Thoughts

Andrew Miller

March 30, 2025

Investing in Bitcoin vs Domain Names

I saw a post yesterday from Rick Schwartz “The DomainKing®” that really resonated with me. I have known Rick since I was a keynote speaker at his Traffic conference, and while our paths have not crossed as much in recent years, his understanding of the power of the exact match, category defining domain name is extremely relevant. In this post, Rick opines on which is a better investment, Bitcoin or an ultra premium .com domain asset. He (and I) supports both but his rationale and argument is one I happen to agree with. The quote that jumped off the page at me is, “the most significant factor is one bitcoin can be traded for one bitcoin or whatever the going price is. However, one domain can earn a lifetime of bitcoins. One-dimensional versus multifaceted, multidimensional and dream-fulfilling.” So many entrepreneurs or successful CEOs have fulfilled their dream of building a market leading brand and business leveraging the most valuable “internet real estate.” – https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7311716313020747778/

So Close Yet So Far

It is often such a fine line between the most valuable domain name assets transacting successfully or not. You all know I use the term zopa (zone of possible agreement) all the time as it relates to getting to a win-win domain name acquisition/sale. So much of my energy is spent working with both sides to get into the zopa. This week, I have been immersed in a negotiation on what will be an 8 figure transaction of arguably one of the most valuable domains on the Internet. It took a lot of massaging and patience to get everyone into the zopa. On the flip side, we recently had to provide a hard no on a $9m cash offer, one that by any standard is excellent but, just shy of falling into that zone. Why would a seller turn down $9m is a fair question? The answer is first, it is their asset and thus prerogative to set that price. Everyone’s personal circumstances vary and in this case, our client deeply believes, which will be proven correct, that the domain in question is an 8 figure asset, and as he has noted, he is fortunate enough to be able to say no. I am still hopeful we will find our way into a zopa on this soon. Going back to thought 1 above, these 2 examples mesh well with Rick’s post!

Escrow.com has been Integrated into Atom

We at Hilco Digital Assets are strategic investors in Atom, and manage all listings and negotiations for the UPM (Ultra-Premium Marketplace). Atom recently integrated the UPM with Escrow.com and on Friday, we had a large sale (just shy of $1m) through that integration. We are excited about the future of this feature.

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