Top 10 High-Value Domains Sold in 2023

In 2023, many significant events occurred, with the release of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence language model being the most important, bringing positive impacts to the domain industry. Let's review the domain transaction situation in 2023, based on information publicly disclosed on the NameBio platform.

This article focuses on the highest-value domain sales since 2023, specifically the top 10 sales reported on NameBio. Since NameBio does not report all transaction data, we can only see a portion of the total sales for 2023. Additionally, due to confidentiality agreements, many high-value domain sales are not disclosed.

Note: Based on the current exchange rate of 1 USD ≈ 7.1430 RMB, i.e., 100,000 USD ≈ 714,300 RMB.

I. Top 10 Sales of Premium Domains

Two-Letter .com

In 2023, about 11 two-letter .com domains were traded. Due to the large volume of transactions for two-letter domains, their transaction amounts are generally not publicly disclosed.

Three-Letter .com

Most of the domains on the top 100 list in 2023 are short, with many sales of three-letter .com domains, including ECL, PFA, PFP, AIQ, and TXT, all priced at $300,000 or above, except for max.com.

Four-Letter .com

Most four-letter domains are words, with the highest price being $3 million for "help.com" and $1.5 million for "hurt.com."

II. Top 10 Domain Extensions

Top 10 .com

Among the top 10 in 2023, three-letter and four-letter domains make up 60%, with a total of 6 domains.

Top 10 .ai

In 2023, artificial intelligence brought new opportunities to the domain industry. Originally just a domain extension for the Anguilla island, .AI has now gained prominence among new top-level domains. For .AI, this was a crucial year, with annual publicly disclosed transaction sales reaching $5.5 million.

In 2021, the transaction volume was $1.2 million, and in 2022, .AI domain sales were less than $1 million. However, in 2023, it surged to $5.5 million. Some believe that it has the potential to exceed $10 million in 2024, demonstrating the significant market potential of .AI domains.

.io

The .io domain is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the British Indian Ocean Territory. It was highly sought after in the market in previous years, and its transaction volume in 2023 is decent, although slightly lower than in previous years.

.net

.org

.xyz

".xyz" was popularized a few years ago with the concept of the "metaverse." While xyz domains remain popular with the support of virtual space, they have clearly been surpassed by .ai domains in rankings, but that's okay.

In summary, based on the information above, it appears that sales in the second half of 2023 were higher than the first half, indicating that the domain industry will continue to thrive in 2024.