At least two NFT projects are leasing great domains.
Despite being an initialism, NFT was recently chosen as Collins Dictionary’s word of the year, beating crypto to the top spot.
The term, short for non-fungible tokens, has rightly been recognized in a year where NFTs have become one of the breakout stars of the digital age. Bored Apes and Crypto Punks are now highly desirable assets that have netted some investors millions of dollars.
Motivated by the popularity and money-making potential, thousands of entrepreneurs and artists are creating new NFT projects. However, it’s often difficult for the creators to gain traction or stand out from the crowd when hundreds of new projects are vying for attention each week.
Alongside traditional NFT marketing methods, some projects are turning to premium domains to catch the eye by offering an air of exclusivity and permanence, using domain leasing to secure the right name.
A good domain name might not be the first thing you think of concerning an NFT project, but the project’s website is one of the first interaction points for many potential NFT buyers. Coupled with the fact that NFT minting usually takes place on the NFT’s official website, a domain becomes a much more important consideration.
I’ve noticed two NFT projects that have recently struck deals with Venture.com, a domain name marketplace that doesn’t sell domain names. Rather, Venture.com offers domain names for lease.
The first project is Sherbet, which brands itself as offering a “ticket to the world’s first social Web3 casino.” Sherbet has attracted over 23,000 Discord members and a Twitter following of over 8,000, but the project is notable for operating on Sherbet.com, a one-word domain originally registered in 1996.
WHOIS history shows that Sherbet began leasing Sherbet.com around mid-July 2021, just before the project launched. An Archive.org version of Sherbet.com from January 2021 suggests the domain was available to lease for $400 per month at that time.
Turtles, an NFT project on the Solana blockchain, has also leased a domain name from Venture.com. The collection of 3,333 pixelated turtles started operating on Turtles.com around the beginning of September 2021. Archive.org suggests the domain had a monthly lease price of $1,080 in April 2021.
Thousands of companies have discovered the benefits of upgrading to a premium .com domain name, is it now the turn of NFT projects? With the potential return on investment that an NFT project creator can make, basing that project around a premium domain name might make sense.
