.hydro
Is .hydro a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .hydro, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A narrow energy-niche ending: hydro and hydroponics businesses may register it, but few serious brands would make it their main address.
hydropower and renewable-energy operators, hydrogen and water-tech startups, and hydroponics retailers wanting a themed address; in some regions "hydro" also reads as the local word for the electric utility
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “Power generated from falling and flowing water.”
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 exactly: a single energy-source category word sold as the primary identity for every firm in one power vertical, betting that an industry big enough to self-identify by its generation method will pay to sit under its own noun.
Same buyer set and same generic-industry-noun logic, but it is the parent category rather than a single-source sub-category, so it carries broader (and vaguer) registrant appeal than a source-specific string.
Structurally the same wager on a clipped Greek combining form that has graduated into a standalone word, and it shares hydro's ambiguity problem — the string means several unrelated things (bio/organic vs. hydropower/hydrogen/hydroponics), so the registry has to pick which meaning it is selling.
What a .hydro domain is
.hydro is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Infrastructure. Nobody is chasing .hydro today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .hydro domain extension real yet?
.hydro 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 .hydro domain?
You can’t yet. A .hydro 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 .hydro was .solar, delegated on 28 December 2013.
Is .hydro a real TLD?
Not yet. .hydro is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .hydro and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.hydro · Energy & Mobility · “Power generated from falling and flowing water.””Journey To The West Corporation
- Placed in the 10-29 band (vanity/narrow) at the top end. By analogy, existing energy-sector TLDs such as .energy and .solar have seen only modest uptake and thin aftermarkets despite covering broader categories than a single generation source, so a sub-niche string like .hydro is unlikely to do better (analogy, no figures asserted). The natural buyers — hydropower utilities — are large incumbents with entrenched brands and little incentive to move primary identity to a new TLD; secondary demand from hydroponics shops and hydrogen/water-tech startups is real but small and mostly defensive or campaign-level, which is why it does not reach the 30-49 band's volume-or-price registration profile. It clears the 1-9 band because a genuine, if small, buyer set exists across energy, water tech, and hydroponics. Main market uncertainty: whether the hydrogen economy adopts 'hydro' as consumer-facing shorthand over the next 5 years, which would meaningfully widen the buyer pool. Applicant facts: submitted by Journey To The West Corporation (Beijing) in the ICANN 2026 round as part of a published portfolio of 323 strings, cataloged under 'Energy & Mobility'; a large-portfolio applicant suggests standard open registration rather than a single anchor adopter, informing adoption likelihood only.