Donuts has put out a press release on the activity of a new domain it manages, .LIVE. According to nTLD Stats, the domain has more than 570,000 registrations, which makes .LIVE the largest TLD managed by Donuts.
.LIVE registrations took off in July 2019, with more than 200,000 names registered in the domain over several weeks. The surge can be attributed to the change in Donuts’ pricing policy: the registry started offering domains at an extremely low cost but with a significant renewal fee. In fact, this model is still in use. According to Domain Name Wire, the wholesale price for registrars today is about $1, and the cost of renewal is $16-17.
The burst of new registrations gave way to an inevitable drop when time came to renew the domain names. However, the domain has been showing steady growth since January 2020. Perhaps the pandemic is the main reason: the very name of the domain zone is directly associated with live streams, which have gained unprecedented popularity in the era of quarantine restrictions. The .LIVE domain has really fared well with streamers and video bloggers.
When it comes to premium domains, the adult entertainment industry saw the largest deals, like in many other domain zones. Back in 2016, Donuts sold sex.live and porn.live for $160,000 and $120,000, respectively. Last year, c.live went for $28,500. At the same time, many promising premium domains in .LIVE are still available for reasonable prices. For example, tech.live sold for only $560 in March. However, registrants should remember that the renewal fees for .LIVE premium domains will be significantly more expensive than that of regular domains.
