Company will take over auctions from Dynadot.
Namecheap has won the right to auction expiring registry .ai domain names going forward.
The company’s CEO, Richard Kirkendall, noted the change in a post on X today.
Earlier in the day, Vincent Cate, who ran the .ai registry until Identity Digital took it over last month, sent a message to some customers noting, “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we can no longer do auctions at auction.whois.ai.”
Practically speaking, most customers bought expiring domain names through Dynadot, which managed the auctions on behalf of the .ai registry.
A change to the auctions was not entirely unexpected. Last month, Ram Mohan, Chief Strategy Officer of Identity Digital, told Domain Name Wire that it was reviewing the expired domain auction process with Anguilla’s government.
Namecheap will run daily auctions on its auction platform compared to the monthly auctions that were occurring at Dynadot.
I thought Name .com was the in-house registrar for Internet Digital?
Unless that is no longer the case, seems like a lost opportunity for Name .com.
.ai peaked last month but Domainers will continue to chase the fumes of the .ai bubble.
The strongest companies from the .ai peak will chase dotcom in 2025.
You already said they peaked last month. But keep holding on tight to that thought while the sales keep coming. .Ai investors already won, flipping $140 into 5 figures.
Wrong.
A very small group, maybe 1% won. They are the smart ones liquidating their .ai to late to the party dupes. Happens every hype cycle.
Renewals on .ai are $75 on average and until recently you could only renew on two-year terms. Good dotcom portfolios have less than 2% STR. What do you think the STR is on a .ai portfolio plus renewals?
Mark my words, the .ai bubble has popped, by year end END USER disinterest will be so obvious.
END USERS are sticking to .ai even if they have the .com, perplexity.ai, agent.ai, claude.ai their .coms all go to the .ai because they ALL want to be known as such. Many more will follow.
But you’ll keep saying that the bubble will pop, might as well have that written on your tombstone because .ai will absolutely out live you.
Identity Digital owns name .com but I don’t think it has an auction platform. Namecheap also has much more reach. The Gov of Anguilla wants to get ad much $ as possible from this, and this wasn’t solely up to Identity Digital.
Good business move for Anguilla and Namecheap.