Mt. Gox is going to sell its bitcoins.com domain name at an auction on July 24th.
In Februay, Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox announced that it had lost about 850,000 bitcoins after the hacker attack. The stolen bitcoins are equal to $620 million at market prices. The company became a victim of a fraud also known as malleability bug.
The closed Bitcoin exchange filed for and later received bankruptcy protection in Japan. Besides, it was granted Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the United States.
Mt. Gox is planning to sell bitcoins.com domain at the upcoming auction and give the revenues for the people affected by the exchange bankruptcy. The firm said about 750,000 of all stolen bitcoins belonged to the customers. The current opening bid for the domain name is worth $185,000.
It is expected to be the highest-profile auction of a bitcoin domain to date. In 2013, several web adresses have been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, among others BitcoinWallet.com for $250,000.
Bitcoins.com could be sold for $1 million given the history of past web addresses auctions.
On the official auction page Mt. Gox noted that in the future investors could sell the domain name to certain businesses in the bitcoin ecosystem that will benefit from owning the domain name that provides great visibility.
The founder of former digital currency exchange, Mark Karpeles commented: “We are hoping, with the sale of Bitcoins.com, to provide some relief to the people impacted by the Mt. Gox bankruptcy and will be putting at least half of the sale amount toward that purpose.”
Heritage Auctions, the largest Texas-based collectibles auctioneer and third largest auction house in the world, expects that the highest bid will total at least $750,000. Still, even if Karpeles receives $1,200,000 and gives the half of the sum to the impacted customers, they would obtain 1/10th of a cent for every lost dollar. For instance, the person who lost $100,000 would receive only $100.
According to Aron Meystedt, the director of the Domain Names & Intellectual Property category at Heritage Auctions, all bitcoins that are currently in circulation, are valued at $7-8 billion.
He said: “Bitcoins.com is absolutely the best remaining and available name for this new market. Bitcoin.com, the singular version, is owned and used by Blockchain.info, the world’s most popular Bitcoin wallet, and Bitcoinwallet.com itself is also already tied up. For the right investor this is a golden opportunity.”
The bitcoins will be sell off at the auction, which will take place on July 24. Besides bitcoins.com, such domain names as Rides.com, Digital.com and DEC.com will be offered.
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