Many early domain name investors sold a name way too early or knew of someone else who was not going to pay for a domain registration back in the day.
Years ago I was talking to someone who was into domain names real early and he said a friend at one time was basically on a suicide watch.
He owned some great domain names when they were free. When registration fees were introduced he balked at paying them. The names were left to drop and registered by someone else. According to the person I spoke to some of the names were sold for big money, he let a fortune of millions just go down the drain.
I was reading a similar story today about early adoption and lost riches when it comes to Bitcoin.
CoinTelegraph published a story on a Finnish gentleman who had 55,000 Bitcoins back in 2009 as an early developer.
According to a Friday Twitter thread from the former Bitcoin (BTC) developer, Malmi mined roughly 55,000 coins between 2009 and 2010 when the price was almost zero. Malmi said that he ended up liquidating 5,050 BTC for $5 in October 2009, and losing 30,000 BTC through one of the first Bitcoin exchanges he ran when “there was no established exchange rate.”
Opportunity is one thing, having the ability to know what to hold and when to sell makes all the difference. When something is brand new that task is all the more difficult.
If you read the article on CoinTelegrah Malmi has a good attitude about it and says he has no regrets. (I am thinking maybe a little regret).
Reminds me of the guy who has been frantically searching for an old computer which he threw out in UK that has what is worth BILLIONS of £ of Bitcoin’s on it. It went to a very large municipal rubbish dump and lost for good.
It was around 7,000 btc, about $140m now.
I spoke with a woman a few years ago and she and her husband picked up an incredible number of domains in the early 90s, and made hundreds of millions usd, donating tens of millions to hospitals, research, etc and she lamented that she and her husband neglected to get gambling domains like vegas.com, bet.com, betting.com, slots.com as they were all available.
She also said their families thought they were “nuts” as they had to pay for renewal fees, and of course those same relatives lauded them later, after the money started to roll in.
This couple to my knowledge has never participated in any domain conferences and forums, although the lady did mention knowing Frank Schilling.
I have no idea if they made over a billion usd or just hundreds of millions, but I noticed they’ve been buying some super premium .com domains over the last few years, domains they could have registered for free back in the day. A hospital in Los Angeles now bears their name.
Just like the family thought they were nuts with the .com investment I think that there are a significant number of opportunities with new Gs to take a shot. Of course nothing is guaranteed and even 30 years ago the inevitability of .com was not clear. As for bitcoin, who knows when it’s a good time to buy or sell.
That is like buy shtcoins because bitcoin has gone up. A better strategy might be to buy .com rather than hoping New TLDs emulate it.
He’s been to conferences. Quietly. Made his money elsewhere but was wise in domains as well.
Hard to imagine how all of that escaped publicity, so my guess is that Adam is right.
Regrets are like rocking the rocking chair, it gets you nowhere, just frustrations and grief.
Move on!!
I agree per regrets.
I’ve let domains expire that got picked up and later sold for 2500 USD and up to 8000. How long do I regret these decisions? Not at all … things happen.
I know someone who had a registered USPTO trademark that he and his biz partner let go “abandoned” due to a business squabble, along with the accompanying domain which was a.com
This may be one of the most valuable products created in the last 20 yrs – worth mega billions. And I believe the company that created and launched the product paid millions for the .com that was picked up by another party. And they purchased or had assigned the trademark from another party for an undisclosed amount, although I’m sure digging through SEC reports, etc would disclose the price.
So how did these biz partners respond to the news that they had jettisoned millions due to a squabble about who was putting in the most work — btw — their company was quite profitable?
They sued each other, and counter-sued, and one ended up in bankruptcy and of course, their business was dissolved and their friendships destroyed .
Je ne regrette rien … in the words of Edith Piaf …d’accord
Identifying the opportunity and taking the calculated risk with the right amount of confidence..
Not only him , many of us are aware bit coin trading at 100 usd to 500 usd range. But many of us not bought them, if we know in future it will sell for 20k+ USD in 2020 .. Many of us could have rushed to buy them in 2011 to 2014 times.. Its hard to predict the future.. so there is no point of regretting about what happened in the past , Malmi has certainly displayed the right attitude 🙂
I got my first domain name (one word, plural, 10 letters) for FREE back in ’92 or ’93 for my BBS (bulletin board system). Back then all you had to do was you call a guy (Karl Denninger) and tell him you wanted an address for your business. If he checks that nobody else was using it, you get it for free.
At the time, I didn’t know what I got because I only used it as the address for a discussion forum and I had to make long distance call to sync all the postings every night. There was no web, no email. I’ve only managed the forum for a couple of years as the long distance phone bill started to be too expensive, and I just didn’t have enough users to support it.
I didn’t start buying domain names until years later when Network Solutions charged for $35 every year. Back then I only buy domain names for companies I consulted. I also didn’t know my forum address was a domain name because I never specified a “.com” or “.net”, the only 2 extensions available in the early days.
I didn’t know I had THAT domain name until years later I Google’ed my name and saw the WHOIS history that I had the domain name and let it expire. Just like people who lost Bitcoins, I have moved, changed addresses, had different phone numbers, the people and companies going in and out of the technology business.
But it is never too late. I have since registered and bought better domain names and did ok.
Great story, Winston.
I’ve always wondered how it worked back in the day.
passing on investing in bitcoin will always sting for him. i was aware and looked into how to set it all up when it was less than 60 bucks per coin but i never followed through. I figured even if its gets to a few hundred a coin, who cares. i surely didn’t think it would rise to the levels it did. i still don’t get why its so up there when bitcoin hasn’t advanced in any way other than a type of investment in an idea. regardless, had i followed through i would of probably made a million or close to that off it…i was a bit too young to get good domains when they were free but i was the perfect age to invest in bitcoin!
i meant to write will always sting for me..