NEW YORK—A domain is being put up for auction in August that could conceivably set a record sale. Sex.com? Haha. No, but close.
DOMAINfest, a one-day conference taking place Aug. 18 in New York City, will include a Moniker-produced live auction in which XXX.com will supposedly be put on the block, and considering the possibility that .XXX might itself be approved by ICANN, the sale price for a dot-com version of the same letters may have just risen.
That's what MHB of thedomains.com thinks will happen.
"Beyond the ICM registry who owns the .XXX TLD, the biggest other beneficiary very well maybe the owner of XXX.com," the writer posted, subtly dishing on the sTLD while acknowledging its possible coattails.
MHB says the reserve price for XXX.com is $5 mil, adding, "No doubt that the value of the domain XXX.com grew once .XXX registry got its tentative approval."
AVN has confirmed the auction of XXX.com with Moniker. (The SnapNames website shows that the domain is available, seller with a private WHOIS, sporting a minimum bid of $59. XXX.net also appears to be available.)
Moniker CEO Monte Cahn replied to an email and confirmed the auction of the domain, adding, "The price is in excess of $5mm."
MHB thinks traffic to XXX.com will increase following the rollout of a .XXX, but cites some possible downsides as well, such as, "...owning XXX.com does not give you any rights to getting XXX.XXX and no one knows how much traffic will be diverted in the future from adult .com sites to .XXX sites. All of that is speculative at this point, as would be any purchase of XXX.com, but MHB says one thing is undeniably true.
"It’s certainly the most timely domain in the 200 Million +, universe of domain registrations and it will be VERY interesting to if the domain sells, if it does, how much it will sell for and again if it sells who the buyer will be," writes MHB.
