In this third and final edition of the GoDaddy sales roundup for the January 2021 sales data release from GoDaddy, we’re looking at five more sales including Skweezer.net, BTC365.com, and Own.co.
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Skweezer.net – $144,000
The sale of Skweezer.net for $144,000 is one of the more puzzling sales I’ve come across. Skweezer.net used to be owned by Skweezer, a discontinued mobile browser initially released in 2003. The Skweezer browser was well known and won many awards, but the browser is now inactive. In fact, the Skweezer.net domain expired in 2015 and was sold at NameJet for $1,009 and was subsequently put up for sale.
I can’t see anything in the domain that makes it worth $144,000. Perhaps the domain did carry some backlinks and SEO juice from the days of the Skweezer browser, but nothing more. The buyer of Skweezer.net for $144,000 was Skweezer, a social media growth platform that allows you to buy Instagram followers. Skweezer.com is completely dormant, and several other extensions are available to hand register. I can’t work out what was so special about Skweezer.net that it warranted a $144,000 sales price. Does anyone have any ideas?
BTC365.com – $143,480
While not all alphanumeric domains are valuable, some are, especially with the right combination of letters and numbers. BTC365.com has value thanks to Bitcoin. BTC, the abbreviation for Bitcoin, pairs nicely with 365 to create a good brand name.
Although Bitcoin’s value has dropped from its high of over $60,000 earlier this year, the cryptocurrency is still up on last year’s value by some way. The cryptocurrency bull run has seen plenty of funds invested into domain names for crypto-related projects, and this is no different.
BTC365.com was owned by someone from China until the domain was sold. It was acquired by Welton Holdings Ltd., a company based on the Isle of Man. Welton Holdings also runs one of Asia’s largest sportsbooks and online casinos, Fun88.com.
In the UK, I can’t access BTC365.com due to an IP restriction, but I assume that the domain will be used as a gambling or gaming website where Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are accepted.
Own.co – $87,750
Own.co represents one of the largest .co sales in recent years. As of writing, Own.co at $87,750 is the fourth-largest .co sale of 2021, behind the six-figure sales of Eth.co, Link.co, and Porn.co. This is a strong sales price. In comparison, Buy.co sold in July 2021 at Sedo for just $35,000.
Own.co was acquired by OwnBackup Inc., a cloud data protection company founded in Israel and offices in the US. The company has raised $267.3 million in funding, including a $167.5 million Series D funding round in January 2021.
That funding round coincides with the company’s acquisition of Own.co. As of writing, nothing has been done with Own.co, but could OwnBackup have acquired the domain for a future rebrand, from OwnBackup to simply Own?
Own.com, the big brother of Own.co, is currently dormant and registered under WHOIS privacy protection at GoDaddy.
Explanation.com – $70,000
The $70,000 sale of Explanation.com was already revealed earlier this year by its seller, domain investor Braden Pollock. It was acquired by The Explanation Company.
The Explanation Company has a target audience of children, helping peak curiosity by helping to explain things such as “why does the Moon glow?” The company has an app called Vizzable on the App Store.
From what I can tell, this company may be linked in some way to Mystery Science, which operates on Mystery.org. In 2020, Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education in a deal worth $140 million.
BrainDump.com – $50,000
According to TechTarget, a “brain dump” is a complete transfer of accessible knowledge about a particular subject from your brain to some other storage medium, such as paper or your computer’s hard drive.
The domain was acquired by Russell Brunson, the founder of MarketingSecrets. Brunson is a serial entrepreneur and author who has a range of products aimed at helping users to sell and market their own products and services.
From my research, “brain dump” is a term that Brunson uses quite a lot in podcasts, articles, and interviews. Acquiring BrainDump.com has allowed Brunson to offer another product to his users, namely a piece of software called BrainDump. It looks to be something that allows users to create courses.
