KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 \u2014 Malaysian tech entrepreneur Arsyan Ismail has earned over RM300 million from the sale of the prestigious web address AI.com in April 2025, following a transaction reportedly worth US$70 million (around RM301 million at the time).<\/p>\n
Arsyan, who first grabbed attention for the high-value deal, originally acquired the domain back in 1993 as a 10-year-old using his mother\u2019s credit card.<\/p>\n
Rather than spending it on toys or games, he purchased the domain AI.com for just US$100 (roughly RM256 at the time).<\/p>\n
At the time, his mother was reportedly bewildered by the charge, having no understanding of what a domain was, and only seeing a random deduction on her credit card statement.<\/p>\n
Arsyan later explained that his decision was entirely personal: the letters \u201cAI\u201d coincidentally matched his own initials.<\/p>\n
He did not foresee the rise of artificial intelligence or have a long-term plan in mind.<\/p>\n
The domain was eventually sold to Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, after being listed for US$100 million in March 2025.<\/p>\n
The sale is believed to be one of the largest domain-name transactions ever publicly disclosed.<\/p>\n
Arsyan, now 43, has spent over three decades in the tech sector, working on internet projects since his teenage years.<\/p>\n
He contributed to platforms such as Kawanster, Nuffnang, and Friendster before founding 1337 Tech in 2013.<\/p>\n
An early adopter of Bitcoin, he remains active in blockchain and cryptocurrency development, and is also known as a collector of rare digital assets, including ultra-short email addresses, web domains, and Ethereum Name Service identifiers.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the sale, Arsyan advised caution in negotiations with ultra-high-net-worth individuals, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t over-negotiate or try to \u2018bait\u2019 them, or you could risk losing the deal. That\u2019s my main advice for transactions at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 \u2014 Malaysian tech entrepreneur Arsyan Ismail has earned over RM300 million from the sale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,240431,240430,254,255,64,63,240434,240432,240435,240433,105],"class_list":["post-470864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-com-domain-sale","tag-arsyan-ismail","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bitcoin-adopter","tag-crypto-com","tag-ethereum-name-service-identifiers","tag-kris-marszalek","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}