, who experienced recessions and growing up in a poor family who saw spending like this to see the fad wear off and their investment dwindle. I hope they don’t lose their money but history will say whether they were smart.
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Quite frankly anyone willing to spend 5-6-7 figures on an NFT could or should have the ability to still buy a good domain if it comes along. If they cannot than perhaps they have too many eggs in one basket.
PS dont get my started on this stupidity.
What does ‘overpriced’ mean within the context of URLs?
Whatever steam is being transferred to NFTs will eventually show in domain name sales related to the NFT marketplace. For example, if NFT*com were for sale; what would the price be?
Is $1M?$10M?$50M ‘overpriced’?
Price is whatever the SELLER is willing to sell at and the RIGHT buyer is willing pay. So, overpriced wholesale, may be perfectly priced for the right retail end user.
Let’s see if the market is still hot in Q3 2022…
That’s a good development imo. People paying $100k on ape jpgs means at least some liquidity will be sucked out of expired auctions. I won some decent names in the last week or two and overall I think expired auction prices were too high in recent month so every cool down is welcomed.
I’ve gone to OpenSea.io numerous times and looked at, literally, a sea of JPGs, trying to find anything I like enough to take a leap into NFTs. I have yet to find anything that says to me, yup, speculating in these millions of JPGs makes more logical sense than domain name investing.
I know several domain investors making hundreds of thousands of USD trading in and out of NFTs right now. They are savvier, more emotionally connected to the “art”, and greater risk takers than I am. All I see is a game of musical chairs and I expect at any moment the music will stop playing. These particular domain investors are smart enough that they will be out of NFTs before the music stops, I am certain.
I don’t really get the NFT hype, especially when it comes to owning small images of apes or punks or whatever. It is not something I really care much about honestly.
But, I do agree with the underlying sentiment that there are not many great domain investment opportunities on the reseller market. Maybe if you dig deep enough, but when it comes to auction venues most domains do seem overpriced when you factor in a standard sell-through rate for domains.
Brad
Monkey see, monkey do.
Best thing Ive read all day, genius.
Ponzi would be proud of this pump and dump scheme …. #wellplayed
Meh, I still own the entire Louvre on Weblo, so I’m way ahead of the curve on this virtual art ownership thing.
Definitely, reminds me of the lead up to when the New TLDs were coming out around 2012-2014, that was a very soft period for the domain market.
I hope the NFT boom cohtinues
2 NFT domains sold this week and already received payments
Both domains were handregged in June
holding out for xxxxx on another that got an offer
I realize my high 4, low 5 figure nft domain sales are peanuts compared to bored apes, but I’m not a megamillionaire like most of these NFT investors…and I hope they make fortunes
It’s really depressing to watch, I don’t care how much money they make… it’s made me loose a lot of respect for the folks I really thought were making better long decisions. Apparently nobody is immune to hype culture.
It is no better or worse than domains. People can do want they want and plenty of people are looking for short term flips in domains.
I wouldn’t say it’s hype culture… it’s more of a psyop. There is no way in hell that an image of a bored ape sells for many $thousands. These are mostly fake and/or insider transactions to teach the dumbest of us that they have value, in the hope that more dumb people join in and they can flip this intrinsically worthless garbage for big $.
I believe this is all part of an even bigger psyop to teach people to “value” intrinsically worthless tokens (such as NFTs and cryptocurrencies) at high levels and thus eventually replace the now well know fraudulent conventional fiat currency system with another newer devious form of worthless currency/ies.
i like to build an idea or business on a domain that solves a real world problem for someone well enough that they will pay me REPEATEDLY to continue to solve it – in the 70s this took physical assets today the domain name and well built digital delivery system is all you need
– many domainers are not business people they are just get rich quick types or flippers so not surprised they would get sucked into this – see the .club frenzy from Q1 2021 – how are all those incredible only $.99 investments turning out ?
– 5 years from now my domains and their related businesses will still be valuable – pixelated apes? we shall see.
One of the first things i was taught in my MBA class was this case study of financial manias – seemed laughable when you read it.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/tulip-mania
Clearly history repeats. Imagine them laughing 200 years from now at this garbage.
Herd mentality, no different than new gTLDs, shill bidding .io, Crypto, NFT’s or Bored Apes. Pump and Dump. Pump the price within a certain group of domain investors, get suckers to buy in at high prices then dump it and let the suckers take the loss.