Cryptocurrencies

Monaco Acquires Crypto.com Domain, Rebrands to URL Moniker

Despite owner Matt Blaze insisting that the domain he registered back in 1993 was not for sale, the prized Crypto.com URL now has a new owner. According to TechCrunch, the Hong Kong-based company Monaco has taken the domain off Blaze’s hands for an undisclosed figure (some experts suggest the price tag could have been as high as $10 million). As a result the firm has decided to rebrand, using Crypto.com as their parent company name.

Speaking to TechCrunch about the acquisition, Monaco CEO Kris Marszalek said, “This is a very powerful identity that we are taking on. It’s representative of the entire category so it comes with a huge responsibility on us to carry the torch. We don’t take it lightly and this is one of the things that I think we conveyed successfully, that, as a company, we do have a higher purpose.” While declining to offer specifics on the deal, Marszalek did suggest there was a good reason why Blaze choose to sell to them, noting, “If it was only about money he’d have sold it a long time ago.”

Although Monaco will now be known as Crypto.com, some of its various projects will go by the name MCO, which is also the symbol of the company’s coin. These services include a peer to peer transfer platform, cryptocurrency wallet, and perhaps most notably a crypto Visa debit card. Marszalek says that highly anticipated card will be made available to users in Singapore and Europe this summer, with the company eyeing a Q4 launch stateside. There will also be multiple versions of the card featuring different perks. Note that some of the cards will also require cardholders to maintain a certain stake in MCO coins. For example, while the Midnight Blue iteration requires no MCO stake, the top tiered Obsidian Black version offers 2% cash back but insists on a 50,000 MCO stake — currently equivalent to around $350,000.

When visitors reach Crypto.com, they’re now greeted by a slogan reading, “Accelerating the world’s transition to cryptocurrency.” With this prime domain in hand, the company formerly known as Monaco may now be perfectly poised to do just that. Although a name alone can’t propel a firm to greatness, having such strong branding certainly doesn’t hurt. Moreover, if their crypto Visa proves to be the hit it’s hoping to be, it could open some more doors for cryptocurrencies in general. So, beyond this big buy, there’s plenty of other reason to keep an eye on MCO and see how they stay true to their tagline.

Other Articles by Jonathan Dyer