Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
Original Title: ai.com's Debut Fails! Crypto.com Spends $70 Million to Acquire the Most Expensive Domain, Only to Crash After Launch
Last weekend, aside from the "Bithumb Airdrops 620,000 BTC" misinformation incident, another breaking news story sparked widespread discussion: the mysterious buyer behind the premium domain ai.com has finally been revealed. Contrary to many expectations, the buyer was not from an AI giant but rather Kris Marszalek, the co-founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange platform Crypto.com.
This transaction, finalized in April 2025, amounted to a staggering $70 million, giving the outside world a direct glimpse into the astonishing financial power of crypto moguls. This deal not only ended the ownership battle surrounding the domain but also drew a conclusion to the previous "premium domain pointing war" among giants like OpenAI and xAI.
The Battle for ai.com: A Three-Year, Sky-High Price Tag Transaction War
In November 2022, with the sudden emergence of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5), AI instantly became the prominent field of the era, and the prices of related domains naturally soared accordingly.
In February 2023, rumors suggested that OpenAI, the parent company behind ChatGPT, had purchased ai.com. This was later confirmed as fake news, though the domain's listed sale price of $11 million in 2021 was still jaw-dropping.
In August 2023, the ai.com domain's pointing address was changed to Musk's AI company xAI, which again attracted significant attention.
From then on, more information about this premium domain was uncovered: the domain was first registered in May 1993, making it over 30 years old, a veteran in the domain world. However, Musk remained indifferent to the matter, making the market realize once again that changing the domain's pointing address was merely a marketing tactic by the ai.com holder to "wait for the right price."
It reappeared in the public eye recently with the news of its "sale for a whopping $70 million."
Public information shows that Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek successfully acquired this premium domain, setting one of the highest publicly disclosed domain transaction records to date; the deal was facilitated by domain broker Larry Fischer and paid for in cryptocurrency. For reference, this astronomical price is twice the selling price of the previous top-tier domain voice.com.
As an established crypto exchange platform founded in 2016, Crypto.com has long been renowned in the industry for its "massive marketing moves," having previously engaged in market promotion through sports sponsorships and celebrity endorsements; in 2021, it even spent $700 million just to secure the naming rights for a sports arena in Los Angeles.
In an interview with the media, Kris Marszalek revealed that he had "received even more outrageous resale offers but chose to hold onto the domain" because he believes it will be crucial for the future business's trust and recognition. Not only that, he boldly declared: "Back in the day, we fought our way out among thousands of crypto exchanges; this time, we will make ai.com a success again."
Thus, the years-long transaction war over the ai.com premium domain came to an end; just as the market was anticipating and speculating on how Kris Marszalek would use this domain, he unexpectedly "pulled a big one."
The Botched Product Launch: ai.com Crashes Within 48 Hours of Going Live
Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek posted that after buying the domain, he had been quietly building and would launch the product during the Super Bowl on Sunday (February 8th). He later stated 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 actions 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.
But amidst great anticipation, ai.com staged a "downtime drama" within less than 48 hours of its launch.
This morning, NVIDIA engineer yuhang posted, "This $70M domain, after $8M in ads (note: the general price of a Super Bowl ad) 504'd."
It has to be said, this incident happening once again validates that saying—"The whole world is just a slightly larger makeshift operation."
As of the time of writing, the ai.com website has returned to normal. Users can抢先 register personal subdomains and AI Agent subdomains to experience the platform's corresponding features later; as for whether it can deliver on the "autonomous AI Agent" promised in Kris Marszalek's grand vision, the author will reserve judgment for now.
The "Mainstreaming Path" of Crypto Moguls: Some Buy Houses, Some Buy Power Plants
Another hot topic brought up by Crypto.com co-founder and CEO spending $70 million on a premium domain is the various paths to mainstreaming that crypto moguls choose for themselves.
Previously, there was Justin Sun spending millions on a lunch with Warren Buffett. Recently, the moves by crypto moguls have become more diverse:
Aave founder Stani Kulechov bought a mansion worth £22 million (approximately $30 million) in London's Notting Hill last November.
Tether CEO Paolo focuses more on "putting eggs in different baskets." Reliable sources indicate that Tether has invested profits from its stablecoin business into 140 investments spanning agriculture to sports and plans to expand its workforce to 450 people; additionally, Tether's gold reserves exceed $23 billion.
Last November, Justin Sun, through his family office SunFund Energy, acquired two small hydropower plants in Norway at once, with a total capacity of 86 MW and an annual electricity generation of about 350 GWh, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 40,000 European households. In the era of the AI great navigation, the ever-bold Sun Yuchen chose to hold a "power ticket" to board this era's train.
Regardless of the investment outcomes, cryptocurrency is thereby becoming known to more people through various forms in the news—as a payment currency, a character symbol, an asset class. Perhaps this is an indispensable part of cryptocurrency's mainstreaming process.
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