The ApeCoin community unanimously approved a proposal to register “.APE” as a new top-level domain (TLD) with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the world’s authority on IP addresses and domain names.

In line with ICANN’s plan to implement new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) by Q2 2026, the ApeCoin decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) proposed working with Web3 domains specialist D3 to create the .APE top-level domain (TLD) as a real-world asset (RWA).

A majority (91.68%) of the ApeCoin community voted in favor of the proposal, while 8.32% decided to vote against it.

According to the proposal, D3 will lead the effort to prepare and submit the application, which is expected to take approximately one year to be readied.

Additionally, D3 also plan to offer APE-linked name tokens as an immediate Web3 identifier for users.

ApeCoin DAO believes that the .APE domains, once launched, will have “the potential to generate multi-million dollars in annual revenue.”

As part of the deal, the gross revenues generated from the APE name tokens and the .APE TLDs will be split 50-50 between ApeCoin DAO and D3.

The proposal clarified that "owning" a TLD is not possible. Instead, “ICANN contractually grants the rights to exclusively operate and monetize each TLD that automatically renews every 10 years.”

As shown above, the total costs involved for the initiative is three million ApeCoin (APE). D3 will incur ongoing technical and operational costs related to managing the .APE namespace, with contributions from ApeCoin DAO for co-marketing to the masses.

Related: ENS data from Etherscan now visible in Google search results

In February 2024, domain registrars GoDaddy and Ethereum Name Service signed a partnership to allow users to link Web3-based .eth domains to DNS top-level domains at no cost.

The GoDaddy-ENS partnership eliminates the barrier of high gas fees that previously demotivated users from bringing domain names over to ENS. Paul Nicks, president of domains at GoDaddy, highlighted the development as “the fusion of domain names and blockchain technologies,” which benefits the Web2 and Web3 ecosystems.

In July 2023, GoDaddy’s Web3 competitor Unstoppable Domains allowed users to buy .eth names with added payment methods and functionality to streamline the management of ENS domains.

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