.pow
Is .pow a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.pow is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Link Freedom Group. .top (Zhongze) named .pow as a backup string for its .bit 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
One of the 2 is tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Link Freedom Group and .top (Zhongze) filed 174 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A punchy novelty ending for comic-style brands, ski culture, and proof-of-work crypto projects; fun, but seldom a serious main 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. .pow’s closest 2012 strings hold .wow 2, .lol 1.13M and .wtf 40K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .wow, held 2 names, June 2026. .lol held 1,126,763; .wtf held 40,448. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet as .pow: a three-letter onomatopoeic exclamation with no defined registrant class or category demand behind it, sold on punch and recall as an expressive open-registry string that anyone might use and no one must.
A short slang interjection carried by internet-culture currency rather than an industry or profession, bought as portfolio inventory betting that cheap expressive volume and a few playful consumer brands materialize.
Same attitude-over-vertical wager — value rests entirely on the string's cultural charge, which drives novelty and campaign registrations while making serious primary identities unlikely — though it is an initialism rather than a sound word and carries a harder edge than .pow's plural, milder slang pockets.
expressive consumer brands and creators wanting comic-book energy (POW!), ski and outdoor culture around fresh powder, and crypto projects signaling proof-of-work ethos
What a .pow domain is
.pow is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .pow domain extension real yet?
.pow 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 .pow domain?
You can’t yet. A .pow 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 .pow was .wow, delegated on 26 September 2016.
Is .pow a real TLD?
Not yet. .pow is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .pow is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- .top (Zhongze) · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“HKZI2636T-T79772 · Hong Kong Zhongze International Limited · replacement string of .bit · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T38036 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary”ICANN
“LFGL2683T-T38036 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary”ICANN
“.pow · Culture · “Earned, never given.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string carries several genuine demand pockets: the comic-onomatopoeia 'POW!' suits games, fitness, and youth-facing consumer brands; 'pow' is live slang in ski/snowboard culture for fresh powder; and 'PoW' abbreviates proof-of-work, a durable identity marker in one crypto faction, which the applicant's tagline 'Earned, never given.' appears to lean into. It sits above the 10-29 vanity band because these pockets are plural and persistent rather than single-event or purely joke-driven, and a short energetic three-letter string can plausibly anchor small primary identities in those scenes over the next 5 years. It stays below the 50-69 strong-niche band because no one pocket looks deep enough for sustained primary-identity adoption without explanation: by analogy (flagged as analogy) with expressive novelty strings like .wtf, .lol, and .fun, registrations tend to skew cheap, defensive, or campaign-length, with thin aftermarkets and weak credibility signal for serious projects. A further drag on mainstream brand use is that POW also reads as 'prisoner of war' in English, an association many marketers will likely avoid. Applicant facts are neutral context only: the string is an announced application by Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its list ahead of Reveal Day; portfolio breadth says little about per-string marketing depth either way. Main market uncertainty (launch assumed): whether the proof-of-work crypto community adopts .pow as a tribal identity badge, which is the one dynamic that could lift it toward strong-niche territory, versus the string settling into low-price novelty volume.