.punk
Is .punk a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.punk is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Endpoint Domains, Inc..
A memorable subculture name for punk music, fashion and crypto-art projects, but few will make it their main web identity.
punk and DIY music scenes, streetwear and zine makers, cyberpunk gaming communities and crypto-art collectors who want an attitude-laden second address
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.
Identical bet: a music-genre word that functions as a subculture's self-label, sold to scene members, bands and small shops who already wear the word as identity rather than to any company that owns it.
Also a community's own name for itself rather than a product category, so it rises or falls on whether an in-group feels enough ownership of the word to move its primary identity onto it — though its population is far larger and less scene-bound than punk's.
Same identity-label bet where the string's value is belonging rather than commerce, but it carries a mainstream advocacy and commercial buyer base that a narrow music subculture has no equivalent of.
What a .punk domain is
.punk is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .punk domain extension real yet?
.punk 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 .punk domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .punk name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .punk was .hiphop, delegated on 15 May 2014.
Is .punk a real TLD?
Not yet. .punk is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .punk is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Endpoint Domains, Inc. · first recordedICANN
“EDI2665T-T86695 · Endpoint Domains, Inc. · replacement string of .central · Deactivated XL2625T-T57527 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .hub · Deactivated”ICANN
“Each of these is a primary application. Plus additional applications to be revealed.”Endpoint Domains, Inc.
“The company says the applications are fully paid.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string is a word with strong cultural charge and several overlapping audiences: punk music and DIY scenes, punk-inflected fashion and streetwear, the cyberpunk/steampunk aesthetic in games and fiction, and the crypto-art crowd for whom 'punk' has become shorthand for a well-known collectible class. That gives it more identifiable pull than a generic adjective string, and it rules out the 1-9 band: there is a realistic audience that would register names, and a plausible launch spike from collectors and fans. It is not in the 30-49 band because registrations at volume or on price are unlikely (inference from analogy: lifestyle and attitude strings such as .rocks, .ninja, .cool, .wtf and .lol have in my experience drawn hobby, redirect and vanity use rather than becoming the primary identity of serious projects, and their aftermarkets stayed thin outside a handful of short or numeric names). Primary-identity use for .punk is likely confined to bands, labels, fan sites and side projects; a label or brand with commercial ambition would still anchor on a conventional namespace. The crypto adjacency is the one place an aftermarket could form, but demand of that kind tends to be event-driven and to fade with the underlying collectible cycle (analogy, flagged). Applicant facts, stated neutrally from the record: one confirmed standard application by Endpoint Domains, Inc. (ICANN ID EDI2665T-T94614), with the same applicant's .extra application recorded as a replacement naming .punk as primary; contention count on the record is 1. A single-applicant standard application informs adoption likelihood only in that there is no sign of a community or brand gating model on the record. Main market uncertainty: whether the crypto-collectible crossover produces sustained paid demand for short and numeric .punk names, or only a launch-window spike followed by weak renewals. Registration counts, pricing and renewal rates for this or analogous strings are unknown to me under the rules here.