Simply in time to create a brand new Tremendous Bowl advert, Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek has made the priciest area buy in historical past, shopping for AI.com for $70 million, according to the Financial Times. The deal, paid completely in cryptocurrency to an unknown vendor, shatters earlier information. (Dealer Larry Fischer, who facilitated the sale, is presumably celebrating his luck.)
Marszalek plans to debut the positioning throughout Sunday’s large sport, providing shoppers a private AI agent for messaging, app utilization, and inventory buying and selling. “If you happen to take a long-term view — 10 to twenty years – [AI] goes to be one of many best technological waves of our lifetime,” he instructed the FT.
The acquisition rewrites the area report books — not that crypto business itself is thought for its restraint relating to spending. Beforehand, CarInsurance.com held the crown at $49.7 million (2010), adopted by VacationRentals.com ($35 million in 2007) and Voice.com ($30 million in 2019). Different eye-popping gross sales embrace PrivateJet.com ($30 million), 360.com ($17 million), and Intercourse.com, which has offered twice for over $13 million every time, although its second proprietor went bankrupt making an attempt to monetize it.
“With belongings like AI.com, there are not any substitutes,” Fischer instructed the FT. “When one turns into obtainable, the chance could by no means current itself once more.”
Whether or not these mega-dollar domains really ship returns stays an open query. However for Marszalek, who already owns Crypto.com and dropped $700 million on stadium naming rights, proudly owning two category-defining domains is outwardly well worth the outlay.
