Radix, the portfolio registry behind 9+ popular new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), announced the sale of casino.online to an anonymous buyer for $ 201,250 in an all-cash deal. The sale came through Sedo, the world’s largest domain marketplace and monetization provider. At $201,250, this is the highest price paid for a single domain in a new gTLD, thus exceeding any previous domain name sale amongst all the other new domain extensions. Launched in August 2015, .online has some popular websites to its credit such as www.tnw.online, www.lending.online, www.africa.online, www.geeks.online, www.sportwetten.online amongst others. [casinoonline] is the 4th most expensive keyword in the UK. Thus, owning an exact-match keyword like casino will give a marketing edge and create brand recognition to any company operating in that space.

While there have been instances of a premium new TLDs being sold for a deal value of 100k+ through partnerships between the registry and client, this is a sale where an all cash payment has been paid upfront at the time of acquiring the domain. For Radix, this is a valuable business milestone. Speaking about the sale, Sandeep Ramchandani, VP—Business Head, Radix, said, “This sale validates the global potential of our gTLDs owing to their top-notch quality and usability. As brands increasingly choose new domain extensions for innovative branding of their web address, the valuation of new gTLDs is going higher with each passing year.”

Sedo, the leading domain trading platform through which casino.online was sold, said that the sale supports the trend of top sales and higher prices for quality new TLD names, a market that is challenging to gain the general public’s understanding and adoption. Tobias Flaitz, CEO, Sedo, added, “We believe five and even six-figure sales in this category should continue to be on the rise as Sedo supports Registries with a full suite of marketing and sales activities; helping to grow awareness for premium domains.”

Radix owns various gTLDs such as .tech, .website, .store, .space and .fun; which is currently in the Sunrise phase. Specific brand-TLDs or TLDs for a niche vertical have a limited market, but generic domain names such as .online or .website have much wider usability, thus indicating that not all gTLDs are made equal. On the other hand, TLDs such as .tech and .store have seen massive organic adoption owing to their direct relevance to technology and e-commerce sectors respectively.

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.ONLINE Performance Stats

No. 1 in awareness: .ONLINE ranks No. 1 in customer awareness in Europe and countries like Germany, France and Poland vs. all other new domains (based on a survey conducted by ICANN). .ONLINE is No. 3 in awareness globally.

No. 1 in usage:

• .ONLINE has the most number of domains in the global Alexa 1 million most visited sites in the world vs. all other new domains
• .ONLINE also has the highest number of sites that are SSL enabled vs. every other new domain out there

Fastest growing: .ONLINE has been consistently amongst the fastest growing new domains and is the 8th largest new domain with 660,000+ domains registered

Common keyword: Over 45,000 domains registered in 2016 end in the word ‘online’ which shows customers intuitively chose online