Unstoppable abandons .crypto ICANN push as CEO calls web3 market small

Unstoppable Domains and five brand partners dropped plans to seek standard internet recognition from ICANN for 14 extensions. The extensions included .crypto, .wallet, .bitcoin and .brave. The nine planned bids would have incurred more than $2 million in base application fees. ICANN charges $227,000 to evaluate each new generic top-level domain application. ICANN received more than 1,600 primary applications in the first application round since 2012. Link Freedom Group said it invested tens of millions of dollars in more than 300 proposed extensions. Those extensions included .btc, .nft, .kek and .omg. Unstoppable CEO Matthew Gould said the 2021 crypto and NFT bubble created an inflated view of demand for the web3 market. Gould called the market small and niche. Unstoppable said ICANN integration would have required more than 4 million existing web3 names to be registered and paid for in the traditional Domain Name System. Unstoppable also said owners would have had to disclose registration data.