.king
Is .king a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.king is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry, Identity Digital and Oinkadot. Link Freedom Group named .king as a backup string for its .sat application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the three already run TLDs, 26.76M names between them. One runs one of .king's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .guru. Oinkadot runs none.
Will names sell?
A catchy status word that could sell in volume on price and vanity appeal, but few serious projects would make .king their primary identity.
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. .king’s closest 2012 strings hold .guru 61K, .best 54K and .vip 1.96M.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .guru, held 60,916 names, June 2026. .best held 54,475; .vip held 1,963,466. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an everyday English honorific noun sold as a self-applied status label, where the buyer is any individual or SMB willing to crown themselves the authority in their niche, and the whole value rests on the word reading as swagger rather than as a category.
Same bet in adjective form: a pure supremacy claim with no vertical of its own, monetized on the right-of-string boast ('mattress.best' / 'mattress.king') across every category at once, which means it lives or dies on generic aspirational appeal rather than on any defined registrant community.
Also a contentless status word aimed at mass-market vanity registrations, but it sells exclusivity/membership ('you are admitted') rather than dominance ('I am on top'), so the buyer's motive and the copy it enables are adjacent but not identical.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .king included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × Oinkadot
- Link Freedom Group × Oinkadot
individuals and small brands chasing a status or vanity identity — streamers, gamers, entertainers, personal-brand builders, and budget marketers, plus aftermarket speculators drawn to a short, universally understood status word.
What a .king domain is
.king is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .king domain extension real yet?
.king 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 .king domain?
You can’t yet. A .king 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 .king was .guru, delegated on 6 November 2013.
Is .king a real TLD?
Not yet. .king is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .king is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Oinkadot · now confirmedICANN
- Oinkadot · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“OI2692T-T88578 · Oinkadot Inc · primary · contention set 2026-128 VC2665T-T40556 · Vanity Check, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-128 XL2625T-T64692 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-128”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
LFGL2683T-T35145 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .sat · Deactivated OI2692T-T88578 · Oinkadot Inc · primary · contention set 2026-128 VC2665T-T40556 · Vanity Check, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-128 XL2625T-T64692 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-128
“A new partnership has applied for 25 top level domain names in this year's ICANN TLD expansion round.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
“.king · Culture · “Leading the way, every day.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49). The string is a short, globally understood status word with genuine vanity appeal, which by analogy should behave like other status-word TLDs (.vip, .win, .top): meaningful registration volume when priced aggressively, heavy speculative and defensive registration, but thin renewal-driven end use and a shallow aftermarket concentrated in a handful of premium left-of-dot matches (names of people, gaming handles, entertainment acts). That analogy-based pattern is why it sits above the vanity/joke band (10-29): the word is broad enough to support sustained low-price volume and real, if casual, use as personal-brand and gaming identities, not just event-driven novelty. It does not reach the strong-niche band (50-69) because there is no category where .king is the natural primary identity — royalty-themed commerce, gaming clans, and personal vanity are scattered use cases, not a coherent market, and a serious company choosing name.king over name.com would still need to explain the choice. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the round, which suggests a portfolio-scale operation rather than a single-string bet; how that translates into registrar distribution and marketing for this specific string is unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether the status-word connotation converts into renewal-backed end use (as .vip's pattern suggests can happen by analogy, especially in price-sensitive and Asia-Pacific retail channels) or decays into speculative churn after launch promotions end.