AI.com bought for $100 in 1993 sells to Crypto.com for $70M — record domain deal
A two-letter premium domain, AI.com, originally bought in 1993 by Malaysian technologist Arsyan Ismail for about $100, has sold to Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek for $70 million — a record publicly disclosed domain transaction. The domain gained renewed value after the AI boom following ChatGPT (2022); during recent negotiations it briefly redirected to ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s X.ai. Arsyan had marketed AI.com at a $100 million asking price in 2025; the final deal closed at $70M and was paid entirely in cryptocurrency. Crypto.com immediately used the domain for an AI Agent platform unveiled at Super Bowl LX and purchased a Super Bowl ad slot (≈$15M), bringing combined marketing spend to roughly $85M. The ad drove massive traffic that briefly crashed the site but reportedly delivered very high engagement (cited as ~9.1× average Super Bowl ad engagement), outperforming other major AI advertisers. The sale eclipses prior headline domain deals (e.g., CarInsurance.com) and highlights the strategic value of short, brandable domains in AI and crypto branding contests. For crypto traders: the transaction signals Crypto.com’s aggressive, marketing-driven user-acquisition strategy and its willingness to settle large OTC purchases in crypto. Expect a short-term visibility boost for Crypto.com’s brand and platforms that could lift attention and trading interest in related tokens; however, the deal does not alter on-chain fundamentals and therefore is unlikely to be a sustained driver of token price beyond transient hype and marketing-driven flows.
Neutral
The transaction is largely a marketing and branding event rather than an on-chain development. Payment in cryptocurrency and Crypto.com’s high-profile Super Bowl use of the domain increase short-term visibility and could drive transient user acquisition or speculative trading interest in Crypto.com’s ecosystem tokens. However, the sale does not change protocol-level fundamentals, token supply, staking economics, or network activity. Historical precedent shows marketing-driven spikes can produce short-lived price moves followed by reversion unless supported by operational growth or on-chain metrics. Therefore the expected price impact on the mentioned crypto (Crypto.com-related token) is neutral overall: possible short-term uplift from publicity but no sustained bullish catalyst from this deal alone.