{"id":271941,"date":"2026-02-07T06:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271941\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T06:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:40:12","slug":"crypto-com-founder-buys-ai-com-in-largest-domain-purchase-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271941\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto.com Founder Buys AI.com in &#8216;Largest Domain Purchase in History&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The founder of Crypto.com is tackling AI next, and he spared no expense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek has launched a new AI agent platform under the brand AI.com, a domain he reportedly purchased for $70 million.<\/p>\n<p>The new company claims this transaction is \u201cbelieved to be the single largest domain purchase in history.\u201d There\u2019s a chance there have been even larger deals that have not been disclosed. Historically, Cars.com has been cited as the most valuable domain name ever after financial statements tied to its acquisition in 2014 revealed the site was listed as an <a href=\"https:\/\/domaingang.com\/domain-news\/cars-com-confirmed-to-be-the-largest-domain-sale-in-history\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">intangible asset worth $872.3 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to a press release, the platform will allow users to generate a private, personal AI agent that operates on the user\u2019s behalf. The company says the AI agent will be able to send messages, build projects, trade stocks, and even update a dating profile.<\/p>\n<p>The company said that all user agents will operate in a dedicated secure environment with data encryption using user-specific keys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are at a fundamental shift in AI\u2019s evolution as we rapidly move beyond basic chats to AI agents actually getting things done for humans,\u201d said Marszalek, in the <a href=\"https:\/\/ai.com\/company-news\/ai-com-launch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a>. \u201cOur vision is a decentralized network of billions of agents who self-improve and share these improvements with each other, vastly and rapidly expanding agentic capabilities and accelerating the advent of AGI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The website\u2019s landing page currently features a countdown clock for Sunday, when the platform is set to officially launch following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n7I-D4YXbzg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super Bowl commercial.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Marszalek is set to serve as CEO for both Crypto.com and AI.com.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/83488628-8dfd-4060-a7b0-71b1bb012785\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Financial Times reports<\/a>, citing the deal\u2019s broker, that AI.com was sold for $70 million. Back in March 2025, GetYourDomain.com announced the domain was up for sale with a <a href=\"http:\/\/getyourdomain.com.\/press\/ai-com-sale\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$100 million asking price<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Marszalek launched Crypto.com in 2016, formerly known as Monaco. The company eventually acquired the Crypto.com domain, when it was reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/7\/6\/17540818\/crypto-com-domain-matt-blaze-monaco-mco-cryptology-sale\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">worth $5 to 10 million<\/a>. It has since grown into one of the world\u2019s largest crypto exchanges, with more than 150 million retail users. Now Marszalek appears to be betting he can do the same in the AI space.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we started Crypto.com there were around a thousand different exchanges, and we somehow managed to make it work,\u201d Marszalek told The Financial Times. \u201cWe will make this [AI.com] work one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cI thought it was quite interesting that one person can own two domains that stand for such important categories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He has reportedly already received interest from buyers for the domain, but believes AI.com will help the company build brand awareness and trust with customers.<\/p>\n<p>Cyrpto.com is no stranger to big, splashy marketing schemes. In 2021, it reached a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/0e4af0d3-0ae9-48c5-8aee-9a1a9a5721a4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$700 million multi-decade deal<\/a> to rename Staples Center to the \u201cCrypto.com Arena.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of Crypto.com is tackling AI next, and he spared no expense.\u00a0 Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,153756,359,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-271941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-crypto-com","12":"tag-internet","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}