Original Title: "From a $70 Million Pricey Transaction to a First-Day Crash, the 'Rough Start' Debut of ai.com"
Original Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
Last weekend, aside from the "Bithumb Airdrop of 620,000 BTC" mishap, another breaking news story sparked heated discussions: the mysterious buyer behind the top-level domain ai.com finally surfaced. Contrary to many expectations, the buyer did not come from an AI giant but is Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com.
This transaction, completed in April 2025, amounted to a staggering $70 million, providing a direct glimpse 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 Pricey Transaction War
In November 2022, after the launch of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5), AI suddenly became a prominent field of study, and the prices of related domains naturally soared.
In February 2023, rumors circulated that OpenAI, the parent company of 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 was still astonishing.
In August 2023, the ai.com domain pointed to the address of xAI, an AI company owned by Elon Musk, 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 owner of ai.com to "wait for a better price."
When it reappeared in the public eye, it was with the recent revelation of its "price tag of $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 and was paid for 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 trading platform founded in 2016, Crypto.com has always been known for its "massive marketing efforts," previously promoting itself through sports sponsorships and celebrity endorsements; in 2021, it even spent $700 million to secure the naming rights for a stadium in Los Angeles.
In a media interview, Kris Marszalek revealed that he "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, "Just as we emerged from thousands of cryptocurrency trading platforms, we will also 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, stated that after purchasing the domain, he had been quietly building and planned to launch the product during the Super Bowl on Sunday (February 8). He then mentioned 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 drama" 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 a Super Bowl ad), 504'd."
It must be said, this incident once again validated the saying—"the whole world is just a bigger rough 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 a "self-sufficient 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, Justin Sun spent millions 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 mansion worth £22 million (approximately $30 million) in London's Notting Hill last November.
Tether CEO Paolo has focused more on "diversifying investments," with reliable sources indicating that Tether has invested its stablecoin business profits into 140 projects spanning agriculture to sports, and plans to expand its workforce to 450 people; additionally, Tether's gold reserves have exceeded $23 billion.
Last November, Justin Sun, through his family office SunFund Energy, acquired two small hydropower stations in Norway in a single transaction, 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 daring and proactive 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 through various news stories. Perhaps this is also an indispensable part of the mainstreaming process of cryptocurrency.
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