.mask
Is .mask a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.mask 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. Oinkadot named .mask as a backup string for its .glitch application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string.
A memorable single-word address with no clear home market; few serious projects would make .mask their main identity.
privacy-focused and Web3 identity projects, plus niche sellers of medical, beauty or costume masks who want a playful, memorable address
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .glitch application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string
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: a bare generic noun for one narrow physical-product category, open to any maker or retailer in it, whose value rests entirely on that category being large enough for sellers to hang a primary identity on the word itself.
Same shape of bet one aisle over — a single everyday consumer-product noun aimed at brands and retailers in a beauty/personal-care category, where the registry must convince an industry that already has .com identities to re-root on the product word.
Same bet as a split-sense generic: a short common noun that is simultaneously a material, a product and an idiom, so no single industry owns it and the applicant is betting the ambiguity broadens demand rather than fragmenting it.
What a .mask domain is
.mask 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 .mask domain extension real yet?
.mask 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 .mask domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .mask name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .mask was .shoes, delegated on 17 December 2013.
Is .mask a real TLD?
Not yet. .mask is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .mask is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“MNL2641T-T20944 · Mask Naming Limited · primary OI2692T-T90715 · Oinkadot Inc · replacement string of .glitch · Deactivated”ICANN
“A new partnership has applied for 25 top level domain names in this year's ICANN TLD expansion round.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string is a real English word, but its meanings pull in several directions at once: protective and medical masks, cosmetic masks, theatrical and costume masks, and, by association, privacy or anonymity tools and a crypto/Web3 identity flavour. No single one of those categories has a buyer group large enough to treat .mask as a default address, so demand is likely to be shallow and event-driven rather than sustained. The verified record shows the confirmed application is of the community type (Red Rock (Cayman) Foundation, legal name Mask Naming Limited); a community application typically implies registration restricted to a defined community, which narrows open-market adoption further and, if it serves a single project's user base, makes the namespace more like an identity handle system than a general web address. By analogy (flagged as analogy), single-word generic TLDs with a quirky or ambiguous meaning such as .ninja or .wtf gathered some registrations on novelty and price but rarely became serious primary identities, and restricted community TLDs such as .bank or .pharmacy stayed small even with a clearly defined professional buyer group. Not the 30-49 band: there is no evidence of volume demand or of a category where .mask is the natural choice, and the community restriction works against registrations-at-volume. Not the 1-9 band: the word is short, globally understood, and plausibly useful to privacy tools, anonymous-identity services, PPE or beauty retailers, so a small real market exists. Main market uncertainty: whether the community that gates registrations is a Web3 or privacy user base that would adopt name.mask as a login-style identity in numbers (which would raise end-use utility while leaving brand credibility weak), versus a narrowly defined trade community that registers a handful of names. Registration volume, eligibility rules, and pricing are unknown.