Shares in 3-letter .com domain sell out.
Aron Meystedt of March.com recently offered fractional ownership of a 3-letter domain name NNR.com. The market value of the domain is $30,000 and he offered 300 shares for $100 a piece.
Aron sees fractional ownership as an opportunity for those who want to get into the high-end domain game, even if they don’t have the capital to afford to purchase a high-end name.
However, there is some question as to whether this investment would be considered to be a security.
Aron states that he has worked with a team of securities lawyers and said “we’ve found a way to make these offerings NOT a security – which is huge. That means 24/7 trading, peer to peer, with no restrictions. Our platform will be in legal compliance with securities laws – meaning, we’ll structure the offers to our buyers that make the positions you buy not a security”.
This may mean that Aron and his legal team have found an exemption to make domain name investments “not a security“.
Although this seems like an interesting option for investment in high-end domain names, it’s not clear there’s enough information about the legal standing of fractional ownership to jump in yet, especially in Australia. Many people have discussed the proposition of fractional ownership, but it seems Aron is the first to be fully invested in rolling it out.
Fractional ownership is being applied in a wide variety of industries these days from blockchain ventures to baseball card investment to classic cars.
And it seems that the initial success of the sale of the fractional ownership shares in NNR.com has shown that fractional ownership may be an opportunity that many people are hungry for.
Do our current auDA Policy Rules allow for Australian domain name fractional ownership?
Would you invest in fractional ownership if it was allowed?
I’d say no more a risk than holding shares in stocks or race horses… Take it or leave it!
Would say,
-Unlikely that the offering isn’t a security, as of now it is completely centralised with one seller and presumably he will be staying on the whois record.
-Been done before and has not done well (eg fusu exchange, cowboys.com)
-Never going to comply with auDA rules either
People should just buy a name that they can afford and avoid all the hassles of this. It is very high risk because whoever holds the name could sell it and never be seen again.
“[…] -Never going to comply with auDA rules either
People should just buy a name that they can afford and avoid all the hassles of this. It is very high risk because whoever holds the name could sell it and never be seen again.”
This pretty well sums it up.
To answer the questions in your article:
“Do our current auDA Policy Rules allow for Australian domain name fractional ownership?”
In most circumstances, no.
“Would you invest in fractional ownership if it was allowed?”
Not a chance.
We at Geonetry.com have even built a platform to enable sharing of a fractioned domain, fractioned by category or geography, allowing separation by landing page demarcation (category) or pulling in different web sites based on Geography!