sales Voice.com sold by Microstrategy for $30 million

[GeorgeK]

Just announced!

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...croStrategy-Sells-Voice.com-Domain-30-Million

 

[J.D.]

Great domain name sell for MicroStrategy. And them releasing a press release being picked up by the media will only help those selling premium dot-Com 1-2 word domain names with commercial and/or dictionary meaning

 

[GeorgeK]

Analyzing the Alexa top 1 million sites (via http://s3.amazonaws.com/alexa-static/top-1m.csv.zip ), there are 475 domain names that contain the term "voice".

 

[TCK]

Great domain name sell for MicroStrategy. And them releasing a press release being picked up by the media will only help those selling premium dot-Com 1-2 word domain names with commercial and/or dictionary meaning

If you make a great sale or are selling a great domain, sending out a press release is very effective. MS are using the sale of voice and the press release to promote their other ultra-premium domains.

 

[GeorgeK]

The buyer of the Voice.com domain name, namely block.one, has already filed multiple trademark applications incorporating the term "voice", so we can get a sense of how they plan to use it:

1) Voice: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461547&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

2) Voice.com: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461546&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

3) Voice logo/figurative mark: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461543&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

 

[Larion]

Congrats to buyer and seller!

https://www.microstrategy.com/us/co...egy-sells-voicecom-domain-name-for-30-million

 

[Avijit Roy]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I see the sale is listed on NameBio now. So far in 2019 this one sale is $30M while the other 42,100 .com domain name sales on NameBio so far in 2019 combine for another $38.4M! A beautiful name, but this was certainly a fantastic price obtained for it.

 

[Kai W.]

It will drive the improvement of the entire industry

 

[Dandelion]

This 30million Voice.com sales confirms my point, that Crypto.com owner should have demanded for more than 12million. After all the years of rejecting offers, 25-30million would have been a worthy bargain.

 

[Kingslayer]

This 30million Voice.com sales confirms my point, that Crypto.com owner should have demanded for more than 12million. After all the years of rejecting offers, 25-30million would have been a worthy bargain.

You can’t look at previous sales and say ‘xxxxxxxxxxx. com should have sold for this or that’.

End of day previous owner of Crypto got a fantastic deal, life changing amount of money where he and even his children don’t have to work again (if they don’t want).

I do think this was a one off sale, not every company has or is willing to folk out $30 million for a domain name, but single word domains are certainly the thing to get involved in if you can (from an investment pov).

There’s lots of demand for them right now and with high street closures and more and more businesses moving soley online, i do think demand is only going to grow.

 

[Dandelion]

You can’t look at previous sales and say ‘xxxxxxxxxxx. com should have sold for this or that’.

End of day previous owner of Crypto got a fantastic deal, life changing amount of money where he and even his children don’t have to work again (if they don’t want).

I do think this was a one off sale, not every company has or is willing to folk out $30 million for a domain name, but single word domains are certainly the thing to get involved in if you can (from an investment pov).

There’s lots of demand for them right now and with high street closures and more and more businesses moving soley online, i do think demand is only going to grow.

Yeah, very correct. But I've felt that way right from day one, not just because of this sale. But then, Crypto.com owner is not a domain investor. And like you said, anyone can live comfortably with 12million for the rest of his life if they keep away from Las Vegas.

 

[sgtppr]

I am...in the same industry as the buyer. In that community we are debating whether this price was an overpay or not. As a domainer i think it was a massive overpay. What say you all?

What's wholesale price on this? My guess: $250k.

 

[garptrader]

Facebook paid a billion dollars for Instagram when it had no revenue. Facebook's market cap currently exceeds $500 billion. Can another social media network take a slice of that?

 

[J.D.]

I am...in the same industry as the buyer. In that community we are debating whether this price was an overpay or not. As a domainer i think it was a massive overpay. What say you all?

What's wholesale price on this? My guess: $250k.

It was a fair market price because that is what Microstrategy demanded and that is what Block.One paid. Great deal for the domain speculation industry.

 

[sgtppr]

It was a fair market price because that is what Microstrategy demanded and that is what Block.One paid. Great deal for the domain speculation industry.

that is not the question that i asked.

but you indirectly answered my questing by dodging my question.

it was clearly a massive overpay. no domainer would pay anything close to that if they were buying it as an investment.

you know why this industry is dying? because the culture of domainers is one of trying to fleece idiots. 'sure someone wants to pay $500,000,000 for turtle-drawings.mobi? fair price! that's the market value! by the way i own horse-drawings-night.network, only $1,500!"

 

[RegBoss]

The buyer of the Voice.com domain name, namely block.one, has already filed multiple trademark applications incorporating the term "voice", so we can get a sense of how they plan to use it:

1) Voice: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461547&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

2) Voice.com: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461546&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

3) Voice logo/figurative mark: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88461543&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

They might have some issues trade marking it. Are they going to tell all the people with voice in their trademark already that they can not use voice. Not likely. They might get the "naked" voice trade marked. Highly used word. I think trying to trade mark it a waste of time and money. They already paid a fortune for it.

Trade marked names containg voice. 7205 trade marks already.
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4804:vqkwau.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~:=PARA1$LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=voice&p_tagrepl~:=PARA2$COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

Looking at voice dot com does give me an idea for voiceox though. Make a blog and let people voice what they want. I had a blog before with socialspat but the problem is maintenance and monitoring all the replies. You also get some A-holes you have to watch or eventually block. Takes up a lot of time. You need an IT team to run it properly.

 

[sgtppr]

They might have some issues trade marking it. Are they going to tell all the people with voice in their trademark already that they can not use voice. Not likely. They might get the "naked" voice trade marked. Highly used word. I think trying to trade mark it a waste of time and money. They already paid a fortune for it.

Trade marked names containg voice. 7205 trade marks already.
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4804:vqkwau.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~:=PARA1$LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=voice&p_tagrepl~:=PARA2$COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

Looking at voice dot com does give me an idea for voiceox though. Make a blog and let people voice what they want. I had a blog before with socialspat but the problem is maintenance and monitoring all the replies. You also get some A-holes you have to watch or eventually block. Takes up a lot of time. You need an IT team to run it properly.

Whatever Square did, they'll do that. I'm sure there are still some protections.

Lots of startups are using dictionary words these days.

 

[satsdifference.com]

I like. Does wonders for our niche all "Digital Assets" Mainstreaming..



-have a special day

 

[TauseefKhan]

I cay say 'sex is down' and 'voice is up'
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/dnjournal-all-time-top-20-cash-domain-sales.htm

it will be interesting if the single word dot com owners raise their expectations exponentially after this sale.

 

[J.D.]

that is not the question that i asked.

but you indirectly answered my questing by dodging my question.

it was clearly a massive overpay. no domainer would pay anything close to that if they were buying it as an investment.

you know why this industry is dying? because the culture of domainers is one of trying to fleece idiots. 'sure someone wants to pay $500,000,000 for turtle-drawings.mobi? fair price! that's the market value! by the way i own horse-drawings-night.network, only $1,500!"

The sell-off of Voice.com was a voluntary exchange, between Microstrategy and Block.One. There was no overpay, because there are 1,000 GTLDs that Block.One could have used (Voice.Horse anyone?), but they made the cost-benefit analysis that the Voice.com asset value was at least $30M for them; they made a calculation. Obviously, what a wholeseller pays for an asset or good, has little bearing on what the retail value is to the right buyer.

When you are talking about premium 1-2 word dot-Coms with commercial and/or dictionary meaning, scarcity and use plays a HUGE role in valuation.

The domain speculation industry isn't dying, its being bought out as the premium assets are finite; there are only so many 1-2 word premium dot-Coms with commercial and/or dictionary meaning to go around. For that reason, Block.One was willing to make the $30M purchase because they know more about their business than you do.

Notice the false analogy you use, "I own horse-drawings-night.network" to compare to a digital blue diamond like Voice.com. That is why Microstrategy earned $30 million, and you are stuck playing armchair domain valuation expert.

Lesson in there...