The Lowdown

Welcome to the 
The Lowdown from 
DN Journal - your source for notable news and information from all corners of the global domain name industry! 

The Lowdown is compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher 
Ron Jackson.

Andrew Miller Reveals $10 Million Sale of Club.com in 2025 - One of Top Ten Publicly Reported Domain Sales of All Time

Pioneering domain broker Andrew Miller (President at ATM Holdings and Strategic Advisor to Hilco Digital) has closed many of the top domain sales of all time. While many of those have been made public over the years, most have been subject to non-disclosure agreements, Today Andrew, who was profiled in our April 2024 Cover Story, revealed one of his biggest sales to date in a post to his LinkedIn account. Representing the buyer in a deal closed early last year, Andrew, via ATM Holdings and Hilco Digital, orchestrated a $10 million sale of Club.com.

(Posted April 14 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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NamesCon Global 2026 Gearing Up With a New Partnership, a Chief Evangelist and Super Early Bird Ticket Prices That End Soon

NamesCon Global has some very ambitious plans for their return to Miami for the  2026 conference that will be held November 11 & 12. The groundwork is being laid early to facilitate some big changes in the agenda, partnerships and floor plan - all designed to deliver the most productive NamesCon meeting to date.  Toward that end, NamesCon is teaming up with the i2Coalition and Domain Name Association to build out a shared space for registries, registrars, investors, brokers, and domain professionals to come together with the partners shaping what’s next for the domain ecosystem. i2 Coalition 

Co-Founder and Executive Director Christian Dawson is so committed to the task he has taken on additional duties as Chief Evangelist for NamesCon Global.  

Christian said, “The i2Coalition and Domain Name Association represent the companies shaping the Internet’s infrastructure and the domain ecosystem. Together with NamesCon Global, this partnership brings the industry’s key players into one place to connect, collaborate, and help drive what comes next.”  

A steady stream of details will be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead as NamesCon's vision for their return to the Ice Palace in downtown Miamii comes together (you can see how their first Miami event last November played out in our 2025 NamesCon Global review).

There is already one important detail about the 2026 conference that you will want to act on right away if you want to save some money. That is the show's Super Early Bird ticket offer that is now open. The deal shaves the $999 cost of the Standard Pass down to just $349 but the price will be going up on Friday, April 24. 

(Posted April 8, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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A Peek Inside the South Florida Domainers All-Star Meetup in Fort Lauderdale Monday Night

One of the world's largest local social groups for industry professionals, South Florida Domainers, held a meetup Monday night (March 30, 2026) at Tarpon River Brewing in Fort Lauderdale. The gathering once again illustrated what an extraordinary concentration of industry star power resides along Florida's Gold Coast, stretching along the southeast side of the peninsula from  Palm Beach down to Miami.

Larry Fischer and John Mauriello (the brokers who closed the all-time record domain sale of AI.com at $70 million) were there, as were industry pioneers like Rick "Domain King" Schwartz, Mike Mann, Monte Cahn, Chad Folkening, Ari Goldberger and Slavik Viner. Look one way and you would see Sedo's Mark "Mr. Premium" Ghoriafi, Mark Daniel or Victor Pitts. Look another and there was Adam Maysonet, Howard Fellman or John Colascione. Take another quarter turn and there was Allen Threadgill, Scott Ross or the Waters brothers, Rick and Chris - and I've still just scratched the surface! So, let's just some pictures (courtesy of Mark Ghoriafi and Marc Mojica) do the talking.

Above at the meeting's entryway are (left to right) Howard Fellman, Jeremiah Selander (Trillion.com), airline pilot/domain investor Leonard Nock, Mark Ghoriafi and the organizer of the South Florida Domainers events, Eddie Sixto.

Below: Jason Greenwald (standing) doing some table hopping to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

Above: Chad Folkening (eCorp.com), Mark Ghoriafi, Monte Cahn and Mike Mann holding court at the bar.

Below: Domain King Rick Schwartz (left) and Marc Mojica compare notes - most likely about Rick's latest project - the Beanstalk Challenge!

Above: Of course, no gathering would be complete without a class photo to mark the occasion! If you are coming to Miami for NamesCon Global in November, odds are you will see just about everyone of these domain pros there, so start making your travel plans now.

April 7, 2026 Update: A few days after our article was published, South Florida Domainers Meetup organizer Eddie Sixto, added a full photo gallery to the group's website where you can see dozens of additional snapshots from the the March 30 event in Fort Lauderdale.

(Posted March 31, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Andrew Miller Wins 2026 Master of Domains Award for Having the Highest Sales Volume Transacted Through  Escrow.com Last Year

Every year since 2017, Escrow.com has been honoring the world's top domain brokers through their Master of Domains program. The annual awards go to the 10 highest-grossing domain name brokers based on the value of deals they closed on the Escrow.com platform in the previous year. For seven of those years in a row the top spot has gone to MediaOptions.com Founder Andrew Rosener but this time out the title went to another Andrew - ATM Holdings Founder Andrew Miller. 

Miller, who was profiled in an April 2024 DNJournal Cover Story, is a true industry pioneer who has been involved in many of the biggest domain sales of all-time. The illustrious list includes Chat.com, Rocket.com, Gold.com, Universal.com, Beer.com, Diamond.com, Shop.com and CreditCards.com, to name just a few that he pushed across the finish line over the past 25 years.

2025 was a huge year for the domain aftermarket in general with Escrow.com alone facilitating over $395 million in transactions. The AI boom, of course, has played a big role in that surge. Escrow.com noted, ".AI domains nearly tripled in sales from $9.4 million to $27.1 million in a single year, now generating more transaction volume than .io, .co, .co.uk and every other alternative extension combined. And in April 2025, AI.com sold for $70 million in the largest domain sale ever recorded."

With buyers out in droves and big money at stake, trusted brokers with long tracks of success have never been in greater demand. The two Andrews (Rosener had another great year as well) and their fellow Top Ten honorees all rose to the occasion.

Andrew Miller

Here is the full list of 2026 Master of Domains award winners:
1. Andrew Miller – Founder & President, ATM Holdings / Strategic Advisor, Hilco Digital Assets
2. Keith Richter – Co-Founder, Lumis Group
3. Rob Schutz – Co-Founder, Snagged
4. Andrew Rosener – Founder & CEO, MediaOptions.com
5. Louis Pickthall – Co-Founder, BrandForce.com
6. Ryan McKegney – CEO, DomainAgents
7. Braden Pollock – Founder, Legal Brand Marketing
8. Brian Harbin – Founder, Grit Brokerage
9. Cory Greenberg – Founder, Clickology
10. Luciana Samsudean – Domain Broker, SafeNames

(Posted March 31, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Domain Tokenization Will Take Center Stage at Dominion 2026 in Las Vegas with D3 Providing an Up Close and Personal Look at Their Doma Trading Platform

Dominion 2026, a two-day event being billed as "The Ultimate Liquidity Event for Domain Investors" is coming up April 29 & 30 at Resorts World in Las Vegas. The conference is being hosted by Doma, a trading platform developed by D3 that has been positioned as "the world's first purpose-built blockchain for DomainFi – tokenization and DeFi." 

Several well-known domain industry figures will be speaking at the event, including Larry Fischer and John Mauriello (brokers of the world record $70 million sale of AI.com), Monte Cahn, Richard Lau, Braden Pollock, Ammar Kubba and D3 Co-Founder & CEO Fred Hsu, to name just a few (the full speaker's list can be seen here).

Even so, the show's organizers made it clear that this event won't be like any domain conference you've attended or read about before, stating, "Dominion 2026 isn’t just another domain conference - it’s where real domains meet real liquidity. ​Over two days in Las Vegas, you won’t just hear about monetization - you’ll experience it. ​You’ll see a premium domain launch live, meet owners who’ve unlocked six-figures of liquidity without selling, and learn how to do it yourself. ​No theory. No panels about “the future. ​Just real domains, real markets, real execution."

Dominion 2026 and the Doma Protocol that will be in the spotlight there stems from the launch of D3 (that we told you about in an article last year) by a team of domain industry veterans who already had a history of success dating back to the earliest days of the domain business. D3 leaders said they are building the world's first DomainFi network to tokenize over 390 million existing and future domains as real-world assets. To do that, the  Doma Protocol was developed as a decentralized blockchain infrastructure bridging traditional Internet domains (like .com, .ai, .org, .xyz, etc.) with emerging Web3 domain extensions such as .sol, .avax, .ape). They believe that tokenizing domains in this way will turn them into real world assets, paving the way for a global economy for fractional domain ownership, lending and DeFi utility.

A screenshot from the Doma website.

These are obviously lofty ambitions but that is nothing out of the ordinary for D3's founders and key team members who have delivered on a lot of promises in the past. That alone will prompt interest in what they are doing now - and why they are inviting everyone who wants to learn more to see them in Las Vegas or visit the D3 and Doma websites. Tickets to Dominion 2026 are priced at $299, but you can use this link to get an early bird ticket for $149 if you register before midnight Friday night (March 27).   

(Posted March 25, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Bar.com & Pub.com Sold Together for $1 Million in Deal Brokered by Kate Buckley's Defining.com

Kate Buckley, the Founder & CEO at Defining.com, has closed a combined sale of Bar.com and Pub.com for $1 million. Kate, who was profiled in a 2018 DNJournal Cover Story, brokered the deal on behalf of internet pioneer and domain investor Mike O'Connor. With the two domains valued at $500,000 each, they will rank as the 4th highest publicly reported domain sales so far in 2026 (they will be placed on our charts, including the YTD Top Sales list, when our next bi-weekly domain sales report is released Wednesday evening, April 1). After an agreement on Bar.com and Pub.com was reached, Mike also gave the buyer Bar.net as a free bonus. 

Image from Bigstock

Bar.com & Pub.com are the latest in a long string of top tier sales that Mike has made over the years, including Corp.com, Place.com, Haven.com, Company.com and Ing.com among others. Defining.com is currently brokering another gem from Michael's collection in Shelter.com). 

Industry veterans will remember photos like this of the always personable Mike O'Conner at early domain conferences when he had  tags showing the domain names in his portfolio pinned to his shirt. The first time we saw him we thought "no one could possibly have that many great domain names!" but Mike was and still is the real deal.

(Posted March 24, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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The Annual Global Domain Report from InterNetX and Sedo Is Here - 2026 Edition Has Invaluable Information from Every Corner of the Domain Industry

Every year InterNetX and Sedo join forces to produce an extraordinarily comprehensive report of where things stand across all sectors of the domain industry. The 2026 edition of their Global Domain Report has just been released with insightful commentary from experts from around the world on everything from domain sales and trends to new gTLDs to AI to Web3 to DNS Abuse to..., well - you get the idea - it's all in there and it's all free of charge. 

In addition to the sheer volume of invaluable content that took months to assemble, I have to hand it to the

GDR graphics team for an eye appealing theme makes all of the charts, tables and sidebar comments pop off the page. As I told  InterNetX's Global Content & Communications Manager, Simone Catania, sfter reading the new edition, "Every year I read this report and think, there is no way this can be done any better! Then the next year it arrives and it is even better - amazing work from everyone involved in producing it." The report begins with welcoming commentary from new Sedo CEO Arthur Mai and InterNetX CEO Elias Rendón Benger.

Data from Sedo's marketplace provided a good reminder that there is much more to domain sales than the six-figure and higher transactions people tend to focus on. The report notes, "The aftermarket is largely driven by transactions in the lower and mid-price segments, which account for the majority of sales. While high-value domains continue to attract attention, most trading activity takes place at price levels accessible to startups, small businesses and investors."

"Seller feedback reflects a similar pattern, with most respondents reporting sales in the sub-$10,000 range. At the same time, survey results highlight broader market dynamics influencing pricing, particularly the limited availability of strong .com domains, as well as AI and technology trends and the global economic environment. Together, these insights underline that while premium sales shape market perception, the mid-market remains the core driver of domain trading activity.

For more insights like this on every conceivable domain topic, download the free report here.

(Posted March 23, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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South Florida Domainers to Meet Up Again March 30 in Fort Lauderdale - Domain Pros Worldwide Welcome to Drop In

When NamesCon Global moved to Miami for their 2025 conference in November, the pioneering South Florida domain community was back in the spotlight again. Prominent members of that community staged the first major domain conference ever held back in 2004 when the TRAFFIC show in Delray Beach launched a 10-year run of events held around the world.

Many of the people at that first conference are still active in one of the world's largest local social groups for industry professionals, South Florida Domainers. The group holds periodic meetups with the next one in the series coming up Monday, March 30 at Tarpon River Brewing in Fort Lauderdale.

Image from Bigstock

The event, organized by industry veteran Eddie Sixto, will get underway at 7pm and anyone, whether they are local professionals or domain people just visiting from out of town, are welcome to attend. For planning purposes, it would be helpful if you used the RSVP link on the group's website but if it's a last minute decision you can just drop in and join the fun. You'll be surprised how many faces you will see that are among the Who's Who of the domain industry.

Above & Below: Scenes from the last South Florida Domainers meetup in March 2024. Left to right in the photo below are Eddie Sixto, TRAFFIC Co-Founder Rick Schwartz (AKA The Domain King) and Tracy Fogarty (eNaming.com).

Above: Two industry pioneers who have been profiled in DNJoirnal Cover Stores, Larry Fischer (GetYourDomain.com), at left, and Chad Folkening (eCorp.com) catching up at the last South Florida Domainers meetup. As most of the business world now knows, Larry represented the seller in brokering the biggest publicly reported domain sale of all-time - AI.com at $70 million.

There will be no formal presentations or guest speakers at the March 30 meetup — just an opportunity to enjoy good food, drinks and conversations with like-minded individuals. There is no cover charge to attend. Guests can purchase their own food and drinks at the venue. 

Incidentally, NamesCon Global will be back in Miami again for their 2026 conference, November 11 & 12 and registration is open now.

(Posted March 20, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Icon.com Business Appears to Have Run  Aground Less Than a Year After Gaining Access to Domain in a $12 Million Deal

In April of last year we reported entrepreneur Kennan Davison's announcement that he had acquired the Icon.com domain in a $12 million deal to serve as a world class brand for a new AI advertising platform he had just launched. What appeared to be a bright future for the enterprise has suddenly turned dark with reports that the business has shut down.

Right now there are far more questions than answers as no major business news outlets have covered the situation. Almost all information that is out there is in the form of social media posts. This is how Google's AI Search summarized the situation this morning:

Image from Bigstock

"Icon.com (the AI ad maker) appears to have gone out of business, shut down, or significantly failed following a high-profile launch. According to LinkedIn Reports multiple industry observers reported that the company, which billed itself as "The First AI Admaker" and was backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, appeared to have closed down, with notes that there were no employees on their LinkedIn page. Users on Reddit and LinkedIn reported issues with the service, including poor-quality outputs, alleged hidden charges (charging for a full year after a 3-day trial), and failure to refund. The company famously spent $12 million on its domain name (Icon.com) and launched with heavy hype in early 2025, with claims of hitting $5 million Annual Recurring Revenue in its first 30 days. The prevailing consensus is that the venture failed due to poor product quality, inability to retain customers, and intense competition."

From a domain industry perspective, the biggest question now is what happens to the Icon.com domain name? We've seen a couple of comments on social media in which the authors said they were told the $12 million sale was a lease to own deal and the domain could revert to the original owner (as of this writing the last update to the domain was in July 2025). Another scenario, if the ad business is kaput, could be the current investors using Icon.com for another project.

In light of the new developments, we got back in touch with Andrew Miller this morning and, as expected, he had to decline to comment on Icon.com specifically. However, Andrew did re-affirm something we all know and have seen before - businesses come and go based on their own merits but the high value of great domain names remains undiminished, as will be the case with Icon.com. 

(Posted March 6, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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New Escrow.com Domain Investment Index Reports Detail How .AI Sales Have Been Propelled to Unprecedented Heights

Escrow.com has released their Domain Investment Index reports for 3Q-2025 and 4Q-2025 and they shed a lot of light on just how powerful the surge in .AI domain sales has been over the past couple of years. In 2024 Escrow.com closed $9.4 million in .AI sales. In 2025 that number exploded, tripling to $27.1 million - a growth rate of 189%.

Q4-2025 was a landmark quarter in multiple ways. In addition to giving .AI its 5th consecutive quarter of rapid revenue growth, it marked the first time .AI produced over $10 million in a single quarter on the Escrow platform. The startling rise has turned .AI into the second-most valuable extension on the internet in a remarkably short period of time - and that's not all. Escrow noted that .AI produced more sales volume than all other non .com TLDs combined.

Escrow.com CEO Matt Barrie noted, ".Com now has an emerging rival. While less than 10% of overall volume, the .AI extension has gone from niche curiosity to gold rush in under 24 months. Companies aren't just buying these domains; they're making identity statements about where technology is heading. The question is, whether in the rear view mirror .AI will be viewed like .mobi or .internet, or whether it is a true enduring rival to the best street in town." 

.AI helped push Escrow.com's total sales revenue to $395 million in 2025, a solid 5.6% rise year over year. Their second half was particularly strong, with Q4 posting $102.5 million – a 7.3% increase over Q3's $95.5 million.

(Posted March 5, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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Premium Domain Sales in 2H-2025 Produced Big Gains for Both Radix and the .CV Registry

If you read our bi-weekly domain sales report, you know that 2025 was a very big year for the domain aftermarket, but that wasn't the only corner of the industry where business was booming. Both Radix and the .CV registry have released reports on their Premium Domain sales in the second half of 2025 and their percentage year-over-year gains were very impressive. Radix operates in the gTLD space as the administrator of 10 top level domains including, appropriately enough, .space, as well as .tech, .fun, .store and six more. .CV, as a single re-purposed ccTLD assigned to Cape Verde, plays in a different league but their results illustrate the key role premiums play at every level.

Radix reported that their  premium domains saw a sharp rise in both registrations and renewals in H2-2025. The number of new premium registrations soared 96% above the number logged in the same time frame a year earlier. Radix saw strong demand across all price points with 131 registrations at $5,000 a year (annual renewals cost the same amount). They had 55 registrations at $10,000 a year and at the highest end, two at $25,000 a year. Their full report here breaks down all of the data to show how their individual TLDs performed in generating the breakout half.

(Posted March 2, 2026) To refer others to the post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
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