Domain marketplace Sedo facilitated thousands of sales in Q1 of 2022. While many of those are undisclosed, NameBio lists an impressive set of sales closed at Sedo between January 1 and March 31, 2022.
Here, I’m taking a look at the top 10 sales from Q1 2022 to see who bought each domain, and possibly why.
Table of Contents
GCP.com – $550,000
The list is led by a three-letter .com sale, with the deal announced by Sedo broker Dave Evanson in March 2022. GCP.com had been used by GCP, a web design and marketing agency prior to its sale.
As of publishing, GCP.com resolves to a default GoDaddy page and is registered under Whois privacy protection, so we don’t definitively know who bought the name. GCP is an initialism associated with the Google Cloud Platform, but since GCP.com currently uses Microsoft MX records to host email, I’d say that Google wasn’t the buyer.
CybersecurityJobs.com – $205,000
Another deal announced by Sedo’s Dave Evanson this year was CybersecurityJobs.com, selling for $205,000. According to Fortune Business Insights, the cybersecurity industry was valued at $139.77 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow as more business and financial activities take place online.
A New York Times article from 2018 predicted there would be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021 as companies scramble to assemble expert teams. With a wide potential audience base, CybersecurityJobs.com seems like a powerful domain to own.
As you might expect, the name hosts a cybersecurity jobs board. The name looks to have been acquired by StationX, a cybersecurity career development platform.
iSign.com – $140,000
iSign.com sold for $140,000 at the beginning of February, but as of publishing, the new owners haven’t done anything with the domain. The domain still resolves to a Sedo parked page. iSign.com is registered under Whois privacy protection, too, meaning we don’t have a definitive idea of who owns the name.
There are several companies that could benefit from upgrading to iSign.com.
Proton.org – $125,000
Proton.org, a deal closed in March 2022, was sold for $125,000. Again, the domain doesn’t resolve and again, we have few clues as to who owns the domain. My money is on this domain being used for a crypto venture, perhaps as an upgrade for the Proton blockchain system that currently operates on ProtonChain.com.
Both ProtonChain.com and Proton.org use Amazon nameservers and Proton’s owner, Metallicus Inc., uses Amazon’s registrar for domains such as MetalPay.com. Proton.org is also at Amazon’s registrar.
WordPlay.com – $100,000
Off the back of the success of the word game Wordle came a whole host of similar games including Worldle, Quordle, and Octordle. WordPlay.com, bought for $100,000, now hosts an unofficial Wordle practice game.
This game was developed by Hubspot co-founder Dharmesh Shah and his son. According to DomainInvesting.com, Dharmesh originally launched the game on FirstWord.app before buying WordPlay.com via Sedo.
Shah also acquired SmartWallet.com for $175,000 in 2021.
Brasil.com – $92,250
Brasil.com, Portuguese for Brazil, sold for $92,250 in January 2022. The sale reached a far lower figure than Brazil.com did in 2009 when it sold for $500,000. While Brazil.com hosts a Brazilian tourism site, Brasil.com looks like it utilizes zero-click domain parking to make money from any traffic to the domain. With Brasil.com under privacy protection, we don’t know who owns the name.
Giveaways.com – $78,000
Giveaways.com sold for $78,000 in January 2022, with the domain moving to a privacy-protected GoDaddy account. Fortunately for this article, we know who bought the domain. It was acquired by Raffle.com.au, which describes itself as “Australia’s giving community.”
The company has also completed several other domain purchases via Sedo including iRaffle.com for $25,000, iCompetitions.com for $8,500, iStake.com for $5,888, iGiveaways.com for $5,500, Prize.co for $5,000, WePrize.com for $3,900, and PrizeWin.com for $3,500. These names redirect to Raffle.com.au, although it’s not immediately clear what the company’s plan for these names is.
WV.de – $68,715
According to NameBio, Sedo is the king of two-letter .de domain sales, responsible for the vast majority of publicly disclosed LL.de deals. In fact, Sedo is responsible for 48 of the top 50 LL.de sales of all time, based on NameBio data.
In Q1 of 2022, it facilitated the sale of WV.de for $68,715, which ranks as the 7th largest LL.de sale of all time. As of publishing the domain doesn’t resolve and due to GDPR limitations, Whois data doesn’t give anything away. While I don’t speak German, the word “Wirtschaftsvereinigung” has come up repeatedly for searches related to “WV.” This word, Wirtschaftsvereinigung, means “business association,” according to Google Translate. This may hint at the domain’s intended usage.
BeeCapital.com – $68,000
It looks like few domain buyers use their names after acquiring them! The BeeCapital.com domain sold for $68,000 at Sedo in February 2022, but it remains unused. Typically, “capital” names like this are acquired by venture capital or investment firm.
PointCapital.com, for example, was sold for $17,000 last year to a Swiss investment company and LaunchCapital.com was sold in 2015 for $24,500 to a seed funding firm. It remains to be seen who bought BeeCapital.com, but it’s likely to be an investment firm of some sort.
Exports.com – $60,000
The final name is Exports.com, another name that doesn’t resolve as of publishing. Following the sale, the domain buyer’s identity is hidden by Whois privacy protection and the domain doesn’t resolve. From an analysis of the nameservers and associated information, a buyer’s identity can’t be confirmed.