Garbage in - Garbage out! Chips crashing

[Recons.Com]

So, where do we start?!

Well, for the beginners, why don't you have a look at the attached screenshot?

The so called Chinese Premium letter 4L.com are at the lowest for last 90 days and this time no excuse of Chinese new year.

This so called big Chinese investors have zero interest in playing it decent.

After grabbing tens of thousands names at $20-200, they pumped it to 3,000$ then lost interest in it letting it to crash to $1,800$ and counting, they, like bunch of locusts, moved to other asset classes for new pump and dumps, including 2-3-4 L, N .ws, 5L, 7N. They did not care how much they hurt 4L.com chips by starting new rumor of LNQRP being semi-premium (the whole point of premium is not being semi-premium), as long as they could bring some value to first 15 letters they could buyout first, now they need more suckers to grab those unwanted letter domains, about 350,000 remaining and once they'll find them (and they will find them), they'll pump up the prices, sell the premiumer ones they hold (patterns, 15 uber premiums etc.), then the locusts are off to the next field and you can hold your babies.

 

[betthelot]

.WS is looking like hype at this time....

 

[Recons.Com]

Well, good pronounceable and/or good acronym 4L do have lots of end users.

4L.org western premiums also have lots of end users, that is why I ignored the rest of the stuff and stuck to those categories mainly. Even sold 2 4L.coms that turned out to be Chinese Prem (I liked them for diff reason), kept just one (DNMZ -> DomainNameMarketZone for own development)

 

[betthelot]

Well, good pronounceable and/or good acronym 4L do have lots of end users.

4L.org western premiums also have lots of end users, that is why I ignored the rest of the stuff and stuck to those categories mainly. Even sold 2 4L.coms that turned out to be Chinese Prem (I liked them for diff reason), kept just one (DNMZ -> DomainNameMarketZone for own development)

agreed. Thats the grounded realist approach. No quick rich scheme, steady well thought out strategy based on experience and data. I still think long term 4L.coms of any combination will rise over time and have a good return when you look back in 5 years time. At this point I think 1 and 2 word .coms are a better investment though, going forward.

 

[artstar]

the max i went was 5n dot co and i feel it may be an iffy investment still especially with this zero and 4 hoopla started by gawd knows who.

i never heard of chips until the fall of 2015 or zero and 4 being bad numbers as well.

market manipulation in domaining is obvious just like stocks and with the big $ and international appeal and useage its a haven for certain activity the honest person cannot envision

 

[Recons.Com]

agreed. Thats the grounded realist approach. No quick rich scheme, steady well thought out strategy based on experience and data. I still think long term 4L.coms of any combination will rise over time and have a good return when you look back in 5 years time. At this point I think 1 and 2 word .coms are a better investment though, going forward.

Surprisingly, great 1 word ones don't perform exceptionally well, unless it is top 500 word or something.

I learned it with Manslaughter.com. It is perfect for anyone in legal area, everything you might want from it:

Singular, positive meaning (as opposed to murder, people seek manslaughter designation as that would imply either involuntary or voluntary in self defense), over 40,000 exact searches in US only, very high CPC, all is needed is put a directory page of all attorneys in the field for each area, plus relevant state laws, blog articles on the subject and some seo and you can get good money forever. But all I got in almost a year were lowball offers )

Will probably just develop myself.

 

[betthelot]

I learned it with Manslaughter.com. It is perfect for anyone in legal area, everything you might want from it:

Singular, positive meaning

Haha only positive when compared to murder. Innocent.com would be what I call a positive domain.

 

[Recons.Com]

the max i went was 5n dot co and i feel it may be an iffy investment still especially with this zero and 4 hoopla started by gawd knows who.

i never heard of chips until the fall of 2015 or zero and 4 being bad numbers as well.

market manipulation in domaining is obvious just like stocks and with the big $ and international appeal and useage its a haven for certain activity the honest person cannot envision

The same here )

What is worse is that many "industry leaders" will happily ride the waves, knowing that it is BS, with few exceptions like K. Zournas, Elliot Silver...

 

[Recons.Com]

Haha only positive when compared to murder. Innocent.com would be what I call a positive domain.

Innocent is great too... But there is a reason people search so often for Manslaughter. If you hit someone with a car, you cannot claim "innocent", you claim "manslaughter". The same with killing in self-defense.

 

[Domain Shane]

Recons,

I respect your viewpoint and you know we disagree but can you share if you think anything but keywords are a good buy? I notice your portfolio has quite a few L-L.us and keywords with numbers is front of them. Did you think those were going up in value? I know what you think is going down but I can't make money on the down side. Looking for what is going up. Could you share? You have some great names like manslaughter.com and a few others. But you have quite a few L-L-L.coms and a bunch of other things I just don't get. Seriously I'm not criticizing just trying to learn from another point of view.

 

[betthelot]

Innocent is great too... But there is a reason people search so often for Manslaughter. If you hit someone with a car, you cannot claim "innocent", you claim "manslaughter". The same with killing in self-defense.

Still not sold on it! Hey Recons good luck to you, certainly has potential.

 

[Recons.Com]

Recons,

I respect your viewpoint and you know we disagree but can you share if you think anything but keywords are a good buy? I notice your portfolio has quite a few L-L.us and keywords with numbers is front of them. Did you think those were going up in value? I know what you think is going down but I can't make money on the down side. Looking for what is going up. Could you share? You have some great names like manslaughter.com and a few others. But you have quite a few L-L-L.coms and a bunch of other things I just don't get. Seriously I'm not criticizing just trying to learn from another point of view.

Shane, I appreciate you weighing in. Happy to answer.

I am no guru of this trade and look at it as a learning curve. I make lots of mistakes, I make assumptions then test them. Thankfully, can afford those tests to try out my hypothesis.

For example, my hypothesis was 4L.orgs have lots of end users and if I get big sample size (and I did get about 1850 of those, 750+ happen to be also Chinese prem), I can see how it works.

For 2 months, I just let them sit with zero promotion. Got zero emails on 1850 names. So my next hypothesis was that nonprofit guys are different, they are clueless about domains, if LLLL.org is unavailable they will go for LLLAssociation, LLLBoard, LLLFund etc. So I added all of them to afternic, 95% of them with low price bin of $388. Got 4 sales in less than 2 months with zero interaction with buyers. Next thing: add to sedo, dns, own page etc. I also got to test that 1850+ 4L.orgs give about 100K unique visitors in a year. Which is also good (haven't monetized yet).

.US: Don't get much of offers on those. One sale in a year for around $400 on 3L.us. The hypothesis was that after .com is taken/oversaturated for US business next natural thing is .us. But again they haven't been promoted yet. I will also add them to marketplaces and try direct approach. L-L.us is a new thing for me, I happen to like them more than market ) If your companies name is two words, sometimes that is better fit than LLL. For example, with Q-I.com I can brand myself Quality Investments, Ltd. But this things have to be explained to end users. I am planning to become more active with startup community locally and generally with businesses.

L-L-L.com was also a test, because there are many end users. Will add them to marketplaces at $xxx-low$xxxx prices, will test and let know )

Just as a disclosure, I am not a domainer. I do financial/marketing/branding consulting +web development. I started "hoarding" good names to give myself options when I need them. Then I needed to basically create some fluidity to get rid of ones that a) I don't like as much anymore; b) focus shifted; c) someone likes them more than I do.

As to my portfolio, currently I have:

1850+ LLLL.orgs
1300+ .coms (160+ 4L.coms, dictionary words, kw+kw, 5L-9L pronounceable brandables, VR names, tech names)
2L-3L, L-L, NN, NNN in .de, .co, .al, .rs, .ch, geo names in .me
200-300 .us 3L, L-L, dictionary word, cheap to renew, can develop myself, do sell occasionally, no CHIP BS going around, some sound great like Radiant.us, Activate.us, Trusting.us, etc.

I might have forgotten few others, but that mostly covers it.

 

[Domain Shane]

So really you and someone like me aren't actually that different. We just think different things have value. I think LLLL.org is the biggest waste of money because of exactly what you are figuring out. Dot orgs don't generally spend money on websites so you are essentially gambling on the Chinese since there is no enduser. But I don't think you're stupid for putting money in your ideas. I hope you kill it. The more money people make in domaining the more money that flows in. People losing money is inevitable because the only true people that get their money out of the domains are businesses that make money using the domains. I want to see a healthy and liquid aftermarket. In whatever. Because I am an investor, trader. I need volatility and price movement to make money. I need a person to think that the domain is worth more money than I paid for it to make money.

We all have views on what we think we can make money on. I have bought and sold LLLL.com since 2008. I got into this whole domaining thing because of Reece Berg's LLLL.com blog. I thought it was so much like trading stock. And I was right. It has been a crazy ride in those 8 years. I was part of the last crash in 2009. The difference is there were 1 billion less people interested in the names then. So this is just a point in time for LLLL.coms. There will be more good and bad times ahead.

And you have to remember that I have been talking about what I am buying and selling every single day for 7 years. Just because Elliot and Konstantinos don't buy CHiPs doesn't make them more respectable. It just makes them have similar ideas on value as yours.

I hope that when I'm in Katy you'll still buy me a drink. Just because I buy .ws and CHiPs doesn't make me a bad guy

 

[Recons.Com]

Shane, I did not call you a bad guy ) In fact, did not mean you at all in the posts above.

I just specifically mentioned that KZ and ES are really careful about what they say, what they do. Since I am finance guy, that is what I expect, for example, from stock analysts. And there are really bad talking heads in those hypes and you have noticed those as well.

4L.org: you missed the part about 100K uniques, a lot of them from US. That alone is worth for me the difference between renewals - minus sales, probably about $3K cost, if I am not actively selling. So, I am happy with 4Ls, I did not do it because of Chinese, in fact, was surprised so many were available. Somehow, I long assumed 4L.org buyout happened few years back and never bothered to check.

.co, .me etc. have made more than spent on renewals. and have few good ones left.

.us is really cheap to renew, don't mind the cost of about $1,200/year, couple of sales for cost, the rest for own development and/or sale.

L-L-L.com and some numericals are experimental.

.Al grabbed last year when they opened the registration. Can sell for multiples of cost, had many offers on 88.AL that would cover the cost of the rest. Strangely enough, all LL.al, NN.al (about 45 of those) come with natural traffic even before chip craze.

You have great portfolio, blog, experience etc. And that adds lots of responsibility, as people listen and try to follow and many of them are clueless, as you can see from starter threads here on forum.

Katy: let me know, looking forward to it )

 

[.NJ]

It was only a matter of time before the demise of these false prophet "chips".

It was a scam from the beginning.

Another way for the Chinese to move their money around using "pump and dump" methods.

They have done the same methods in the past with real estate, cyrpto coins, ect....

People made money in the beginning, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But there will be MANY left holding the bag in the end.

Investing in this idiotic hype at this point will be a dead end road....

What amazes me is that people still believe that there is a future to this nonsense.

Just my thoughts here....

 

[mwzd]

Hi,
Great Insight but don't you think If 4l.com chips do crashes, it'll have a ripple effect across the whole chinese domain industry ? .Moving to a next field might become difficult then

Think we're going to see a dump of epic proportions this year, just like we saw registrations of epic proportions.

Lots of people holding so many bags it's going to look like an annual lost luggage clearance auction.

Otoh, the money will move back into sensible investments - short .coms and premium cctlds.

 

[betthelot]

Lots of people holding so many bags it's going to look like an annual lost luggage clearance auction.

Haha. Great description.
Yep short .coms and ccTLDs are my bag

 

[brindle123]

If LLLL.com drops in price, that's the time to be buying! It's not just the chinese that were buying them.
Yes there was a lot of CHIP hype which helped sell those types.

When the price of gold drops, that's the time to get back in as a buyer.
I haven't bought a LLLL.com in a long time, but would in a heartbeat if the prices came back down. They will always have value and will be sought after. Just too many people in the business now for them to fall too far in price.

Pronounceable LLLL.com has so much value and potential. Forget the CHIPS already.

There will be ups and downs, just like the stock market. Buy on the dips, sell on the rips!

 

[Recons.Com]

If LLLL.com drops in price, that's the time to be buying! It's not just the chinese that were buying them.
Yes there was a lot of CHIP hype which helped sell those types.

When the price of gold drops, that's the time to get back in as a buyer.
I haven't bought a LLLL.com in a long time, but would in a heartbeat if the prices came back down. They will always have value and will be sought after. Just too many people in the business now for them to fall too far in price.

Pronounceable LLLL.com has so much value and potential. Forget the CHIPS already.

There will be ups and downs, just like the stock market. Buy on the dips, sell on the rips!

Regular LLLL.coms have been in $250-400 range mostly, what is the reason you decided not to buy at the time? Do you also have preference for no-vowel names?

 

[mhdoc]

Surprisingly, great 1 word ones don't perform exceptionally well, unless it is top 500 word or something.

I have been wondering about that myself. There are some apparently great one word domains available on NP right now but when I think about how they could be developed, I have trouble coming up with ideas. Its much easier with two words.

 

[brindle123]

Regular LLLL.coms have been in $250-400 range mostly, what is the reason you decided not to buy at the time? Do you also have preference for no-vowel names?

I got all of my LLLL.com a long time ago, so I paid way less that what the market has been driven up to. I've always thought LLLL.com were undervalued, even now.

It has to be pronounceable,brandable, or really make sense for me to have an interest in it. My cash has been put into other short .coms that are being overlooked at the current time. If I found a decent pronounceable/brandable LLLL.com that was in my budget, I would jump on it. Until then I'm watching the market.

I'm not worrying about the CHIP trend/hype/whatever. I buy what makes sense to me otherwise it's not worth me investing in.

Like I said there will be ups and downs in the LLLL market. Things went up very fast, but there was a huge increase in domainers over the last couple years. They will always be looking for a good short .com
Most of the stuff I like is now out of my budget. When and if it falls down into it, I'm a buyer.

LLLL have been bought up in many extensions and this will always make the LLLL.com market stronger then other tlds. They will always be easier to sell.

I love vowels in a domain if it helps me sound out the domain. I don't think there are bad letters. Bad ideas, yes.
Saying that vowels are bad just doesn't make sense to me. If they work in the domain, that's all that counts. It's like saying the zero or four in numerics is bad. I would take "4000 " over "5688". It just looks better and sounds better to me.

Every business will need an domain eventually, so there will always be new acronyms needed for them. There have been so many new business that start up each yr and they all can't be named the same thing or always use a business name that doesn't include a vowel as an acronym.

LLLL has a lot of combos, but there is only so many of them. As a new business starts up, a new domain is needed. This will place more and more LLLL into the hands of end user, thus taking them out of the supply chain.

If prices drop now, there is a really good chance that they will go back up for LLLL in the near future.

Just my opinion though. The market has the final say.