The CryptoCom Domain Was Allegedly Bought for $12M in 2018: The Rest is History (2024)

The cryptocurrency field has come a long way in the past few years. From a niche market dedicated only to coders, developers, contrarians, and cryptography aficionados, it’s now a trillion-dollar industry that’s making a statement.

One of the most definitive testaments to this is the growth of cryptocurrency exchanges and their mainstream adoption.

In 2018,TechCrunchreported that the highly-prized domain name “Crypto.com” was bought for $10 million, according to experts, although most of the other reports indicate the actual deal was worth $12 million. The deal’s precise details, though, were never revealed.

How it Was

In 2018, Monaco (MCO) – the cryptocurrency visa card company, allegedly purchased the domain for a whopping $12 million.

Interestingly enough, this domain name was registered all the way back in 1993 by Matt Blaze – a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. TechCrunch reported that he also sits on the board of directors of the Tor Project.

The MCO Visa Card would later turn out to be one of the most popular cryptocurrency products. At the same time, the company would also create a cryptocurrency exchange and a suite of other services that would catapult it to the forefront of the industry in a multi-billion dollar valuation.

How it’s Going

Fast forward to the last quarter of 2021, CryptoCom is a world-renowned brand known across both cryptocurrency experts and regular folk.

In fact, the company has been on a massive marketing and branding spree. trying to spread awareness as much as possible. It partnered up with Oscar winner Matt Damon who is now the face of the company.

More recently, the company recently announced that the iconic Staples Center – the home of the legendary NBA Team, The Los Angeles Lakers – will be renamed to CryptoCom arena in a massive deal worth $700 million.

All of this, and probably more, has propelled the price of the platform’s native cryptocurrency – the CRO token – to an all-time high above $0.70 and a total market capitalization of over $18 billion, becoming the 13th biggest crypto by this metric.

It’s Not Just CryptoCom

As mentioned in the start, it’s not just CryptoCom that’s making strides and pushing the industry forward through mainstream adoption.

Rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX is also putting plenty of effort into its marketing attempts and has recently bought an ad for the Super Bowl. The company also partnered with well-known mainstream names such as NBA superstar Stephen Curry, NFL legend Tom Brady, popular investor Kevin ‘Mr. Wonderful’ O’Leary, and so forth.

Similar to the deal for the Staples Center, FTX also struck a $135 million naming-rights deal for the Miami Heat Arena.