DomainVP.com brought up some interesting points in the Namepros Chinese bubble thread, and compared 4L.com specifically Chips, to go the way of Bitcoin and eventually see there way to a pretty steep fall.
His post read as follows:
The miracle is the current price of these $20 digital rocks people were throwing away a year ago.
It’s odd to watch, but I think somewhere in the hearts of logic and reason we all know these will go back to being pretty affordable for the average domainer.
4L.com’s are exactly Bitcoin – there is no way around it – and here is what the fall from grace will look like.
It’s maddening to watch a group of above intelligent people like 99% of the people here watch a digital asset, that is being used as a flight to financial security, get hyper-inflated above it’s value… and then expect something else.
BTC fell because confidence was down, and people started questioning their investments not seeing the returns they expected. Criminal enterprises were being uncovered, and merchant adoption was decreasing.
4L.COM will continue to decline over now shaky confidence, multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise goes down, end users not adopting the 4L.com as an affordable end user solution at expected prices.
I am unapologetic in my POV on this. Go read the BTC archives, this song was sung years ago. It might have a different beat, but it’s the same song.
Buy domains based on end user appeal for China and USA – you might not be as liquid, but you might sell single assets at higher prices than at a perceived moving average.
I do understand where someone can draw certain similarities, the fact that China came down pretty hard on Bitcoin and placed restrictions on banks for a time being is one thing that hurt Bitcoin pricing, that stance seems to have lightened a bit according to NewsBTC.com. Currently 4L.com have no restrictions and are easier to store.
I think the other thing about 4L.com is anyone can register and hold them and understand them, not everyone gets Bitcoin, they don’t understand public and private wallets, and you can’t monetize your Bitcoin, you can monetize a 4L.com, it may get some traffic it has more possibilities imo. There are only 160,000 Chips that is not a lot in a world of 7 billion, I realize a large % of the planet is not online, but even just for China, Europe and North America, 160,000 is not a lot of inventory. I do think the conversation is very interesting and like I said DomainVP makes some good obvservations, I sold my Chips on the cheap side although they cost me nothing really. I moved TYKY.com at $1,501 on NameJet back in September which was a good price back then based off the day to day prices on Namebio and ChaoMi.cc.
Would it surprise me if the Chips took a hit like DomainVP mentioned ? Not at all, there could be some weak hands that easily get spooked and dump and then others who now follow ChaoMi.cc like it was ESPN or the BBC might follow the herd and dump their names. We have never seen anything like we are seeing in 2015 with short domains, sure we have had buyouts before but people were not following them minute to minute and trading them like Forex.
Tim Schoon from PEJ.com provided some good feedback as well about 4L.com Chips.
I don’t believe that the demand is decreasing but there is simply a LOT of supply right now. A lot of people who bought in at $300-1500 per chip are selling their domains, while the big Chinese buyers are not selling any.
Furthermore there is a lot of new inventory coming in through the whois spammers. I receive over 50 emails a day with lowball offers on my chips. I can imagine that a lot of random chip owners are taking the $500-$1500 offers, considering the resale value of these a couple years ago. I can imagine that many won’t know what’s going on with the market and would consider these offers enduser prices. More & more supply is coming in, so of course prices are downhill for a while.
Over the past few days there have been 40-50 chips auctioned daily, about 20 on the western platforms and 20-30 on the Chinese auction sites (that I know off..). That has been at least $100k-$150k a day in volume.
Once the supply dries up again, prices will climb. I’m sitting this one out.
Scott Neuman says
I get calls daily for my llll’s. I get calls for my lll’s also. This isn’t a bubble investment but a supply and demand investment since any of the names could be developed.
Tony says
Bitcoin is not a bad comparison. Both are treated like commodities in somewhat limited supply. Both shot up in relatively short time. Both involved Chinese investors. I only have a handful of 5N’s and 4L’s respectively that I hand regged on the drop about 5-6 years ago. Have not and am not adding to that in this environ.
Josh says
Nice write-up. There’s definitely some connections between BTC and ChiPs.
A few differences that matter:
1. ChiPs don’t seem to be on the Chinese government’s radar, and I’m not sure they ever will be.
2. No (or little) mainstream coverage about the explosion in ChiP sales prices.
3. ChiPs have usefulness beyond being a monetary asset. They can be used for websites, email, etc.
Samit says
What exactly can you do with a bitcoin aside ‘hold it for it’s value’?
With a llll,com you can –
– Brand a business
– Develop a website
– Develop a business
– Sell to an end user
– Earn revenue of parking
among other things.
I don’t see the similarity. In fact if you remember I mocked BTC when it was at $1k each, right on this site, I think llll,com are underpriced below $2500 each, chips or otherwise. Chips have just reached that price first, all llll,com will follow.
Keith says
4 letter .com bubble not even started. $10,000 minimum within 3 years. That is only 4,569,760,000 market cap ???
Xavier Lemay says
I do think that it is just a start.
“The most populous country in the world also added the most new millionaires last year — 1 million”
http://fortune.com/2015/06/15/millionaires-wealth-china/