.mvp
Is .mvp a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.mvp is contested: 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are GoDaddy Registry, ShortDot, Suffix and Link Freedom Group. Intercap named .mvp as a backup string for its .gaming 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 four already run TLDs, 11.77M names between them. Link Freedom Group and Suffix run none.
Will names sell?
A catchy label for startup prototypes and sports fan pages, but few serious projects would keep .mvp as their permanent home address.
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. .mvp’s closest 2012 strings hold .ceo 10K, .mba 5K and .fyi 71K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .ceo, held 10,000 names, June 2026. .mba held 5,366; .fyi held 71,480. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Both bet on a short business-vocabulary acronym sold as a status badge people pay to claim, not as an address a defined registrant class must occupy.
Same bet on an unowned professional-jargon initialism that is instantly legible inside one vocabulary and inert outside it, with no captive class of registrants.
Both monetize a widely recognized three-letter initialism on brevity and phrase value for an undefined broad crowd, rather than on a category, profession, or community anchoring its identity there.
Where they meet elsewhere
Link Freedom Group and GoDaddy Registry face each other in 32 contests this round, .mvp included.
- Link Freedom Group × GoDaddy Registry
- Link Freedom Group × Intercap
- Link Freedom Group × ShortDot
- GoDaddy Registry × Intercap
- GoDaddy Registry × ShortDot
startup builders shipping prototype or pre-launch sites, plus sports and esports fan communities riffing on 'most valuable player'; agencies and hackathon teams as a secondary volume base
What a .mvp domain is
.mvp is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .mvp domain extension real yet?
.mvp 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 .mvp domain?
You can’t yet. A .mvp 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 .mvp was .ceo, delegated on 28 December 2013.
Is .mvp a real TLD?
Not yet. .mvp is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .mvp is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- GoDaddy Registry · first recordedICANN
- 3 applicants · now confirmedICANN
- ShortDot · now announced
- ShortDot · first recordedShortDot (Ireland) Limited
- Suffix · now announced
- Suffix · first recordedSuffix Inc.
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 5 linesHide the lines
IRI2679T-T68212 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .gaming · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T96989 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-161 NA2626T-T59293 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · primary · contention set 2026-161 NA2631T-T90207 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-161 SI2639T-T61176 · Suffix Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-161
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
LFGL2683T-T96989 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-161 NA2626T-T59293 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · primary · contention set 2026-161 NA2631T-T90207 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-161 SI2639T-T61176 · Suffix Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-161
“ShortDot (Ireland) Limited has submitted 40 applications to ICANN's 2026 New gTLD Program. The 80 strings shown include applied-for and designated replacement strings across ShortDot's 40 ICANN applications, presented without revealing their status or pairing.”ShortDot (Ireland) Limited
“Catalog lists: .asap .create .future .lfg .mvp .out .pal .planet .research .share .tag .this .visit”Suffix Inc.
“.mvp · Culture · “Start small, dream big.””Link Freedom Group
- Band: usable but limited (30-49). The string carries two genuine meanings, 'minimum viable product' in startup culture and 'most valuable player' in sports, which broadens casual appeal but muddies the brand signal a registrant sends. By analogy (flagged as such), short slang and identity-adjacent TLDs like .guru or .ninja saw early registration bursts that faded into low renewal-quality bases, while the acronym TLDs that became category standards tended to have an ecosystem sponsor pushing them into daily tooling; .mvp has no such natural workflow hook, and an MVP is by definition a temporary phase, so the end-use case argues for disposable project pages rather than durable primary identities. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no visible sustained demand or convention of serious primary-identity use to point to, and adoption would need explaining in both of its meanings. It is not in the 10-29 band because the startup-prototype use case is a real, recurring, global activity that can plausibly drive price-driven registration volume and occasional clever brand uses, which is more than joke or event-driven demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the startup ecosystem treats 'name.mvp' as a fun convention for launch pages (which would lift volume and a thin aftermarket) or ignores it entirely because prototypes default to free subdomains on hosting platforms. Applicant facts are stated neutrally: LFG filed a broad portfolio of strings and lists this one under 'Culture' with the tagline 'Start small, dream big.', signaling a consumer/culture positioning rather than a developer-tooling push, which slightly weakens the tech-side adoption path.