The dot-com domain meaning artificial intelligence (AI), "AI.com," was sold for $70 million (about 102.6 billion won), setting the highest price on record in domain transaction history.
According to TechCrunch on the 8th (local time), Kris Marszalek, chief executive officer (CEO) of Crypto.com, recently bought the domain for $7,000 through the brokerage "GetYourDomain." This is the highest amount among domain sale cases disclosed so far.
The previous top record was "CarInsurance.com" in 2010 ($49.7 million), followed by "VacationRentals.com" ($35 million), "Voice.com" and "PrivateJet.com" (each $30 million), "360.com" ($17 million), and "Sex.com" ($13 million).
TechCrunch said the entire payment for this domain purchase was made in cryptocurrency. Marszalek said, "From a 10–20 year long-term perspective, I thought AI would become one of the greatest technological waves of our time," adding, "So I saw it as a good investment."
Mentioning another domain he owns, Crypto.com, Marszalek said, "It's interesting that one person can own two domains that represent such important categories."
On AI.com, he also unveiled an autonomous AI agent service that sends messages on behalf of users or performs tasks such as stock transactions. Marszalek said, "Our vision is to build a decentralized network where billions of AI agents evolve on their own and share improvements, accelerating the arrival of agents' artificial general intelligence (AGI)."
In 2016, Marszalek entered the already saturated cryptocurrency exchange market with Crypto.com and grew it to annual revenue of $1.5 billion, and in 2021, he bought the naming rights to the home arena of the Los Angeles (LA) Lakers of the National Basketball Association for $700 million (about 1 trillion won), renaming Staples Center to "Crypto.com Arena."