The new gTLD .App, which was the most applied for new gTLD, seems to be heading to an ICANN Last Resort Auction next week.
All of the other new gTLD’s that were scheduled for private auction on February 25th have been settled privately.
However .App which received 13 applications, (1 application was withdrawn months ago) still has 12 applicants and all you need is one applicant not to agree to settle privately to go to an ICANN auction.
As we are less than a week out before the Auction and no other application has been withdrawn, it seems the domain is headed for the ICANN Last Resort Auction.
I can tell you I have personal knowledge of one new gTLD selling for in a private auction for just short of $20M and there has been a lot of speculation of how much .Blog sold for last week in a private auction with guess ranging from around $25 Million to $30 Million.
Unlike private auctions, the results of ICANN Last Resort Auctions are public, so we will know exactly the amount paid for .APP, even how many applicants dropped out at certain amounts along the way.
I have openly asked in the past if the ICANN auction result in a lower amount paid for a domain extension, than a private auction, in which the losers get the vast majority of what the winner pays.
In the ICANN auction the proceeds of the winning bid (except for the auctioneer fee of 4%) goes to ICANN.
The highest amount paid in an ICANN Last Resort Auction so far is $6,760,000 which is what Radix paid for .Tech.
The .Tech auction had 6 bidders including Donuts, Minds + Machines, Straat.Co ); and Uniregistry
.App has 12 bidders; here they are:
APP Registry Inc (Cayman Islands)
Afilias
Amazon
Aquent.com
Donuts
DotApp Inc
Famous Four
Merchant Law Group LLP
Minds + Machines
Radix
Straat.co
So the question is how much do you think the new gTLD .APP will sell for?
We have put up our poll on the right and you have choices from $5 Million all the way up to Over $70M
For the record we wrote a post over 3 years ago that people predicted new gTLD’s might sell for as much as over $50 Million.
For bragging rights you can also put your actual guess below in the comment section.
