Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Last weekend, in addition to the “Bithumb airdrop of 620,000 BTC” blunder, another breaking news story sparked heated discussions: the mysterious buyer behind the top-level domain ai.com has finally emerged. Contrary to many expectations, the buyer is not from an AI giant, but rather Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com.
This transaction, which was finalized in April 2025, amounts to a staggering $70 million, providing a direct insight into the incredible financial power of cryptocurrency moguls. This deal not only ended the ownership dispute surrounding the domain but also put a period to the previous “top-level domain pointing battle” among giants like OpenAI and xAI.
The ai.com Domain Dispute: A Three-Year Price War
In November 2022, after the launch of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5), AI suddenly became a hot topic, and the prices of related domains naturally soared.
In February 2023, rumors circulated that OpenAI, the parent company behind ChatGPT, had purchased ai.com, but this news was later confirmed to be false. However, the listing price of $11 million for the domain in 2021 still left many astonished.
In August 2023, the ai.com domain pointing address was changed to Elon Musk's AI company xAI, which once again drew significant attention.
Since then, more information about this top-level domain has been uncovered: it was first registered in May 1993, making it over 30 years old and a historically significant domain. However, Musk remained indifferent to the matter, further clarifying to the market that changing the domain pointing address was merely a marketing tactic by the ai.com domain holder to “wait for a better price.”
When it reappeared in the public eye, it was with the recent revelation of “a selling price of up to $70 million.”
Public information shows that Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, successfully acquired this top-level domain, setting one of the highest publicly disclosed domain transaction records to date; the deal was facilitated by domain broker Larry Fischer, with payment made in cryptocurrency. For reference, this price is double that of the previous sale of the top-level domain voice.com.
As a well-established cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2016, Crypto.com has always been known for its “massive marketing efforts,” previously engaging in market promotion through sports sponsorships and celebrity endorsements; in 2021, it even spent $700 million just to secure the naming rights to a stadium in Los Angeles.
In a media interview, Kris Marszalek revealed that he “has received even more outrageous resale offers but chose to hold onto the domain,” as he believes this domain will be crucial for the trust and recognition of future business. Moreover, he boldly stated: “Back then, we emerged from thousands of cryptocurrency exchanges, and this time we will make ai.com successful again.”
Thus, the years-long transaction war surrounding the ai.com top-level domain has come to an end; just as the market was filled with expectations and speculations about how Kris Marszalek would use this domain, he unexpectedly “pulled a big one.”
The Botched “Product Launch”: ai.com Crashed Within 48 Hours of Going Live
Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, posted that after purchasing the domain, he had been quietly building and planned to launch a product during the Super Bowl on Sunday (February 8). He stated that with the AI Agent on the ai.com platform, users would soon be able to deploy their own agents to perform a series of operations on their behalf, such as stock trading, automating workflows, using calendars to schedule and execute daily tasks, all while maintaining privacy, based on user permissions, and fully controlled by the user.
However, amidst the anticipation, ai.com experienced a “crash” within less than 48 hours of going live.
This morning, NVIDIA engineer yuhang posted, “This $70 million domain, after spending $8 million on advertising _ (Note: the typical price for Super Bowl ads) _ crashed with a 504.”
It must be said, this incident once again validates the saying — “the whole world is just a bigger makeshift stage.”
As of the time of writing, the ai.com website has returned to normal, allowing users to pre-register personal subdomains and AI Agent subdomains for future platform functionality experiences; as for whether Kris Marszalek's vision of the “autonomous AI Agent” can be realized, I will reserve my opinion for now.
The “Mainstreaming Path” of Cryptocurrency Moguls: Some Buy Houses, Others Buy Power Plants
Another hot topic arising from Kris Marszalek's $70 million purchase of the top-level domain is the various mainstreaming paths chosen by cryptocurrency moguls.
Previously, Sun Yuchen spent a million dollars to win a lunch with Warren Buffett, and recently, the actions of cryptocurrency moguls have become even more diverse:
Aave founder Stani Kulechov purchased a luxury home worth £22 million (approximately $30 million) in the Notting Hill area of London last November here.
Tether CEO Paolo is more focused on “putting eggs in different baskets,” with reliable sources indicating that Tether has invested its stablecoin business profits into 140 investments covering fields from agriculture to sports, and plans to expand its workforce to 450 people; additionally, Tether's gold reserves have exceeded $23 billion.
Last November, Sun Yuchen, through his family office SunFund Energy, made a one-time acquisition of two small hydropower stations in Norway, with a total installed capacity of 86 MW and an annual power generation of about 350 GWh, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 40,000 European households. In the era of AI exploration, the always daring Sun Yuchen chose to hold the “power ticket” to board this era's train.
Regardless of the investment outcomes, cryptocurrency has become more widely recognized in various forms such as payment currency, character symbols, and asset classes in the news. Perhaps, this is also an indispensable part of the mainstreaming process of cryptocurrency.
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