Ten years, forty editions. What began in 2016 as a simple overview of liquid domain sales has become the industry’s longest-running market benchmark. Thank you to the readers, partners, data providers and sponsors who made every edition possible.
The objective of the report is to present key statistics and generate a debate amongst the industry stakeholders about the fair value of such domains. We hope you enjoy it and we encourage your feedback and participation for the next reports.
What You Missed in Q2: 10 Stats That Tell the Story 📈
- 📈 Public disclosed sales rose 53.01%, reaching $7.82M, showing a meaningful rebound in reported liquid domain transactions.
- 💸 Escrow.com sales came in at $16.36M, down 35.95%, but still more than double the public market total, confirming that most liquid domain activity remains private.
- 💼 3L and 4L .coms dominated again across both channels, with 4L leading escrow volume and 3L close behind, reinforcing their position as the core of the liquid market.
- 🏛 Public sales were highly concentrated, with 3L and 4L .coms making up the bulk of disclosed volume while most other liquid categories remained thinly traded.
- 🌐 2L domains remain the most developed category by far, with nearly 30% in active use, continuing to signal deep end-user adoption and long-term scarcity value.
- 🧱 2C domains continued to stand out in development as well, at roughly 18%, placing them surprisingly close to 3L .coms and ahead of most numeric categories.
- 🌀 Turnover remained low overall, but 5N, 2C, and 4N showed the most movement, suggesting trading activity remains selective rather than broad-based.
- 🧾 Numeric categories were still weak on the public side, with limited disclosed activity in 2N and 3N, while escrow volume was mostly concentrated in 4N.
- 💹 In Q2, liquid domains showed mixed performance versus public markets: the 5th percentile of 5N .coms gained 9.52%, while the 5th percentile of 4L .coms fell 10.81%.
- 📊 Over the past 12 months, public equities sharply outperformed liquid domains, with NASDAQ, SPX, and GLD all up more than 20%, while 4L .coms were flat and 5N .coms declined 8%.
Global Asset Markets – Q2 2026
Global Asset Markets – Past 12 Months
*GBTC – Grayscale Bitcoin Trust
Index, ETF and all security return data was initially computed by Morningstar, Inc. and is shown in this report for display purposes only. This data is not, nor is meant to be used as, actionable investment advice; nor a direct comparison between any exchange or market traded security, or individual stock, or index and any category of domain names. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of any such data, as it is maintained by a third party and may be subject to errors, or unavailability. Morningstar, Inc. did not participate in the creation of this report and reserves all intellectual property rights in regard to its own materials or data.
