A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....
In 2003 to be exact, Roger Collins was operating Afternic, an "eBay" for second hand domain names. He set up a desk for me to work with him in his house, and that was where I fell in love with domain name speculation. A popular domain investment strategy, is to register names that other people will want in the future, put up a website full of ads for each name to help generate cash to pay for yearly renewals, and wait for people to contact you about purchasing names. There are some parallels between investing in domains and cryptocurrencies. For one, you and I both missed out on registering fish.com back when it was available in 1993, and we also missed out on selling it for $1 million in 2005. Well, I helped with the "selling it" part, but you get the point: names were to be had on the cheap back in the day. Likewise, Bitcoin could have been had for $1 per digital coin back in 2011.
By the time the early 2000s arrived, domain names were already very expensive, just like Bitcoin is already very expensive. Back then, .com, .net and .org were all still well respected extensions. The United States never really adopted .us, but other countries started taking pride in their country code extensions (like .de for Germany). ICANN eventually approved .mobi, and people began speculating in that space in 2006. There were even some nice sales, like news.mobi for $110,000 in 2007. Then, the flood gates were opened for new generic extensions, like .coffee and .google. Did you know www.registry.google is a valid website and they're planning on offering .boo? Muddy waters I tell ya!
You only have to take a quick glance through DN Journal's year-to-date top 100 domain name sales list to realize that almost all of the top sales were for names ending in .com, which is the gold standard. I think it's safe to say that .net is not about to topple .com. If anything, we might one day forget .net ever existed. It's getting lost among all the new extensions that are being made available. To really appreciate how hard it is to topple a number one like .com, I highly recommend reading or listening to the classic, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind." Maybe I'm simple, but I think in generic categories first and then in brands second. If I want a coke, then I decide between Coca-Cola or Pepsi. If I want a kleenex, a Kleenex or Puffs facial tissue will do. I think dot-com, even if visiting an Internet company on a .net. To me, bitcoin is a category and Bitcoin is a brand. The word for cryptocurrency is bitcoin.
So, about that new crypto kid on the block that came online in 2015, Ethereum. Recently, its price has increased faster than Bitcoin's, and it brings smart contract technology to the table. Is Bitcoin like Netscape Navigator and Ethereum like Internet Explorer? Is Ethereum going to topple Bitcoin, and might the categorical word for cryptocurrency even become ethereum? My gut feeling says no. Both projects are open source and can change over time; they can borrow ideas from each other. If Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, and 1,000 other crypto projects pop up and start borrowing ideas from one another, the only significant barrier to entry is the first-mover brand recognition that Bitcoin possesses. Those with a vested interest in seeing their cryptocurrency retain its value, will adapt the underlying technology to compete. In case you haven't heard about the ICO (initial coin offering) craze, there's a gold rush taking place. You can see a list of hundreds of cryptocurrencies at CoinMarketCap.com. Those cryptocurrencies remind me of the new generic top-level domain name extensions. The new extensions don't seem to be hurting .com, but they certainly aren't helping .net. Better things than Ethereum are bound to emerge, and I expect they will only serve to diminish the value of Ethereum.
I have to admit that I originally thought Bitcoin was limited by the price of gold. I had told myself that if 1 BTC became worth 1.5 times the price of an ounce of gold, that the sky was the limit! It crossed that milestone earlier this year and I've finally begun averaging in. Now, I can't imagine the pump and dump ICO bubble popping (which it likely will) and the price of Bitcoin not crashing along with it. So, perhaps a better buying opportunity lies in our future. However, in the long run, thinking 30 years ahead, this is a snowball rolling down a very long hill of adoption. While it might be possible to make money quicker by riding up new cryptocurrencies, if you want to store value for the long haul, Bitcoin is the gold standard like .com and Ethereum is, well, like .net.
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