Liquid domains market: GDPR cools down Escrow.com reported sales

GDPR COOLS DOWN REPORTED SALES: As GDPR takes effect, Escrow.com reports the lowest volume of sales since the start of LXDO.

GGRG Brokerage Consulting and Giuseppe Graziano published the 2nd quarter of 2018 Liquid Domains Market Overview partnering with Escrow.com and Estibot’s parent company Intelium and ShortNames.com.

This report is focused on 2018 Q2 and presents key statistics of the domains that are considered liquid in the domain name aftermarket. There are separate sections for each liquid domain name category: LL.com, LLL.com, LLLL.com / NN.com, NNN.com, NNNN.com, NNNNN.com / CC.com, CCC.com.

The report provides the percentage of domain name ownership of major regions (US, Europe, China, Rest Of the World, Private), development percentage, turnover, public sales volume, Escrow.com sales volume.

You can download the complete 18-page report here: http://ggrg.com/industry-report/

Here are some of the most interesting parts of Giuseppe Graziano’s executive summary:

DEVELOPMENT INDEX AND OWNERSHIP DATA

Development index fell over 1% to 12.82%, the lowest level ever recorded in our report, signaling a clear downward trend since 2016. The
categories that suffered the most were the numeric domains, in particular, 3Ns, 4Ns, and 5Ns. 2Ns.

The inception of the GDPR last May brought significant changes to the ownership data. For the first time, we recorded a drop in Chinese
ownership, coupled with a sharp decrease in the number of domains associated with European registrants (down to 4.6% from 7.4%). This could
be easily explained by the new privacy rules affecting European owners. The gainers were the “rest of the world” (+4%, from 7.7% to 11.7%), the
N/A category and, in small measure, the US, which gained 1%. China remains the largest owner of liquid domains with 165,000 domains
associated with Chinese registrants.

SALES DATA

In Q2, Escrow.com recorded $12M in transactions, with the strongest categories being the 3Ls ($4.8M) and 4Ls ($4.3M). These values are in line
with last quarter and signal a notable growth in the 3Ls category. The largest drop came from the 2Ls .com which did not register any
Escrow.com, nor any other public transactions in Q2.

ShortNames.com recorded $5.4M in transactions, with the most traded categories being 3Ls, 4Ls, and 5Ns, respectively at $1.4M, $1.6M and $1.3M. The 5th percentage values gave us mixed signals: on one hand 5Ns and 3Ls showed record increases (+56% and +31%), on the other, 4Ls – the category which accounts for 75% of all liquid domains – dropped 13%. The median values of disclosed transactions also recorded very large decreases in almost all categories. This calls for caution in view of the early Q3 results which are indicating sharp valuation drops for Chinese premium 4Ls.

FORECAST

A significant decrease in the wholesale value of Chinese Premium domains might signal that the tide is shifting away from China and back to the
West. Chinese owners might start to finally sell inventory. Once again, we expect Western investors and end users to focus on the most
premium liquid domains when looking at buying opportunities: specifically, acronyms with Western Premium letters and Keyword domains. We
retain our recommendation for investors to focus on quality over quantity.

You can download the complete 18-page report here: http://ggrg.com/industry-report/