Crypto.com Founder Acquires ai.com Domain for $70 Million, Previously Bought crypto.com for Approximately $12 Million in 2018
Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, acquired the ai.com domain for approximately $70 million in cryptocurrency in April 2025, setting a record for publicly disclosed domain transactions; the previous asking price for the domain was $100 million.
The transaction was facilitated by broker Larry Fischer, with the entire payment made in cryptocurrency; Marszalek stated that from a 10 to 20-year perspective, AI will be one of the biggest technological waves of his lifetime, and acquiring the domain is a long-term investment, with a team already formed to develop products.
In February 2026, he officially launched a consumer platform based on ai.com through a Super Bowl advertisement, offering personal autonomous AI agents capable of tasks such as messaging, app operations, stock trading, and schedule management; the platform offers both free and paid tiers, and the website briefly crashed due to high traffic after the ad aired.
Marszalek had previously acquired crypto.com for approximately $12 million in 2018; he now holds two category-defining domains and serves as CEO of both companies, attempting to combine the crypto user base with AI agent services.
Less than a year after the acquisition, industry terminology began to shift: in September, the Trump administration issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to replace "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) with "Super Intelligence" (SI), and Musk subsequently confirmed the renaming of SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, stating, "AI is no longer used, SI is better."
The domain asset is priced in the "AI" category as it enters the market, with funds flowing from crypto trading platforms to consumer AI agents; driven by events, the standardization of terminology puts pressure on the brand narrative based on "AI" to be repositioned, while platforms holding core domains can still benefit from traffic and user entry, under pressure from the rapid evolution of industry expressions.
ai.com currently operates as an AI agent platform, and Marszalek has publicly stated that he has received numerous offers to sell but has chosen to retain it to build the business.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Marszalek's acquisition of crypto.com in 2018 and the subsequent expansion of the exchange, followed by the record purchase of ai.com in 2025 and the rapid launch of a consumer agent platform, continues the strategy of locking in entry points through category domains; there have been precedents for high-priced domain transactions related to crypto, such as Voice.com.
In terms of capital flow, he used crypto assets directly for the domain acquisition, then converted traffic into users and subscriptions through the Super Bowl advertisement and platform launch; the motivation is to avoid being commoditized in the AI wave while leveraging the existing crypto user base for cross-promotion of agent services.
Similar cases include early internet companies purchasing high-priced category domains (like CarInsurance.com) to establish entry points, and recent acquisitions by OpenAI of Chat.com; the industry is currently transitioning from the narrative of "AI" to aligning policies and corporate terminology with "super intelligence."
Essentially, this involves a transfer of pricing power and narrative framework: domains are priced based on popular terms at the time, but policies and leading companies quickly replace "artificial" with "super," causing brand assets based on old terminology to face revaluation, while control of entry shifts from technical capability to domain and traffic ownership.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Assets priced based on popular terms will be revalued once the terms change.
Domains are entry points, and the value of an entry point depends on how long the narrative can sustain.
Once policies standardize terminology, those who bought in first face the costs of repositioning.