.hodl
Is .hodl a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .hodl in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Link Freedom Group named .hodl as the backup string of its .all application.
Nobody has applied for .hodl in its own right.
Will names sell?
A crypto in-joke as a web address: fun for fan sites and meme projects, but serious crypto businesses will brand elsewhere.
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. .hodl’s closest 2012 strings hold .lol 1.13M, .wtf 40K and .hiphop 1K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .lol, held 1,126,763 names, June 2026. .wtf held 40,448; .hiphop held 1,313. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a piece of native internet slang with no dictionary category meaning, whose entire value rests on in-group recognition of the joke and on people being willing to hang an identity on an expression rather than a noun.
Also an internet-born expression sold as attitude rather than category, monetized by a registry betting that subcultural vernacular converts into registrations, though it is a general-web exclamation rather than the creed of one specific tribe.
The community-affiliation half of the bet: a subculture's own vocabulary offered to insiders as a membership badge, with the same dependency that the culture's members care enough to move their primary identity onto it.
crypto enthusiasts, meme-coin communities, and personal portfolio or fan sites who want to signal insider culture; occasional defensive buys by exchanges and wallet brands
What a .hodl domain is
.hodl is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Crypto category. Nobody has applied for .hodl in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .hodl domain extension real yet?
.hodl is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .hodl domain?
You can’t yet. A .hodl 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 .hodl was .lol, delegated on 2 May 2015.
Is .hodl a real TLD?
Not yet. .hodl is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .hodl as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now replacementICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T66192 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .all”ICANN
“.hodl · Crypto & Web3 · “Hold tight, stay strong.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string is a crypto-culture slang term, a slogan rather than a category noun, so its natural use is expressive: meme pages, community sites, personal holdings trackers, promotional microsites tied to market cycles. It is not in the 30-49 band because, by analogy with other slang or joke-flavored strings, demand tends to arrive in bursts around hype events and decay between them, and the string does not describe a product category that a business would adopt as its lasting primary identity; serious crypto projects reason from analogy toward category-noun or neutral endings instead. It is not in the 1-9 band because the term has genuine, durable recognition inside crypto culture, and by analogy meme-adjacent endings do attract real paid registrations and a thin but nonzero aftermarket for the handful of premium words that pair well with the slang (coin names, tickers, exchange brands). Specific registration or sales figures for comparable strings: unknown; the volume judgment here is qualitative analogy. Applicant context, stated neutrally from the verified facts: the string was announced by Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its list ahead of Reveal Day; a large-portfolio applicant suggests standard registrar-channel distribution rather than a community-led launch, which for a culture string like this neither guarantees nor blocks uptake. Main market uncertainty (assuming delegation and availability): whether crypto-native buyers still treat this particular slang term as current identity-worthy culture five years out, or whether it reads as dated, which would compress demand to novelty registrations at low price points.