.dao
Is .dao a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.dao is contested: 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry, Hangzhou Marketing Association, Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the four already run TLDs, 26.76M names between them. One runs one of .dao's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .llc. Hangzhou Marketing Association and Link Freedom Group run none.
Will names sell?
A niche web3 address that fits decentralized organizations well, but the buyer pool is small, cyclical, and already served by workarounds.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .dao’s closest 2012 strings hold .llc 57K, .inc 8K and .ngo 7K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .llc, held 56,545 names, June 2026. .inc held 7,630; .ngo held 6,547. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: a short entity-form suffix an organization appends to its own name as primary identity, monetizing the fact that the organizational wrapper is itself a recognized badge, and it only works if that form is widely adopted and worth signaling.
Another organization-type string sold as a corporate identity badge to any entity of that form, with the same economics: a small self-selecting population of organizations paying a premium for the naming convention rather than a broad consumer category.
An acronym for a class of organization that doubles as a movement identity whose value depends on eligibility gatekeeping and credibility, closer to DAO's 'we are this kind of body' signal than a plain legal suffix, but anchored to an established institutional sector rather than an emergent one.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .dao included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
crypto-native teams running or building decentralized autonomous organizations, plus web3 governance, treasury, and tooling projects that want the org form in the address itself
What a .dao domain is
.dao is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Crypto category. 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .dao domain extension real yet?
.dao 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 .dao domain?
You can’t yet. A .dao name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .dao was .llc, delegated on 22 February 2018.
Is .dao a real TLD?
Not yet. .dao is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .dao is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- 3 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
AM2619T-T27484 · Acid Medal, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-61 HMA2553-T17045 · Hangzhou Marketing Association · primary · contention set 2026-61 LFGL2683T-T17924 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-61 XL2625T-T36661 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-61
“.dao · Crypto & Web3 · “Run by code, powered by community.””Link Freedom Group
- Placed in the 30-49 band (usable but limited). The string is semantically exact for one real buyer group: projects organized as DAOs, for which name.dao could plausibly serve as a primary identity. It is not in the 50-69 band because sustained demand is doubtful over the next 5 years: the DAO organizational form is a cyclical, crypto-dependent niche, and web3 projects have historically defaulted to general-purpose TLDs or blockchain-native naming systems rather than waiting for a matching ICANN string (analogy from observed web3 naming behavior, not a verified figure). It is not in the 10-29 band because, unlike a pure vanity string, 'dao' names an actual organizational category with genuine, if small, primary-identity intent, and the three-letter string is clean and pronounceable. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the 2026 round and lists this one under 'Crypto & Web3' with the tagline 'Run by code, powered by community.', which signals a portfolio play rather than a community-anchored registry; that is stated neutrally and mildly tempers expected category-native adoption energy. A secondary confusion risk, reasoned by analogy: crypto-themed names already circulate on non-ICANN naming systems, and any overlap with a same-string alternative namespace would split mindshare. Main market uncertainty: whether the DAO form itself regrows into a durable mainstream category within 5 years or remains a contracting crypto sub-niche; the score assumes the latter.