sales Swetha’s Sales – The Truth May Shock You!

[Digital Nomad]

Here is a nice article posted on NameBio.com by Michael Sumner the CEO of NameBio.com. He asked for Swetha's aka @DNGear username and password to log into her Afternic account to confirm the sales once and for all, read it all below or go to https://namebio.com/blog/swethas-sales-the-truth-may-shock-you/

Swetha’s Sales – The Truth May Shock You!​

Yesterday there was quite the stir on Twitter after Swetha reported another batch of jaw-dropping .xyz sales. User @jackdomainer did some research and found that an overwhelming majority of her sales were still not developed, which he thought was suspicious given the price tags. Theories started flying around, and even the Castello Brothers and Rick Schwartz chimed in with vague statements alluding to some grand conspiracy.

Grab some popcorn and read it for yourself here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1596296988966154241

The low rate of development was the only “proof” provided so far. But why report fake sales? Well isn’t it obvious? To boost the value of her own assets so she can dump them on unsuspecting wholesalers, hoping to reproduce her incredible success, for inflated prices.


But ask yourself this… how many times have you seen Swetha wholesaling premium .xyz domains? I may have missed it, but I don’t recall seeing that.


For years I’ve been in the awkward position of publishing these sales reports. All I can go on is a screenshot, which she graciously provided for every single sale report since the day she started sharing. But screenshots can be faked relatively easily.


I could ask her to share her screen with me while she logs in to a marketplace, but even that could be faked with browser extensions that modify the page live. It’s more difficult than faking a screenshot, but not impossible. Not good enough.


To get a definitive answer, I reached out to Swetha and asked for the unthinkable. I asked if she would give me her username and password to her Afternic account, so I could log in myself and verify all the sales she has ever reported at this marketplace.





I felt bad even asking. Here she is sharing her valuable sales data with the community, all while being given endless grief about it. And now some stranger is asking to log in to her Afternic account. A lesser person would have just said “fuck it”, stopped reporting sales, and told me to go away. But you know what… she agreed! It was at this moment I knew it was all true and factual, but still, I’m going to “due diligence” the heck out of this.


So I quickly logged in to her Afternic account and visited this URL to get a dump of all the raw sales data. Then I started taking screenshots of her sales summary page. I logged out and let her know I was done so she could change her password. Then I started diving in.


One by one I checked the sales against what we have in our database. Every single one of them was perfect. Except I discovered something shocking. Quite a few of the sales were never reported. However good you think she’s doing based on what she has reported, she’s actually doing even better. That’s insane!


Now remember, Swetha has been reporting sales for quite a while now. All this time, she had no idea I would ever ask her to log in to any of her accounts, or which one(s) I would ask for. So if she was going to fabricate sales, she would have no way of knowing to always keep Afternic clean, as opposed to DAN or Escrow.com or whatever. Thus I now feel 100% confident in all her reports, not just the Afternic ones.


I also now feel confident in saying that Swetha is probably in the Top 100 of all domain investors who have ever lived, and she is probably in the Top 5 of all investors who aren’t part of the “old guard”. Maybe even #1 of the new generation.


But more than that, she is a kindhearted individual who is generously sharing what is working for her even though it makes new acquisitions more expensive for her. And even when the haters show up in droves, she stays the course. Thank you Swetha.


Is it possible that she’s a shill for the registry, and they’re creating hundreds of accounts across multiple marketplaces to buy the domains from her? I mean anything is possible. But it seems highly improbable that they would lock up funds and trust that she would always give them back, just to create the appearance of demand. They don’t benefit from the wholesale aftermarket, so it would just be for the sake of hand regs.


And then how do you explain the ones that are developed? And how do you explain other people getting large XYZ sales? Believe what you want, and skepticism is generally a healthy thing, but this theory seems so out there and lacking in any evidence that I have to think anyone who believes it is jealous (or loves conspiracy theories more than Rob Monster).


Here is the full screenshot I took of her sales summary page, with unreported sales blacked out for her privacy. Again, I took this screenshot myself while personally logged in to her Afternic account, it was not shared with me. I saw it with my own eyes.

Check out the screenshot of Swetha's sales at: https://namebio.com/assets/swetha-sales.jpg

Source: https://namebio.com/blog/swethas-sales-the-truth-may-shock-you/

 

[Andreas B.]

Honestly, its that one question that many had asked...
"are the sales legit?"
"was there a 'catalysator' in the game, at the beginning?"

And assumingly the first question has now been answered, right?!


The other question of course is, whether it is ethically / morally (call it what you want) ok, to register the whole dictionary for one TLD.

I think this has not served the TLD, as many old schoolers here thought:
That is not that ok.

But, who comes first will be served first.
YOU take the economical (dis)advantage, if you make such a huge investment!

And if it plays out, you are in the winning position.


Reminds me of the early years in american industrialization though
where guys like Rockefeller or VanDerBilt made similar investments...
and gained a huge, if not monopolistic position among their rivals.

 

[Andreas B.]

In Sam Bankman-Frieds words (towards CZ):
"well played"

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Are the listings for "Swetha.xyz" on namebio going to be updated to the correct marketplaces instead of a website that the sales didn't actually occur on?

Just wanted to point out that when you submit a sale to NameBio they make it very clear that it is your choice whether to list it with your own name/website or on with the marketplace where the sale was finalized. So there is nothing to be updated.

There are a number of reasons for this policy:

1. To give credit to the person/company reporting the sale to NameBio.
2. Because the seller can legitimately be considered the person who sold the domain name, not the marketplace. For example, I create a clever two-word combination or word merge or whatever. I list it on marketplaces, in some cases including description, graphic, etc. I may have promoted it in some fashion to help the name be noticed by the buyer. True the marketplace processed the transaction, but were they the seller or was I? Also, it is I who must report the profit of the sale on income taxes.
3. It may make the sales data more useful. The sort of analysis that Brad did above would not have been possible without the way they were reported.
4. It might be argued that if the marketplace do not report sales themselves, that it is misleading to report a sale under their name. I realize this can be argued both ways.

Just to clarify for those who do not follow the Report Completed Sales thread here, or follow her on social media, in both cases she always reports where the actual transaction closed, e.g. Dan, Afternic, etc. so there is absolutely zero lack of full transparency.

Bob

 

[Lox]

Flippers (vs investors) seem more interested in conspiracy (guessing) than doing due diligence. We have withessed one of the most confusing markets in decades - crypto, nft, web3, meta. The domain extension does not seem to be a barrier for developers looking to settle in web3 space. (Think Block.xyz)

Though much of that xyz growth / adaptation was expected to come from the base - ordinary SMEs. Well, there are many types of analysis that will help you identify new markets for growth whether that's market expansion or new movement / shifts in market. A gap in the market is an opportunity to offer something that web3-rebels want but that other registries aren't providing. That's something the registry brains figured out - right time, right moment, right market/movement.

Never has there been more money available for new digital-ideas to become reality. How are the funding projects on dot xyz doing? Is there any sense? The commercial future of the web3 companies looks very promising. Each day there's millions of $ invested in xyz startups (Just yesterday: 7 dot xyz raises $37M). AND I follow / track enormeus number of VCs, and not only VCs but also podcasts (s.a. proof.xyz), engaging via social, phone calls, facetime ... I want to understand them, their problems, vision.)

We can create any image (future) in our heads as we want it to be. BUT Your names / investment doesn't actually reflect reality. if you’re inside the domainer box - you're cut off. Don't know, maybe solipsism syndrome? No offense!

I test multiple markets / sectors scenarios and select the most promising xyz domains. Not good names, but for web3 folks: 'the happy names'.

Invested in 180 names.
Sold 38 names (the biggest sale was $80K 1word. The lowest sale was $800 for 2word)

Ask Yourself: Why am I unable to sell my domains? Think carefully and honestly about Why.

Regards

 

[phaethon]

Lets think about the conspiracy theory part here, is it rational?

Conspiracy Theory 1: fraud xyz promotion
Lets say xyz wanted to promote their extension among us by faking mouth watering aftermarket sales, then the smart thing to do to pull off such a plan is to hire multiple Swetha(s) to make thing looks natural. Why would they make it so stupid and so obvious by putting all the sales in one account?!

Conspiracy Theory 2: money laundary
If this is a big money laundry operation then why they go public and announce the sales? Wouldn't it be wiser and safer to stay private away from suspecting eyes? And again why would they be stupid enough to focus on only 1 Swetha (insteaf of multiple agents) and only 1 extension (instead of zillions of tlds available)?


Xyz is an ugly extension I was one of the early crtisizers and I still see it as an ugly extension. But lets face it, web3 is already ugly with ugly NFTs, legless Metaverse and ugly mess of crypto coins. Maybe this is just transient phase towards true web3 or maybe the future will be truly ugly.. who knows.

Money laundering has been very popular lately, indeed. It's everywhere (COVID, crypto, war)
At the end of the day, if XYZ doesn't work for you after the first renewal, move on.
From an investment aspect, with skyrocketing COM prices, there should be an extension to partially accommodate the expanding internet. Will XYZ be that extension? No idea. But it has better odds than other silly extensions.

 

[VadimK]

Here are my thoughts. While sales indeed look genuine, and domains do change hands, I think there is definitely something going on. I do agree with @bmugford - the math simply doesn't check out. There is no pattern.
Some people say she has a huge portfolio, another - she's got the balls to price domains high - true all that, but there are thousands of similar names in other owners hands that have zero demand. How many XXXX .xyz sales reported to NamePros outside of Swetha? Very few. XXXXX - probably none (or very close to it).

Another thing that is a bit strange is that all the sales really happened within one (1,5 at max) year. And xyz has been there since 2014. It's a bit like something decided to give it a boost.

@Ostrados I actually was thinking about exactly these two things. But reporting sales doing money laundering makes no sense, it's best kept in secret. Another one - with the registrar being behind it is definitely more possible, yet also agree - can be done in a smarter way (althrough many times we overestimate people).
Maybe the two theories combined? ))))) Who knows...))

@MadAboutDomains I share the same opinion - she always proudly reports sales, why should she be offended at being asked for her sales to be confirmed this way? It's unusual indeed, but not such an out of this world drama.

And all this gender conversations of her being a woman - what does it have to do with anything? Who cares if a person is a man, woman, black, white, yellow, or red? Some white sensitive liberal got offended by somehow or what?

Bottom line - I am basically gonna leave a few dozen best .xyz domains and give it another year. But something tells me this extention will not take off.

 

[DomainNature]

Let me add my 5 cents.
It is very possible that the first/some sales were fake, this was needed to create value for XYZ but the sales which followed were real, and so on they followed to buy into it, self marketed itself further. (imo)

 

[Lox]

Another thing that is a bit strange is that all the sales really happened within one (1,5 at max) year. And xyz has been there since 2014. It's a bit like something decided to give it a boost.

Market research and registry / registrar marketing follow up helps you stay on top of what your customers/developers want.

(1,5 at max) year .... shifting started on March 2019

Regards

 

[Lox]

Let me add my 5 cents.
It is very possible that the first/some sales were fake, this was needed to create value for XYZ but the sales which followed were real, and so on they followed to buy into it, self marketed itself further. (imo)

Sure, in the begining there was a ping pong game. Keep in mind, most of registries and registrars are powered by domain investors, DNS guys, even ex ICANN staff.

Regards

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

Swetha stated before and correct me if I am wrong. She has partner(s)
Agent Booth. If you don’t watch Bones you don’t know who Sealy is
Anyways, you partner up with one or both Booth brothers, maybe other people, member here too, your in business.
Some people are pros, rather get on the blower and make calls than come here make stupid comments. I see a far more intelligent conversation going on twitter than here, not surprising in least.
As for sharing password, so what? She can change it to pleaseflushtwicelongwaytodnForum, let Michael sniff and change it back. Whats he gonna do? Lower her prices and buy her out?
C’mon boys and girls, stop putting Swetha on the firing squad and treat her partners the way you treat her.
Not always what you know, its who you know.
You can always post your sales on twitter only Swetha, Robbie always looking for someone to share the word about so he will post them here with link to his website asking for coffee money.

Again correct me if I am wrong. Swetha has partners in this venture, members here, but they have to much class to post or their busy selling their wares.

 

[VadimK]

Market research and registry / registrar marketing follow up helps you stay on top of what your customers/developers want.

(1,5 at max) year .... shifting started on March 2019

Regards

I understand it. I was telling people here 6-9 months ago that it's only web3, crypto, meta, all this tech ''new'' digital world that has a chance to succeed in xyz, that ''they'' are looking for a new extension. I figured time ago that abstract MySneakers.xyz stands no chance.

Yet, it still didn't take off, imo. As mentioned, I will wait for another year with what I think are ''right'' names for xyz.

 

[Lox]

I understand it. I was telling people here 6-9 months ago that it's only web3, crypto, meta, all this tech ''new'' digital world that has a chance to succeed in xyz, that ''they'' are looking for a new extension. I figured time ago that abstract MySneakers.xyz stands no chance.

Yet, it still didn't take off, imo. As mentioned, I will wait for another year with what I think are ''right'' names for xyz.

that abstract - price 10x too low

Regards

 

[Lox]

Anyways, you partner up with one or both

I'm well aware of BBs ... history & lets say... talents .

(Off-road sales is mostly what I do.)

Regards

 

[J.R.]

Feel the same. I wouldn't like this level of scrutiny

I think most wouldn't want this level of scrutiny.
Yet, Swetha has made the choice to report these XYZ sales publicly.

Hence accepting the natural scrutiny that comes with such a meteoric rise on an extension (XYZ) that isn't a top 5 choice for startups based on Crunchbase and YC stats.

There have been many frauds and schemes exposed among domainers, that went unquestioned by the many. Yet, the few who posed fair questions were viciously attacked. When proven correct, the most vicious keyboard warriors fade to black and scrub their public records.

We see this same dynamic playing out with crypto, where just a year ago truth seekers were hounded and harassed for asking basic questions about cryptocurrency. They have been more than vindicated for their skepticism; crypto winter/FTX collapse anyone?

For someone to reach the level of sales in a alternative extension, make weekly record breaking public sales, but to reject all public podcasts invitations has raised questions among veteran domainers and bloggers. These vets are also putting their own reputation on the line, and have seen enough to be cautious in doing so.

I'd be careful in jumping to conclusions, for or against Swetha and XYZ sales; but the questions will continue until a higher level of clarity is determined by the group of vet domainers posing what are fair questions.

Time will prove who was right and wrong, and it is usually during recessionary periods when the biggest schemes are exposed.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Just wanted to point out that when you submit a sale to NameBio they make it very clear that it is your choice whether to list it with your own name/website or on with the marketplace where the sale was finalized. So there is nothing to be updated.

There are a number of reasons for this policy:

1. To give credit to the person/company reporting the sale to NameBio.
2. Because the seller can legitimately be considered the person who sold the domain name, not the marketplace. For example, I create a clever two-word combination or word merge or whatever. I list it on marketplaces, in some cases including description, graphic, etc. I may have promoted it in some fashion to help the name be noticed by the buyer. True the marketplace processed the transaction, but were they the seller or was I? Also, it is I who must report the profit of the sale on income taxes.
3. It may make the sales data more useful. The sort of analysis that Brad did above would not have been possible without the way they were reported.
4. It might be argued that if the marketplace do not report sales themselves, that it is misleading to report a sale under their name. I realize this can be argued both ways.

Just to clarify for those who do not follow the Report Completed Sales thread here, or follow her on social media, in both cases she always reports where the actual transaction closed, e.g. Dan, Afternic, etc. so there is absolutely zero lack of full transparency.

Bob

Fair enough. It's is good to have this clarified, though it would be more accurate to include the actual platform AS WELL as any other venue, not as the primary sale "venue" in my opinion. That applies to any reported sale, not just in the case of this seller.

A seller is not a venue.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

For someone to reach the level of sales in a alternative extension, make weekly record breaking public sales, but to reject all public podcasts invitations has raised questions among veteran domainers and bloggers. These vets are also putting their own reputation on the line, and have seen enough to be cautious in doing so.

Wasn't she invited onto Domain Sherpa? Did she take them up on their offer?

 

[J.R.]

Wasn't she invited onto Domain Sherpa? Did she take them up on their offer?

Unsure if Domain Sherpa invited her on their platform, but wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Either way, the search for clarity and exactness of these (XYZ) sales isn't going away. At a time of shrinking sales, when you make XYZ sales greater than weekly dot-Com sales, people are going to start raising questions.

If it is true Swetha has turned down these numerous podcast invites from respected domainers; people start to wonder: Why the enthusiasm to post sales publicly but shrink from friendly discussion about these sales with experienced interviewers?

I don't see the vets pulling back on their inquiries, as some have solid track records of having their suspicions proven correct in the face of a gullible majority.

 

[HotKey]

Who cares. She a humble girl. Not into the limelight, maybe. This nit-picking is so pathetic.

 

[barybadrinath]

Its just hypocrisy of ppl who are jealous. Those same people can viciously attack a lady but are cowards when it comes to one of their own. Very much celebrated domainer frank schilling is a fraud but no one will question him. Its easy to attack a lady, right . In domaining industry , if an agreement is signed and money is sent then you cannot cancel the deal and close all communications but fraud poster boy frank schilling did it for note.com for 240k. Money was sent and agreement was signed but that fraud sold domain to someone else. Did you question him even after my expose. I guess NO. You jealous guys are more worst than frauds . Did any one even asked fraud aman bhutani and fraud paul nicks hoe did they unlocked domains of brent oxley even though case was going in indian court. Well aman bhutani will definitely get punishment for this from indian courts. But jealous guys are being just selective in attacking . You all are hypocrites and thats the truth. You dont have guts to question the frauds of big guys . You are COWARDS . SWETHA must sell more domains for 6 figs and rub salt on these people 's jealous wounds. Period

 

[BMWMotoRider]

Yeah, I have sold tons of domains that never get developed.
That is not some rare thing.

The concentration of sales is more interesting than the lack of development. That happens with many domain sales.

Brad

In the real estate world, it's called "land banking." You can acquire for a future project and/or to keep that asset out of the hands of competitors. It's intellectual property.

 

[VadimK]

Its just hypocrisy of ppl who are jealous. Those same people can viciously attack a lady but are cowards when it comes to one of their own. Very much celebrated domainer frank schilling is a fraud but no one will question him. Its easy to attack a lady, right . In domaining industry , if an agreement is signed and money is sent then you cannot cancel the deal and close all communications but fraud poster boy frank schilling did it for note.com for 240k. Money was sent and agreement was signed but that fraud sold domain to someone else. Did you question him even after my expose. I guess NO. You jealous guys are more worst than frauds . Did any one even asked fraud aman bhutani and fraud paul nicks hoe did they unlocked domains of brent oxley even though case was going in indian court. Well aman bhutani will definitely get punishment for this from indian courts. But jealous guys are being just selective in attacking . You all are hypocrites and thats the truth. You dont have guts to question the frauds of big guys . You are COWARDS . SWETHA must sell more domains for 6 figs and rub salt on these people 's jealous wounds. Period

People here are simply having a healthy discussion about .xyz present and the future. You are really the one being emotionally unstable (to say the least) with entrances like ''viciously attack the lady'', ''you are cowards'' etc. Just get a life man and concentrate on selling domains if you can't bring any valuable thoughts to the table. Bro, sorry, but you are bits of simpleminded prick if you don't realize that the conversation has nothing to do with Swetha gender or nationality (you are the one who brings it, actually). Her name could be John HardCock, and she could be a 50 year old white male redneck from West Virginia - people still would be asking questions. It's about xyz extension, not personalities.

 

[lovely4ever]

So I quickly logged in to her Afternic account and visited this URL to get a dump of all the raw sales data. Then I started taking screenshots of her sales summary page. I logged out and let her know I was done so she could change her password. Then I started diving in.


One by one I checked the sales against what we have in our database. Every single one of them was perfect. Except I discovered something shocking. Quite a few of the sales were never reported. However good you think she’s doing based on what she has reported, she’s actually doing even better. That’s insane!


Now remember, Swetha has been reporting sales for quite a while now. All this time, she had no idea I would ever ask her to log in to any of her accounts, or which one(s) I would ask for. So if she was going to fabricate sales, she would have no way of knowing to always keep Afternic clean, as opposed to DAN or Escrow.com or whatever. Thus I now feel 100% confident in all her reports, not just the Afternic ones.

if i was the sherlock holmes CEO and i pretend to be clever by digging and investigating about sales of any member , Not only for swetha ( all respect to her ) i mean in general , I will be digging to know whose the buyers names OR are this sales happening by the same buyer OR same group of buyers ?? and are the name of buyer/buyers keeps repeating ??!

To find a sales record is not enugh proof !!

The ( buyers name ) is not provided in afternic account . maybe a higher management approval + a/c owner approval will be needed to disclose this informations .

And the CEO could ask about the user and password of DAN as well , because at least on DAN it is shown the buyer name and from which country and any conversation happened .

Anybody with very deep pocket or rich can do fake sales buy letting his/her group of friends/partners or money launderers or a corrupted Registry to do a buy transacations and make a big hype about a specific TLD .

So again if i was the the CEO i would think maybe the names of the buyers are the KEY .

All my respect to swetha and her achievements , All what i said i mean it in general and not about her specific .

.

 

[DN Playbook]

I have breezed through this thread. It is an hour I will never get back.

Personally, I don't like .xyz. I don't like TLDs that take longer to say than the SLD.

I had a single word xyz domain that I allowed to expire. Now it is reserved by the registry. I don't trust the ngTLD registries. They play against investors by-and-large.

What I don't understand is why this is a big deal. It is made big by @DNGear (aka Swetha) and NameBio. Why report sales? Why allow access to your afternic account? Only if you believe this will help you with creating hype and drive future sales.

 

[DN Playbook]

I have breezed through this thread. It is an hour I will never get back.

Personally, I don't like .xyz. I don't like TLDs that take longer to say than the SLD.

I had a single word xyz domain that I allowed to expire. Now it is reserved by the registry. I don't trust the ngTLD registries. They play against investors by-and-large.

What I don't understand is why this is a big deal. It is made big by @DNGear (aka Swetha) and NameBio. Why report sales? Why allow access to your afternic account? Only if you believe this will help you with creating hype and drive future sales.

If you disagree state your case. Don't hide behind anonymous down voting or disagree buttons. Man-up. These options should be done away with by @Bravo Mod Team

 

[ivey]

So she gave a random stranger the login to her afternic account?

Ok, UFo's stole my lunch yesterday