The 2026 Predictions Episode – DNW Podcast #567

(upbeat music) Welcome to the Domain Name Wire podcast. I'm your host Andrew Olamen, and this is episode number 567. This is the annual Predictions episode. On today's show, you'll hear from 26 people in the domain industry about what they thought was notable in 2025, and what they think will happen in 2026. Before we get to that, a quick word from our sponsor. Our sponsor this week is Sav.com. As you back order domains in the new year, remember that Sav has low cost back ordering. You can back order.com domains for only $10.49, and.io's for only $26.99. Plus, they keep your prices very low on renewals too. Start back ordering domains at Sav. Go to Sav.com/dnw/backorder. That's S-A-V.com/dnw/backorder. All right, now let's hear from 26 people in the industry, and I'll be back at the end of the episode to wrap things up. (upbeat music) - Hi, this is Ron Jackson, editor and publisher at dnjournal.com. Last year at this time, I talked about the explosion of high-handed dot AI sales being the biggest surprise of 2024, and wondered if that boom would continue throughout 2025. Well, here we are. And that AI is still going strong, probably even stronger, despite having some of the highest registration and renewal costs of any TLD on the web. After seeing that and how artificial intelligence is changing so many things in both business and the world in general, I think I've reached a point where nothing would surprise me anymore. So far, all of this has had a positive effect on the domain business, and I expect that to continue in 2026. AI is feeling the creation of countless new enterprises and spurring innovation within existing ones. That in turn is ramping up demand for quality domains from web-based entrepreneurs who've come to realize just how much a great name can help their prospects. While smaller businesses can't afford the top tier names, they still need the best name they can afford, and that should keep aftermarket sales volume and average sales prices moving upward. Whatever happens, I wish you all a happy holiday season and a record-breaking new year. (bell dinging) - Hi, this is Christopher Taylor with TLDs. Here are my top 10 predictions for 2026. One, the new GTLD round unleashes fresh creativity from niche ideas to big brand reinventions, and a few wild cards, no one's are coming. Two, icons, communication blackout, turns around into a stealth game of quiet moves, surprise reveals, and the occasional accusatory headache. Three, premium tiers evolve as dynamic pricing and data-driven drops reshape high-value domain sales. Four, domain portfolios go on a diet as companies cut legacy defensive names and keep what really matters. Five, trust becomes the new competitive edge with transparent pricing and safer DNS guiding registration choices. Six utility-rich TLDs rise bundling services so domain becomes a launch pad and not just a label. Seven, website builders become instant launch kits turning a domain into a ready-to-use online identity in minutes. Eight, as third-party tracking fades brands turn to domain-based identity and first-party data, where owning your name becomes how you own your audience. Nine, cyber-threats evolve, but DNS-lear defense and cross-registration collaboration strengthens the ecosystem. Ten, AI-driven naming surges, driving demand for clean machine-friendly domains. From all of us at TLDs, wishing your joyful end to 2025 and a bold thriving 2026. - Hi everyone, Tom Barrett from NSERCA. Looking back at 2025, what surprised me is actually that not many people took notice of the passage of the Genius Act here in the US, which basically legalized stablecoins as a valid cryptocurrency. And I think what you'll see next year is widespread adoption by online merchants like registrars to accept stablecoins as payment. This will accelerate adoption of digital wallets because of course you need that in order to send and receive stablecoins. I'm excited about tokenization along with that, not just for tomatoes in the aftermarket, but also for other applications like single sign-on and other digital identity applications. So it should be exciting here and looking forward to seeing how it pans out. Thanks. - Hello, this is Ryan McKegney from DomainHens.com. The biggest surprise of 2025 was how resilient the economy seemed to be. Although there's lots of concern about the underlying numbers, heavy investment in AI continued to prop up the economy and the stock market, which drove the sale of AI names. I think in 2026 we'll see a backlash against.AI, at least in terms of branding. I think AI is here to stay. It's too useful to disappear, even if it turns out that there has been an over-investment in infrastructure. But you may not want to have your brand associated with AI if the stock market goes sour and people are losing their jobs to AI agents. Companies who are currently using.AI domains want upgrade to.com names that come with more credibility and less baggage. Elsewhere, big story will likely be the application period for the next round of TLDs. Extensions like.Crypto and.Wallet could draw a lot of applicants. Hopefully lessons have been learned from the previous round. And we won't see any of these new extensions launched in 2026. In 2026, there's a good chance that both Central Nick and Cedo find themselves in new hands as the follow-up from the end of AdSense for domains plays out. It'll be interesting to see if anybody is able to come up with a solution that works at scale for parked domains. Overall, I think 2026 is going to be a bumpier for industry. There are some very big opportunities out there, but it could be chaotic as it all unfolds. Well, this is Brian Harbin with grit brokerage. Looking back over 2025, there were few surprises as we had predicted this would be a strong year for domain sales, including the highest recorded sales in.com and.AI based on strong markets, high confidence in US corporations and other factors. Domain names are moving into the public narrative as a legitimate, investible asset class with new investors entering the space in 2025 while end users have become more selective and deals seem driven by real intent rather than impulse. For 2026, premium.com.ai.co.net.org.io.xyz domain names stay strong and continue to get absorbed. AI demand pulled new buyers in the market and we expect the.AI uptrend to continue. One word.coms are the most prominent and valuable digital assets and remain the safest store of value in the space. com also remains the cornerstone of trust and recognition while.AI has solidified itself as a natural second force. We predict stronger demand ahead for names that instantly signal trust while short brand names continue to outperform keyword heavy domains. It'll be interesting and exciting to see what new strings will appear in the opening in the next TLV round as we approach the summer of 2026. Thanks. (soft music) - Hello, this is Carlos Armada, head of product at name.com. And what's surprising most in 2025 was just how fast model capability advanced throughout the year and its rate of adoption. It's had an immeasurable impact on who can build. The day a new model is released, it's effectively launched across all systems that have AI agents embedded. Five coding tools, AI code generation, and agent driven workflows unlocked a massive new wave of builders overnight. People who never identified as developers or builders suddenly started shipping real projects. The speed and the scale of that surge was just much faster than I ever expected. Looking ahead to 2026, I believe the next era of growth in the domain industry will be defined by customer first, deeply embedded ecosystems. The registrars that win will be the ones embedded directly into the creative workflow. Inside coding environments and hosting platforms like Versel, Cloudflare or Netlify, not sitting behind separate dashboards and website UIs. Those that focus on removing friction, empowering innovative use cases and making domains invisible yet essential to the process will define the next wave. Launching will collapse into a single action, build, click publish, go live. Developers won't need to leave their environment. In that world that domain is no longer just an address, it becomes the publish button. The domain's industry's future won't be one by who owns the checkout. It'll be one by who shows up at the moment ideas go live. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, my name is Christian Boss. CSO at taco.com, the new domain registrar, marketplace, and monetization platform. Let's start with 2025. The biggest surprise for the ones who didn't listen before, which turns out as the biggest shock in the industry is that Google finally announced the shutdown of its AdSense 4 domains program. For registrar and parking platforms, this was a major blow. Monetization models that has been stable for years, if not decades, suddenly had to be rebuilt from scratch, or the monetization companies are even for sale on the market. So what happens in 2026? In short, consolidation, higher standards, and more pressure across the board. NIS2 takes effect. And that will push smaller registrars to the limits. At the same time, AI becomes the default tool set of the industry. Pricing valuation portfolio management. Everything will run smarter and more automated. Those who embrace it will move ahead. Those who don't will fall behind. Google-related parking revenues will continue to decline now that Google AFD is gone by the end of January 2026, forcing registrars to explore new monetization models for unused domains. Each registrar has about 25% of park domains. If they are not looking now for new opportunities, to at least keep the current numbers of registration, they will run into big problems. Security becomes a core differentiator. Customers will switch registrars not because of price, but because of protection and compliance. Premium domains should remain stable, or even increase in value. Companies are becoming more strategic about branding, SEO, and naming. The message is clear. Domains are no longer afterthought. They are part of the business strategy. Bottom line, the domain industry is entering its next evolution. Less speculation, more substance. Less dependency, more innovation. 2010-26 won't be a comfortable year, but it will be full of opportunities for those willing to adapt. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, everyone. I am Deepav Doftry, Domain Investor and An Angel Investor. I manage my own domain portfolio, as well as some-- I act as a broker for some of my very large clients, primarily Fortune 500 companies. I also act as an active Angel Investor and have invested in quite a few companies, and I helped them in acquiring some of their business brands also. 2025 has been a very interesting year with some domain investors making significantly very large gains with their.ai holdings, while some didn't see the way of coming and miss the boot completely. We have seen plenty of six figure sales and even a few seven figure sales, and the sales of AI names are only getting stronger as time goes by. People thought that the momentum is going to slow down, but that's not the case, and the momentum's only gaining more strength as time goes by. Doesn't mean.com is still not the king, but at the same time, the new crop of Dominions are making some fantastic sales and getting the capital to invest more with some of the non.com extensions like.ai.ai.io.co.gg.app, etc. Going forward, in 2026, I perceive that the market is going to see some very strong seven and eight figure.com sales on a regular basis, and maybe the occasional mega outliers too. 2026 means more marketplaces, more options, greater choice for the domain portfolio holders, large domain portfolio holders, as in where to list their names, how to list their names, what commissions to pay the payment options, with plenty of options to choose from now that we have significantly more newer marketplaces opening up on a regular basis. Acquiring meaningful names in.com is going to be a very expensive affair from year on, and in some cases, since the prices already touching the lower end of retail pricing, I don't see the prices going down anytime soon, and they are only going to go up from year on in the after market. I also assume there would be some very large AI sales in 2026, and it would be a capital intensive exercise to build.ai portfolio for this juncture. These are some of my observations for the year 2526. Thank you, Merry Christmas, and all of you have a great year. Hi, this is Paige Howe at pagehow.com. The number one thing that surprised me in 2025 were the amount of registrations that were being used just for cold email outreach. Someone wants to send 100,000 emails. They need 600 domain names with five email addresses sending emails every day. They may need a thousand more email addresses. They may buy 200 more names and 500 more names and so on. By predictions for 2026, think the.com registration base will drop 10%, other TLDs will be down 10 to 15%. The new TLDs will be big inside the industry, but a yawn in the real world. We'll have applications, land rush, trademark, gold rush, but I think we'll have lacklustra demand. It's simply more supply in a saturated market. I think some solo operators with passion and community will thrive. And I hope so, and I'll be looking out for those opportunities. Lastly, I think least a own will continue to grow and will have more financing options, especially for higher dollar transactions. Happy new year. Hey, this is Darpen from atom.com. I'm sure you've heard plenty about AI in the prediction, so I'll talk about something different. When I think back on 2025, the thing that really stayed with me was how much work people still have to do just to find or sell a domain. Founders are bouncing between marketplaces, brokers, search tools, basically stitching together their own discovery journey because there's no simple unified path to find a name. And sellers are doing the same thing. They are listing names across different marketplaces, updating pricing manually, trying to keep everything in sync because they just never know where a buyer might start their search. For such a small industry, we've actually made things surprisingly fragmented. So instead of offering a prediction for 2026, I'll share what I hope happens. I would love to see more collaboration across the industry. More ways to work together, more companies choosing partnerships over isolation or silos. Now if we can make discovery easier for founders and liquidity smoother for sellers, everyone wins. And the whole industry gets stronger. So that's what I'm hoping for. And with that, wishing everyone a happy and successful 2026. Hi, everybody. This is Jonathan Tenemom, aka JT from Media Options and Domain and Sherpa. Looking back at 2025, the thing that surprised me the most in the domain industry was with.ai domains and how the market for that extension not just took off but also showed a lot of staying power. The actual use of domains by end users is impressive and helps show that it will likely continue. My 2026 prediction for the domain industry is that while some people feel that AI will devalue domain names in the long run, I think we're going to see the opposite into the new year. There's so much noise out there online and otherwise that high value domains will not only retain their importance for companies and brands and therefore their value. We'll see values for premium domains continue to increase with some really big deals happening over the course of the new year. And I hope that prediction comes true. With that, I want to say thanks everybody and have a great and happy new year. This is Daniel Greenberg, CEO of Lex Energy. Looking back at 2025, I think Web 3 domain names did not seem to excite IP owners and weren't as popular or did not take center stage during this year. My predictions for 2026 is that.brands should take center stage. As well as IP owners continuing to write size their portfolios while focusing more on monitoring, watch and enforcement services. Hi, this is Alan Schiflett, GM of the aftermarket at GoDaddy. 2025 was defined by AI from.AI domains to massive funding driving high value sales. In 2026, I expect this to continue. AI capital will keep rising expanding beyond simply tech. This increased funding will drive blockbuster deals at an entirely new level, making high value category defining domains that best and safest bet both now and long term. Bubbles' speculation will intensify, especially targeting the saturated application layer. While I don't expect it to burst in 2026, smart investors should prepare. When it dips, there will be domain buying opportunities for those who are ready. AI-driven downsizing won't destroy jobs, it will displace them, fueling a surge in AI native small businesses and teleprenures. Brandables will gain value as these businesses need to stand apart. We'll also see increased non-traditional TLD adoption as new businesses keep capital expenditure low, opening opportunities and emerging TLDs. On parking, AFD is dead, while arbitrage will be hurt, new monetization methods will provide similar revenue to what AFD did a year ago. SEO domains will spike as businesses discover their value for AEO to influence LLM placement. Before platforms saw for this, 2026 is the year SEO domain shine. Finally, expect big unforeseen changes in 2026. Those paying attention and willing to take strategic bets will see huge upsides. Here's to your great 2026. Happy selling. Hi, and happy holidays. I'm Tessa Holcomb, founder of Domain Advisors. One of the biggest surprises for me in 2025 was how quickly the market embraced AI domains. We saw interest building in 2024, but watching that interest convert into real end user demand and big numbers so quickly has been pretty remarkable. It's been refreshing to see so many new end users who now recognize they need to invest real money to secure the best domains for their companies. On the deal structure side, I'm seeing more sellers open to equity, sometimes even preferring it over a higher cash price. But interestingly, more buyers are leading toward creative payment structures instead of giving up that equity. Shortbrandable.coms are still performing well in niches like online gaming, finance and insurance, but the real standout is crypto. I'm seeing substantial offers for highly targeted names, and I expect to see some big sales announced in this space in the coming months. I'm also getting a lot more requests for matching social handles alongside domain acquisitions, with X being the top request by far followed by Instagram, then LinkedIn and Facebook. Looking ahead to 26, I think momentum and crypto related.coms will continue and AI domains will stay strong as the ecosystem matures. I expect to see more blended deal structures, equity, revenue participation and longer payment plans as both sides are forced to be more flexible, wishing you all a healthy, prosperous and amazing 2026. My name is Joe Udemy. I'm the director and principal at nameexperts.com. I am a full service domain broker, specializing in stealth acquisitions for our clients. 2025 wound up being a very strong year, specifically for short brands, looking for.com.ai.tech, as well as some other generous extensions. org showed promise as well, branded organizations picking up the matching.org for their brand. The classic blue chip domains short generic.com domain names certainly will retain and appreciate and value as they do time and time again. We continue to see organizations and companies coming online that ultimately see the inherent and strategic value in owning the matching.com for their brand. The premium domain aftermarket will certainly remain very active and continue to increase in value with strong branding potential and upside. We also continue to see a lot of consolidation in the business, a lot of companies buying other organizations. There are some organizations that are currently for sale. So we'll see how 2025 ends up and what we look for in 2026. Lastly, I would like to thank Andrew for having me on the show. This is always a pleasure and a distinguished honor. So thank you and looking forward to 2026. If you need anything, we're always happy to help. Hi, David Walmers, CEO of above.com. 2025. All I can say is wow, what a year. The industry has not seen one like it and we have gone through a lot. Google pulling out of domain monetization is a huge change for domaining. Everyone was impacted. Domain investors, parking services, rotation platforms, registrars and registries. Looking ahead, there's going to be significant consolidation. Many of the parking services will be acquired as they rely on Google AFD and without an alternative solution. Domainers are looking for something new. Anyone that has been able to diversify will start to reap the benefits of this industry change. Above, we are more than ever focused on visitor intent, creating a better user experience, adding new monetization channels, which should see many domain investors relieved as the revenues come back. Prediction for 2026 is looking like a great year for anyone that has innovated and diversified. Cheers. This is Leanne from Crunch.id. 2025 was an inconsistent year for sales for many investors, but averaged out wealth for most. Name bio shows a 9% increase in dollar volume compared to 2024 and the year isn't even over yet. Big AI sales continued, reaching record highs and names around that space did well too, dot com names with keywords such as AI, Egentix, Agent or Sold Well issue. In 2026, I expect to see the dot AI and AI related names start to plateau a little as the initial buzz around AI settles and it becomes more and more integrated into services rather than being a standalone thing. With that, I see the resurgence of dot IO continuing, although I'm not sure it will reach the heights of 2024, but we'll see. I also expect to see new GTLDs continue to gain more popularity. A smaller businesses are priced out of acquiring the more common TLDs. And as ever, synergy between the SLD and TLD is key. Here's to a great 2026, and may your Christmas stocking be full of outlier sales. Happy Holidays everyone, Andrew Miller from ATM Holdings. So what most surprised me this year was it was an epic start of the year. I mean, on my end, I was involved with three eight bigger transactions and I thought that momentum would just fly into the end of the year. But I have found Q3 and Q4 companies are really exercising a lot of caution and less urgency than I've seen in many, many years. And I think that's probably a relation, combination of market world politics, crypto and all the factors that go into the bucket or the recipe related. I also was very surprised at the strength of the dot AI sales and the momentum they kept up in 2025. People know that I'm the dot com truth or and have seen TLDs do sure come and go, but AI's really held on strongly, which we'll see how that goes into 2026. For 2026, I think we're going to see a mix of two things. I think it's going to be an epic year in technology. And I think there will be a significant number of important large high profile dot com domain transactions. But I also think that there's going to be a lot of domains that recycle over the next year or two. I think there's a lot of companies in the AI space, too many uncertain sectors that have raised a lot of money and they're not all going to make it because that's just how it works and start up with. Happy holidays, everyone. This is Matt Overman, Chief Revenue Officer at Identity Digital. Looking back at 2025, I was surprised by how many companies went public with their next round TLD strategies, sharing a target number of applications or even in some cases, specific extensions. Along with ICANN's rules, it's easily one of the biggest differences from the prior round. In terms of 2026, my prediction is the domain names increasingly become the center of an AI built and agentic internet. With AI vibe coding tools, it's never been easier to build online. We're in an era where anyone, I mean anyone, even me, can prototype and launch a business almost instantly. And when building that commoditized, your brand becomes key, which is where domains fit in. With all of the AI generated noise, we need a way to prove what's real. Domains aren't just web addresses. They'll be used to prove authenticity and ownership. They are the critical element that connects real people or real brands and verifiable sources. They're the ultimate trust anchor and will become central to digital identity, whether it's human identity or agentic identity. I'm looking forward to an all around grade 2026 in the industry and happy new year to everyone listening. This is Braden Pollock. This is my 11th predictions episode. I wonder if I've ever been right. Because I keep saying the same thing. I feel like a broken rocker. com values continue to increase every year. They go up and up and up. Short.coms are king. That's why I continue to invest in them. It's been for me personally. I've had a record year. I think I did 50% more than I did last year. So very, very good. I invested a little bit in.AI, not too many, but I am cash positive because I have sold more than I have spent. And those.AI names will continue to increase as new AI companies start as a lot of these companies starting up now. I think eventually, I think we're in a bubble and eventually some of those companies don't know how to business, just like in any industry. But if you're holding good short.AI's, you're in a good position. That is it for me. And I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2026. Hey everyone. This is Doron Format, co-founder and COO of FT. Looking back at 2025, the one thing that surprised me the most was the acquisition of Namecheap. We've seen consolidation before, but Namecheap always felt like the last grade underdog, registrar. Seeing them sell to private equity for 1.5 billion wasn't just like a big number. It felt like the official end of an era. As for 2026, I have three predictions for where the industry is going. First, something I've been saying for over 10 years, the death of barking. With Google finally killing the legacy at feet last year, I truly believe the era of decent PBC income for most domain investors is effectively over. The market for domains with quality backlinks, however, will grow as companies in vertical such as eGaming, discover them as quite a affordable way to drive traffic and acquire customers. Second, we'll see a big flight to quality with the new GTLD round opening up in April. The market is about to get flooded with even more extensions. It will drive smart companies back to what they know, back to safety, creating a search in the band for.com domains as well as some of the other established extensions like.org.co.io and even.ai.cswc. Finally, the AI, AI hype is settling into like a building phase. The top.ai domains will continue to sell, but the number of newly funded startups in the space will slow down. The new year will see some of the AI giants spend big money to acquire their matching.com domains. Something we've seen accelerates this year at FD where we help and buy some of the world's most wanted domains. I want to wish Andrew and all the listeners at P Holiday season and a very healthy and successful 2026. Hi, this is Adam Eisner, Vice President of DotCA in Registry Services at CERA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Looking back at 2025, the industry saw geopolitical shifts quickly turn topics like resilience and data sovereignty into boardroom issues. In particular, we saw domain name registries around the world face more questions about continuity and sovereignty than ever before. Looking ahead to 2026, I think major themes will be simplification and trust. Whether it's selling TLDs, fighting abuse or managing operations, registries and registrars are looking for less moving parts in a world that feels like it has more requirements in complexities. Meanwhile, ongoing political disruptions will mean opportunities for community-based TLDs and CCTLDs where trust is becoming an important factor. TLDs tied to communities will be considered more trusted in local, much like what we're already seeing in Canada with DotCA. Thanks to Andrew for the opportunity to share my thoughts and wishing everyone a successful 2026. Hi, this is Todd Hahn, the CEO of Dynodot. What surprised me the most about 2025 was the amount of time that our industry spent thinking about the blockchain. Should domains be tokenized into NFTs? How does it help our customers? How much work would it be for us to do that? I spent a lot of time thinking about these issues. We ended up not making a decision on NFTs, but we did add Bitcoin and USDC as payment methods. And it turns out that our customers love paying with Bitcoin and USDC. And they love getting paid out for domain sales in those cryptocurrencies as well. In 2026, I believe that MindShare will be dominated by the launch of the new TLDs and the application process, which TLDs will be applied for, who will be applying for them, what will the auctions look like? How will people market these TLDs? Not all of them will be successful, but just due to the sheer volume of applications and TLDs, I'm pretty sure that it will occupy most of people's minds. Thank you. Hi, I'm Michael Hubrock, CEO of Cedo.com. In 2025, the domain market states stable and continue to focus on quality. Buyers were more selective and strong names performed very well. Premium domain names held the value. Should domains like 2.0.coms remain some of the strongest assets at the market? Can you be divining and exact match names also short-grade results? These domains are easy to remember and give granted clear advantage. High quality one word and 2.0.coms also did well. With range names moved more slowly as buyers took more time before making decisions. CCD-REDs such as.te.fr.uk continued to grow in importance. Companies used them to build trust and strengths in the local presence. We also saw more premium names returned to the after market as companies reviewed the portfolios and produced names in only longer needed. This created new opportunities for both investors and end users. For 2026, demand for high quality names will remain strong. Short domains, exact match names and clear keyword domains will continue to need the market. Buyers will stay selective but they will invest when the name clearly fits their strategy. CCD-REDs will stay important as companies expand into new regions. Using both.com and matching CCD-RED will become even more common. We might also see more premium domain names coming onto the market as companies adjust the portfolios. Overall, 2026 will be a year where simple, clear and memorable domain will remain the strongest assets. On behalf of the entire CDO team, I wish you and your families a happy and peaceful holiday season and a prosperous New Year. Hi, this is Simone Catania, Global Content and Communication Manager at Interindex, a brand of the Yonos Group. Looking back at 2025, we saw modest overall growth, but the real story is in the mix. Domain registration under CCD-REDs and NewJD-REDs were the main drivers of growth, while some legacy TLDs slowed down. For 2026, free teams stand out for us. First, security and trust. With DNS abuse and regulation, like NISTU and the European Union, everyone in the industry will have to manage data with accuracy and fast abuse mitigation as a corresponds ability, not just a text box. Second, AI. As search turns into AI overviews and assistants, domains become the citation layer, the source machine choose to trust. We are about to optimize not only for human visitors, but for AI systems, seeking authority, well-structured content. Third, expansion and diversification. For the domain industry, the next new TLD round will mean onboarding a lot of new strings, expanding customer choice, while increasing the complexity of managing and positioning digital identities. To see how these trends show up in real numbers, we invite YouTube Railregister for the Global Domain Report 2026 by Interindex and Sado and discover how the industry moved in the past 12 months. Hi, this is Mike Ambrose, CEO and co-founder of XYZ, the owner and operator of.XYZ, and 34 more new TLD extensions. In 2025, I was most surprised by the surge in new TLD registrations, specifically those related to automation, AI, Web3, blockchain, and new TLD registrations experience, 17% year-over-year growth in Q3 2025, which is rather impressive. In 2026, I think the number of total domains worldwide will exceed 400 million, well, on their way to half a billion domains, hopefully by 2027 or 28. And I also predict that in 2026, we will see short, voice-friendly domains that will appreciate evaluations. Obviously, shorter, more pronounceable domain names will do better in AEO and other applications, also the new GTLD application period in 2026 will be an interesting one. We will see who participates and what kind of applications come out of this period and ultimately new domain names, which I think will be better for the industry and the world as a whole. Cheers to 2025 and happy holidays from all of us here at XYZ. Whoo, all right. That was a lot of predictions, a lot of thoughts about what's going to happen this year, and I'd like to thank each and every person for participating in this predictions episode. And thanks to you for listening to the Domain NameWire podcast. If you missed any episodes this year, scroll through your podcast app or go to dnw.com/podcast. Happy New Year!