Earlier this year, I wrote about the Bitcoins.com domain name and its interesting history as told by the former owner. Bitcoins.com is now owned by Mt. Gox, the troubled bitcoin exchange, and according to an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the domain name is reportedly going up for sale.
According to the WJS article published this morning by WSJ writer Takashi Mochizuki:
“The holding company of collapsed virtual currency exchange Mt. Gox is looking to sell the trademarked word bitcoin, a company executive said.
The company hopes to raise at least ¥100 million, or about $1 million, for a package including the bitcoin trademarks in Japan and the European Union as well as the bitcoins.com domain name, the executive said.”
In the last year, bitcoin and other crypto currency related domain names have become fairly popular. In April, a company called Blockchain worked out some sort of deal to operate the singular Bitcoin.com domain name. In February, Niko Younts announced that he had sold the undeveloped BitcoinWallet.com domain name for $250,000, and a business was recently launched on that domain name by the buyer. I’ve also seen a number of other smaller sales reported at various venues.
In my opinion, based on the current market conditions, I would not be shocked to see the package sell for seven figures. In the last 10 days, it looks like bitcoin values have jumped from around $447.34 on May 18 to around $580.34 as of this morning (courtesy of Coinbase).
I didn’t know the word Bitcoin was trademarked. So does this mean all those domains with the word bitcoin in it are useless now?
Jeff
It will easily sell for 7 figures.
Good luck with that TM, worthless really in a sense, this has been discussed in the bitcoin community and many lawyers believe for lack of a better term “belongs to the public?” Maybe John Berryhill can further explain that defense. The name however is worth a ton, will be a big trade for sure.
@Josh –
The value is in domain name, not in the trademark. However, if you buy domain name with trademark as well, even if the trademark may be invalidated in future (…and if, it takes some time), that would be clear proof of interest in domain name and good faith, and such possession of domain name would be UDRP safe. As because such purchase for sure will be significant inve$tment, I see this as very important factor.
The package is definitely worth the money for someone who knows how develop the domain and the business. BITCOIN is the future even though some people refuse to admit it!