Calling all cryptocurrency enthousiasts: Ethereum.com is up for sale. The domain name was initially reserved in 2002 and had no link with blockchain technology. It is only a happy coincidence if the famous platform later adopted the same name. Ethereum was created in 2013 by the Russian researcher and developer in cryptocurrencies Vitalik Buterin, he financed his project through fundraising. The blockchain platform and the cryptocurrency associated to it, the Ether, have been active seen 2015 and the official address of the website is therefore not Ethereum.com but Ethereum.org.
According to the screen captures available on Internet Archive, the domain name Ethereum.com was reserved in 2002 and hosted by godaddy.com. The site stayed inactive for a little more than 10 years before it became, in 2013, a WordPress blog with a single article dedicated to the smartphone widget Moon Phase. Later, the page became a medical blog.
This domain name is now up for sale and to obtain it you will need to spend the hefty sum of 10 million dollars! An offer of 6 999 999 dollars has already been made but has been declined. Opinions on the value of this domain name are divergent, some think it will sell but for a lower sum than the asking price. Others will say that this domain is an opportunity that is not to be passed up. Indeed, interest for Ethereum and by extension for cryptocurrencies has recently increased exponentially. With the help of Google Trends it is easy to notice that search requests related to ethereum have more than double (as well as searches related to Initial coin Offerings), thus showing a growing interest for Altcoins.
What about you? Would you be ready to invest? Do you think the question of Ethereum and cryptocurrencies is interesting for domaining?