Unstoppable Domains drops $2 million plan to bring .crypto and .bitcoin to standard internet
Unstoppable Domains has canceled its $2 million plan to integrate web3 domain extensions like .crypto and .bitcoin into the traditional internet DNS system. The company's CEO cited a lack of mainstream demand and high regulatory costs as primary reasons for abandoning the project.
Why it matters
This move signals a cooling of the 'web3' hype cycle and highlights the practical difficulties of bridging decentralized naming systems with the established global internet infrastructure.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) charges $227,000 to evaluate each new generic top-level domain application, meaning the nine planned bids would have carried more than $2 million in base fees.
The pullback contrasts with heavy spending elsewhere in the first application round since 2012. ICANN received more than 1,600 primary applications , while Link Freedom Group said it invested tens of millions of dollars in more than 300 proposed extensions, including .btc, .nft, .kek and .omg.
Unstoppable CEO Matthew Gould said the 2021 crypto and NFT bubble left people with an inflated view of demand for the web3 market. “It is small. It is niche,” he said .
The company said ICANN integration would also have required more than 4 million existing web3 names to be registered and paid for in the traditional Domain Name System, while requiring owners to disclose registration data.
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