Did you know? Coinbase•com was sold for...?

Found a leaked email, Did you know? Coinbase•com was probably sold for $1,795 and they also had an opportunity to acquire Bitcoin•com, I Hope whoever sold Coinbase•com isn't regretting it & owns a percentage of equity.


If you could pick a name from these lists right now, which one would it be?

 

bitcoin.com

 

If the email is anything to go by, that means BIN priced and trademark-free names definitely have an advantage over make offers. Somehow, I get the feeling they didn't bother making offers on the other names on that list.

Looking at Coinbase (brandable) vs Bitcoin (EMD), it seems that the cheaper price and the brandability of Coinbase worked for them. Regardless, I think they should have also bought Bitcoin.com and forwarded it Coinbase.

 

This reminds me of the Nike swoosh logo thing where people actually thought the logo designer should be entitled to more money because of what Nike built their company into afterwards.

 

in 2012 coinbase was a regfee domain jmho.

 

I agree. It is about foresight. Be brave enough to price a domain for its value. That way, you don't find yourself regretting a past sale because the buyer made it big.

Of course, this advice is not for flippers

 

my grandpa designed the big boy logo for shoneys but never got credit for it, the company did, he got a paycheck. lol. (funny resemblance to my dad, who is his grandson)

 

I suppose not, According to whois data, The domain name was registered in July 2011, and at that time brian was a full-time employee working at Airbnb.

 

A year isn't that much of a difference for a domain name

 

2012
it is smarter to pay 200K USD on bitcoins rather than bitcoin.com

 

Founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam they are currently looking to go public. The Coinbase IPO is scheduled to trade on April 14. The Coinbase IPO will be a Direct Listing.

The seller was Huge Domains. Coinbase.com was registered back in 2004 and expired in 2011. The company was called FighterBytes.

 

Their business made the domain valuable, not the other way around.

Brad

 

Good stuff, Grego.

Reminds of “You’ve got mail!” aol email voice; now driving an Uber, but i swear i still hear him; his legacy lives on — even if barely got paid anything. Didnt sue. 2016; still find insane

 

i love Direct listings’ best, i wish more had one.

 

I have some better name to offer, if Brian have time to look into it.

 

This is very interesting - thanks @SNJV and also @equity78 for additional background.

Assuming the email is legit, and no reason to think otherwise, it makes me think about a few things.

1. Do you think this is a common practice that founders circulate a list of names for private discussion?
2. If so, is there an advantage to having an appropriate BIN price from outset, since they may not even consider following up Make Offer? (as @FolioTeam suggested above)
3. I wonder what other factors they consider most of the time. I note the reference re a similar name that Google own and also re the .org being hand-register available of one of the names.

Thanks again everyone.

Bob

 

Good thread,. Some very interesting comments. Personally I wouldn't have bought the bitcoin.com domain. Did they have the money? Anyway, it could easily have led to confusion - who is doing what here? - hence loss of confidence in both the currency and the agency. Coinbase have done very well and are now highly regarded within the world of crypto, so a good decision in the end.

@Bob Hawkes, yes, people planning a business do pass names around. For instance, I'm involved in a triumverate planning to set up a new enterprise (nothing to do with domaining, tech or crypto). We have been discussing names in the context of domain name, trademarks and already registered names at Companies House* for months and have only very recently settled on a name. This is not the first time for me and I am sure it is a common occurrence during the initial planning stage.

How the domain is priced (BIN, make offer, auction, other) is far less important than its availability and coinciding with availability of the TM and the company name. Social media handles also count more than how the domain is priced but less than the first three considerations.

As for defensive or complimentary purchases, this depends upon a host of other factors including sector, available budget, how many other TLDs are taken, how competitive the sector is during the time the decisions are being taken.

*Companies House is the British registrar of companies. In order to form a company legally within the UK you must register its name there along with several other mandatory details and pay a very modest annual fee for the privilege.

 

They chose right from that pool. But if they had cash, they should have purchased bitcoin.com as well. Not for a brand, but for a companion blog, news aggregator or something along these lines.

 

Very common, I would say it's a standard practice.

I'm pretty sure they sent inquiries to owners of the other domains as well, BIN is not essential, but a timely response is. I'd say, among equally good choices, BIN wins and non-BIN with the fastest response comes second, the rest eat the dust.

Does anyone have that attachment he mentions?

 

Could I have gotten more for Coinmena.com?
Could I have gotten more for InvestReit.com?
Could I have gotten more for Bullionblocks.com?

It's pointless to dwell. Just put a price you can live with.

No matter what you price your domain you will get critics on both sides.

If you price too high you are an idiot or crazy or greedy if too low you get stupid or crazy but not greedy.

Really depends on the mood or state of mind of the critic who just happens to stumble on your pricing for a domain.

I now price my domains for inbounds around $10,000 or more that way no regrets.

Or you can play the numbers. Sell one domain for $10k or 10 domains for $1000 each.

There's more than one way to get to the top of the mountain!

I know I definitely could have gotten more for Fleetbeacon.com (sold $800)

 

Based on my experience...

Yup! With my startups, I used to make lists of domains just like this along with their prices. Then I would pass it around for feedback if needed.

Yes, absolutely. Unless it was a domain I was super attached to, I eventually stopped reaching out to owners because it would end up wasting everyone's time. Make Offer owners had very high expectations and everyone thought they were great negotiators so it was hard to ever come to a consensus. BIN listings made it super easy to rank/compare names and move forward quickly. Time and money are the two most valuable things for a new business so BINs make a ton of sense from that perspective.

It all depends on each founder's mindset and priorities. This is why nobody can ever come to an agreement on what works best. Some of these factors include:

Brandability: New entrepreneurs typically don't care about the brand potential of their company name because they're laser focused on their idea and often lack marketing experience so they go with whatever name sounds cool to them. Experienced entrepreneurs focus more on the brandability because they understand the value of a brand so they go for short/catchy/memorable/generic names. Generic names also allow companies to expand beyond their initial target market if needed. In fact, if Coinbase had gone with Bitcoin.com, it would've been tougher to expand into altcoins.

Availability: .com is always the most desired. However, if it's not available some entrepreneurs temporarily go with another extension to save money at first thinking they can always buy the .com later on if their business succeeds (pro: put the money you would've spent on the domain to work elsewhere to grow the business, con: the domain may not be available or the price may skyrocket if the owner finds out about the success in the future). When a large company like Google owns a domain, it's best to move on because (1) they'll never sell and (2) they most likely acquired the domain for their own project which could potentially clash with yours.

Trademark: New entrepreneurs often skip this process and deal with it at a later time when their business is large enough at which point they'll either succeed in obtaining a trademark or end up changing their company name. More experienced entrepreneurs tend of focus on getting a trademark right away to avoid headaches down the road.