In 2018 Crypto.com allegedly paid $12 million for the domain, which now sees like an absolute bargain.

I've been fascinated with the rise of Crypto.com lately, and how aggressive they are with their marketing. Recently they announced a $700 million deal to rename Staples Arena to Crypto.com Arena.

However, I would argue their smartest move was acquiring the domain Crypto.com in 2018.

I couldn't find a confirmed number, but a lot of media outlets report the price of the domain being somewhere between $10-12 million. (Some going as low as $5 million)

The company behind Crypto.com, a Swiss payments and cryptocurrency platform previously called Monaco, paid $12 million for the URL as part of a rebranding strategy, which in retrospect seems like a massive success.

Crypto.com was previously owned by cryptologist Matt Blaze, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a well-regarded cryptography researcher”. He first registered the domain 1993. Blaze maintained for years that the domain was not for sale and has been critical of the growing number of people that use the “crypto” prefix as an abbreviation of cryptocurrency, rather than cryptography ー the science of writing or cracking codes. I have no idea how Monaco managed to convince him to part ways with the domain, but kudos to them for pulling it off.