Registrar buys handshake market leader and records rapid growth over the past year.
Namecheap makes acquisition related to blockchain-based domains and saw strong growth in 2021.
the acquisition of Namebase strengthens the company’s position with Handshake, one of the competing blockchain-based domain name alternatives. Namebase is the main marketplace and onramp for Handshake domains.
With Handshake, anyone can register a top-level domain and then sell second-level domains under it to other parties. For example, Namecheap offers Handshake second-level domains in extensions such as .saas, .p, and .creator. Currently, Namecheap is the “owner” of each Handshake top-level domain it offers to the registrar.
These domains can be used for crypto wallet addresses, Web3 identities, and technically web presence, like websites. However, none of the most popular browsers currently resolve blockchain-based domains without using a plugin. Opera, which has around 1-2% market share, is enabling native access to Handshake domains this year.
Separately, Namecheap revealed to Domain Name Wire that its revenue last year jumped 28% from 2020, totaling $256.76 million. It ended the year with 14.62 million domains under management and 30 million active products, including email subscriptions, SSL, hosting, and more. It added a million customers last year.
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