Even if you don’t own web3 assets, their fall could impact domain sales.
There’s an awful lot of red on CoinMarketCap right now.
Popular cryptocurrencies have lost a quarter of their value over the past week, and some have seen their values halved. Floor prices for even blue-chip NFTs have fallen, and when you couple it with the eth exchange rate, they have fallen quite a bit.
You might think this doesn’t matter to readers who aren’t directly exposed to cryptocurrencies and NFTs. But it does. The rise in web3 asset values has ultimately buoyed the domain aftermarket:
- Many domain investors made profits from crypto and NFTs and have reinvested some of it in domains
- Web3 startups are buying domains to launch their businesses
- The web3 wealth effect has led to outsized domain purchases, including the record-smashing voice.com sale.
A lot of cash has been added to society in recent years. Some of it was in the form of direct government handouts and from low-interest rates. But crypto and NFT prices also have something to do with it. If a coin has a market cap of $10 billion, that doesn’t mean people invested $10 billion into it. Most investors paid a lot less than the coin is worth today, creating immense wealth (at least on paper). This has fueled purchasing, and it could do the opposite when it comes down.
Elliot Silver doesn’t have direct exposure to crypto, but a deal is likely to fall through because of the falling price of bitcoin.
I can’t predict the future. Web3 markets have fallen before, only to rebound. But I think it’s important to realize how outside markets impact domain investing.
Oh, and the stock market isn’t so rosy, either.
