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domains A Brief Look at China's First Domain Name Festival (Auction Results Included)

Spaceship Spaceship
China's inaugural domain name festival and digital asset summit has just been held in Shenzhen, which included a domain name auction. The main topic of the event was "domain names as digital assets."

Some of China's most respected Internet leaders were present at the event, which by all accounts had a very good attendance. A few of the talks at the event were about domain name auctions, new opportunities for Bitcoin investments, and the value of domain name investments. There was also a roundtable event in which many people gave their opinions on the state of domain name investment in China.

The CEO of 190.com - a popular domain name marketplace - made a speech sharing his ideas on digital assets as investments. Aside from quoting many positive statistics, the CEO also spoke about volume transactions, which are common among large investors. John Xu, CEO of 4.cn and DN.com also spoke at the event, sharing his investing experience and approaches with those in attendance.

Jun Du, founder of huobi.com - a Bitcoin trading website - shared ideas on investment in Bitcoins, which has been a popular investment outlet for China in the past.

The event also included an auction in which several valuable domain names were auctioned off. Below are the domain names and the final auction prices. Please note that these may not be the final sales prices and shouldn't be referred to as such.
Domain NameSales Price
Yao.com21,500,000 RMB ($3,316,314)
GG.com17,000,000 RMB ($2,622,202)
House.com16,200,000 RMB ($2,498,804)
HG.com16,000,000 RMB ($2,467,955)
Banana.com13,200,000 RMB ($2,036,062)
LP.com6,880,000 RMB ($1,061,220)
NR.com5,700,000 RMB ($879,209)
886.com5,560,000 RMB ($857,614)
828.com4,400,000 RMB ($678,687)
123.cn4,200,000 RMB ($647,838)


Updates on Dec 22, 2015:


190.com, the hosts of China's inaugural domain name festival, have provided us with more details regarding the event.

Daniel Chen, CEO of 190.com, spoke to the large audience about domain names as a viable alternative to the stock market. According to those in attendance, Mr Chen's speech was well received.

After such a successful event, 190.com are expecting an influx of funds into the domain market.

190.com have also kindly provided us with some images of the event and its auction in progress:

6Z5A1337.JPG6Z5A1140.JPGDaniel Chen on Stage.JPGZ5A1421.JPG
585064228630493405.jpg 177577275419921315.jpg911897594107969692.jpg 609121441849685950.jpg 766948686944800745.jpg 822614412549840744.jpg


Update on Feb 2, 2016:

 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Domain investment has come to china to stay in a big way.
Thanks for the information.
Cheers.
 
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Some interesting figures there, I wonder if all the sales were to the Chinese market or was world wide bidding occur?
 
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Chips will only go up. Any dips in the market will be weaker hands and investors liquidating.
 
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@TheBaldOne I have no information regarding whether these were investors or end users bidding here; but it's interesting that two western one-word domains got such high bids!

The next wave of investment perhaps?
 
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If one looks at Chinese world wide investments in other areas (i.e. not domaining) it is characterised by heavy investment with a long term approach, so it is likely that Chinese investment in domains will go along the same lines. This may sound good for current domain owners - but (and there is always a 'but') it will mean that the world wide market is likely to become dominated by Chinese domainers holding a large proportion of all the domains, and in essence controlling the content of much of what is available on the internet (and I am not referring here to political content but simply commercial content though of course there is risk of the former being influenced in a big way).

Yes I do expect the Chinese domainers to make large moves into western domains of almost every suffix, but that does not mean that they will buy just anything, but they will go after the best, this is especially true when the manufacturing base of their economy is slowing.

Anyway, that is just my opinion, and I am more often wrong than right - just ask my wife and daughters! :-,
 
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@TheBaldOne I have no information regarding whether these were investors or end users bidding here; but it's interesting that two western one-word domains got such high bids!

The next wave of investment perhaps?
My thoughts exactly James. Acknowledging of course your earlier proviso that the auction figures are not final, the numbers for those LL.com and NNN.com are excellent, but seeing $2.5m for house.com and $2m for banana.com to me is a significant turning point in the Chinese market, in as much as Rick Scwartz's sale of men.com for $1.3m in 2003 was hailed as a welcome exit from the market doldrums of 2001/02.

What is also interesting is that the current whois shows the registrants of house.com and banana.com (formerly owned by the Castello brothers) are based in China, so we will need to watch and learn from them as this market for generics - which TheBaldOne pointed out that 'they will go after the best' - develops.

Thanks James for the auction write-up.
 
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I am from China
we can work together
Are you interested
 
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I find it fascinating that one of the auction sales was for banana.com. Very interesting...........
 
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Very interesting.. thanks for posting!
 
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Banana.com be very big name for organic banana exporters from china , one of my friends company import banana from maxico to california around 100 to 200 mil a year it is very huge market, i can say good deal for right buyer.
Look like domains related to all the products what they expirting will going to go high in price , but wait china export everything in world so hard to say which name get best value.
 
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