Release allows domain registrants to add web3 capabilities to their domains.
Domain name and web3 company D3 Global launched its Doma Protocol mainnet today.
With the launch, domain registrants can add web3 capabilities to their domain names, including tokenization to fractionalize domain names.
D3 Global has signed up numerous registrars at launch, including InterNetX and ConnectReseller. Encirca announced today that it’s operational with the Doma Protocol, allowing its customers to add web3 functionality to domains in 450 top level domains.
A key idea behind Doma is to give domain name owners more liquidity. Registrants might get more liquidity by attracting cryptocurrency enthusiasts on web3 exchanges.
But perhaps the most interesting thing to watch is fractionalization, which could help registrants unlock value in their domains without selling them.
As a launch example, tokens will soon be available for software.ai.
Each domain has three values before launch:
- Min Buyout – minimum price to purchase 100% of the domain outright. This prevents the domain from selling at a lower price.
- Starting FDV – “Fully Diluted Valuation” is the total market value of the domain based on the initial starting token price. Software.ai launches at a $25,000 starting FDV, so early participants can obtain tokens at a favorable valuation.
- Bonding FDV – the bonding curve is an automated pricing mechanism that gradually increases the token price as more people buy. In the case of software.ai, after starting at $25,000, each purchase automatically pushes the price slightly higher along a predetermined curve until it reaches $250,000.
Once the curve reaches $250,000, tokens move to open-market trading, where prices are determined by supply and demand.
It will be interesting to see how software.ai performs. Getting a share of the domain at $25,000 would be a good value. However, a $2.5 million sale is a stretch.
Andrew,
Thanks for the EnCirca shout out.
If your readers are interested in testing tokenization, we are offering at-cost registrations at encirca.com/tokenize.
Tom
$2.5M? I’ll happily take the over.
They laughed at .AI, got proven spectacularly wrong, and now they’re all in — pretending it’s a one-off to justify missing the semantic train, while sweating over their bloated .COM portfolios.
“Domainer” culture is one hell of a drug.
Preach, Brandon. First “no new gTLDs,” then “.ai only,” now “.ai, .tv, .now…but that’s it!”
These so-called domainers wouldn’t have touched .coms in the 90s…
Raoul
I love the idea of fractionalising a domain but am not quite sure the value of using blockchain to do this? Is there a use case that sees hundreds/thousands of owners of a single domain that would warrant blockchain for administering? Doesn’t the gas cost of the transactions chip away at the value?
What i think would be really interesting in this space is not just fractionalising a domain name but fractionalising an entire domain portfolio. Then we can start to treat high value domain portfolios like REITs and provide more liquidity all round.
You’re thinking in Web2 logic. Fractionalizing a domain via a cap table or custodian works… until it doesn’t. The entire point of putting it on-chain isn’t “because crypto,” it’s because neutral, programmable ownership solves problems that show up the moment you have more than 2–3 owners:
– instant secondary liquidity without a human in the loop
– transparent cap table that can’t be “adjusted”
– trustless distributions (parking, leasing, revenue share)
– permissionless markets for fractions
– global participation without accredited-investor gatekeeping
Gas is irrelevant here — these aren’t microtransactions and D3 isn’t running this on congested Ethereum mainnet.
As for portfolios, agreed — that’s where this inevitably heads.
But the portfolio REIT only works once the primitives (fractional ownership + liquid markets for individual assets) exist. You don’t build the REIT first, you build the NASDAQ rails first.
Fractionalizing portfolios is the endgame.
Fractionalizing domains is the prerequisite.
Great points Jill, but it really is a “because crypto” dynamic.
This is the same crowd that dropped $3.4M on a Bored Ape JPEG… $23.7M on a single CryptoPunk NFT purely for digital scarcity. Fundamentals aren’t their religion. token price and narrative are.
And the narrative here is vicious: domains like Software.ai aren’t just scarce collectibles; they have built in unit economics. Higher CTR → cheaper clicks → lower blended CAC. That’s real-world yield. Lease revenue isn’t a dream… it’s arithmetic.
Once crypto realizes domains were the original NFTs but with cashflow, they’ll pump these things like momentum stocks. Whether the FDV is $1M or $100M won’t faze them for even half a heartbeat.
Like it or not though, all of those points of friction that exist in “Web 2” create opportunities for other participants in the market and those participants then drive the promotion of the assets, increase trust in the value of the asset and ultimately increase the market size. Ideally there wouldn’t be any value from the friction but the reality is that there is. It might solve some administrative clunkiness having on blockchain but they’ll need to find another way to bring participants into the market otherwise that secondary market will run out of people with money quickly.
I would say this scenario is absolutely fraught for later ‘investors’, as a result of the introduction of the Bonding FDV.
Picture this:
I jump onboard at a Starting FDV of $25k. We will assume other investors follow and eventually some are purchasing at a FDV of $250,000. After that, tokens move to open-market trading. I then am more than happy to sell my tokens at a FDV of $125,000, having 5x’ed my money. Great result for me, thank you. At this point in time, new investors are buying in at the market price FDV of $125,000 and everyone who paid for tokens at a valuation of $125k+ is losing money. For those buying in at the $250k valuation, having halved their money, they may never get a pay-out. Barring a significant influx of new investors who are happy paying a lot more for tokens, they are then hanging on for the eventual sale at $2.5mil. If it doesn’t come (which I think is quite possible at that price) they are sitting on a losing investment till Kingdom come.
Oh, and if I decide to sell out @ $50k, having doubled my money, good luck to the rest of you.
Yep, this might be a great deal for very early adopters at FDV of say $25k – $50k, but there is every chance people paying at higher valuations never receive a return.
There is an actual crypto coin called Fart Coin… it currently has a $280 million dollar market cap
Call me crazy, but I think the same people who pushed Fart Coin to a quarter billion dollar valuation might see a lot of value in owning a share of Software.AI at a price significantly higher than $250k
One is a joke, the other is the definitive domain for potentially the most transformational technology is the history of humanity