Unstoppable Domains skips ICANN round, refunds Web3 domain customers

Unstoppable Domains, the company that built its brand on the promise that your .crypto or .nft domain would live forever on the blockchain with no renewal fees, just pulled the plug on bringing those domains into the traditional internet’s domain name system. Founder Matthew Gould announced Wednesday that the company did not file applications for any of its Web3 top-level domains in ICANN’s 2026 expansion round. Customers who bought names under the affected TLDs are being offered refunds. What happened and why it matters ICANN, the nonprofit that governs the internet’s domain name system, is opening a new round of TLD applications in 2026, the first major expansion since 2012. For years, Unstoppable Domains had told its customers that it would use this round to bridge blockchain-based domains into the conventional DNS infrastructure. The trigger was a recent ICANN report that proposed sweeping restrictions on blockchain-based domain ownership. The report surfaced just days before the application deadline and contained provisions that would have required re-registration of existing Web3 names within the standard DNS framework, annual renewal fees, and disclosure of registrant inform...