.ape
Is .ape a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.ape is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Red Rock (Cayman) Foundation.
A meme-and-crypto-culture address: fun for a community identity, rarely a serious primary web identity.
crypto and NFT community members, meme-brand projects and fan accounts who want an identity that signals belonging to ape-themed internet culture
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet as .ape: a short slang persona word with no industry behind it, sold at volume to a self-identifying online in-group that wants the attitude rather than a category listing, so the registry is wagering on tribe identity and memeability instead of commercial demand.
Also an animal noun whose entire value lives in its figurative/meme usage rather than any literal trade, so like .ape it has to be bought for connotation by people with no shared trade body, and its worth rises or falls with a slang meaning the registry does not control.
Shares the bet that a loosely-organized subculture will put its primary identity on its own in-group word with no corporate anchor tenant, but it names an established culture with a defined scene rather than a short generic noun carrying borrowed slang, so the buyer is better defined than .ape's.
What a .ape domain is
.ape is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Crypto. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .ape domain extension real yet?
.ape is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .ape domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .ape name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .ape was .ninja, delegated on 28 December 2013.
Is .ape a real TLD?
Not yet. .ape is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .ape is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Red Rock (Cayman) Foundation · first recordedICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string .ape is a short, generic English word whose current cultural currency comes mostly from crypto and NFT slang and ape-themed collectible communities; the record shows a single confirmed applicant, Ape Naming Limited, with no category tag and no contention, which is consistent with a community- or brand-oriented operator rather than a broad open namespace. Whether the applicant is affiliated with any specific NFT community is unknown from the facts block. By analogy (flagged as analogy), ICANN vanity and slang strings such as .lol, .wtf and .fun found real but shallow demand: registrations spike on cheap promotions and cultural moments, then churn, and very few serious projects adopt them as a primary identity. Also by analogy, crypto-community naming demand has historically gravitated to blockchain-native namespaces rather than DNS, so an ICANN .ape competes against habits already formed elsewhere. Not in the 30-49 band because there is no evidence of volume registration on price or a sustained use case beyond culture signaling, and the brand signal is polarizing outside the community. Not in the 1-9 band because a real, identifiable, high-spending community exists with established naming habits, the word is short and memorable, and 'ape' has meme value beyond any single project, so some genuine registrations and a thin aftermarket for one-word .ape names are plausible. Main market uncertainty: whether the operator runs .ape as an open general-availability namespace or a gated community/brand namespace, which determines whether it has any aftermarket at all versus functioning as a closed membership badge.