A Billion Dollar Domain Name (Part II)

By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com

On July 27, 2013 I published here in this blog an article titled "A Billion Dollar Domain Name?"
You can read the article if you like. However, my  basic argument had to do with a company establishing a very memorable, recognizable and valued brand and service and that ultimately we could see a domain name valued at that level.


Little did I know at the time that I was both half right and dead wrong with my premise..  At the time, I did think that the chance of any domain name ever reaching a value of over a billion dollars was pretty slim. Maybe .05% chance of that ever happening. A chance nevertheless.

Jump forward a few years to today's date and I do think that the chances have dramatically increased for a domain name to reach such valuations. Say from .05% to better than 50%. 

That's quite a jump.

How did that happen?

So let me refer you to another post that I wrote and published in this blog May 9, 2014 titled "The Internet of Domains"

In summation, this article had to do with  potential future use of the DNS (domain name system) for purposes that had yet to be developed. I did talk about attaching IP addresses (domain names) to devices, sensors and other objects for various reasons. The value of naming objects and devices in the IoT. (Internet of Things).  Some other potential applications I talked about in this article included utilizing the DNS for "multi factor authentication",  a firewell,  other security purposes, for facilitating transactions,  and for device and mobile ids.

So  jump forward to now and some more interesting things are happening in the domain name and IP (Intellectual Property) industry.

For one, Verisign has just filed two patents applications regarding utilizing the DNS (domain name system)  with the IoT (Internet of Things) as I had described in this blog in detail over two years ago. The patent applications are here #1 and here #2.

You can read the patent applications if you like, however, they are eerily similar to the ideas I elaborated on in this blog over two years ago.

So, in keeping with the theme of this blog post and back to my idea of the billion dollar domain name.  When you read the patents you will see my idea become alot more realistic and if you ask me- very probable.  If it does, (the billion dollar domain name) will likely involve these Verisign patents. You see, what they have cleverly done, with these DNS/IOT ideas is to corner that market.  (That is if the patents are granted).Which I suspect they will be.

Now, let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say the patent applications are applied to one particular domain name that is used as some sort of exchange in the marketplace. So much so that every transaction that the exchange makes is "channeled" through that one domain name and the DNS and with revenue/commissions attached to each transaction. Let's use the domain name Forex.Exchange as one example of how this could be done. As many of you know Forex stands for the foreign exchange (currency) market. (by the way, I can see that Forex.Exchange is for sale if you are interested).


So allow your mind again to drift back to the billion dollar domain idea-and imagine that a Forex Exchange is developed on the domain name Forex.Exchange. Funneling all transactions through that domain name for commissions and fees and utilizes the DNS for various purposes (check out the Verisign patent applications-it could get very complicated). Potentially up to Trillions of dollars in Forex transactions per year. Current Forex transactions are in the trillions of dollars per day.


What does the value of that domain name become?

 A billion dollars?

Just maybe.