.signal
Is .signal a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .signal in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Radix named .signal as a backup string for its .stack application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. NextGEN TLDs GmbH named .signal as a backup string for its .share application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A clean tech-and-trading word a few projects would adopt, but demand looks thin and the name needs explaining.
developers, analytics and telecom startups, and trading or crypto "signals" services who want a short English-word suffix; secondarily domain investors speculating on a generic word
No applications recorded for this TLD yet.
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .share application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .stack application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup
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 short, abstract, tech-adjacent common noun with no native registrant class that must own it, so it has to be sold on connotation and keyword appeal to buyers across many sectors rather than to a self-identifying industry.
Also a single everyday noun with no vertical behind it, monetized as a general-purpose brandable namespace whose success depends on second-level phrase value rather than on any community adopting it as its own name.
Another short connective/communications word that reads as infrastructure vocabulary but defines no business category, so the same thing has to be true for it to work: generic word appeal strong enough to pull registrants who have no obligation to be there.
What a .signal domain is
.signal is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. Nobody has applied for .signal in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .signal domain extension real yet?
.signal is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .signal domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .signal name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .signal was .data, delegated on 20 December 2016.
Is .signal a real TLD?
Not yet. .signal is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .signal as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“NTG2671T-T12150 · NextGEN TLDs GmbH · replacement string of .share · Deactivated RTIS2674T-T41439 · Radix Technologies Inc SEZC · replacement string of .stack · Deactivated”ICANN
“NTG2671T-T97122 · NextGEN TLDs GmbH · primary”ICANN
“Radix has applied for these TLDs; we do not own or operate them today.”Radix
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a real English word with live meaning in several markets: communications and telecom, signal processing and data (the 'signal vs noise' framing that analytics and AI tooling lean on), reactive-programming primitives in developer tooling, and paid trading or crypto 'signals' services. That breadth is why it is not in the 10-29 band: a serious product could plausibly carry x.signal as its primary identity, in the way generic-word technology strings from the earlier round found genuine primary-identity use (inference from analogy to strings like .network, .systems and .digital). It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no evidence of sustained demand for the string itself: the two applications on the record were both filed as replacement strings for other primaries and both are deactivated (stated neutrally, from the record), and the most reliable paying segment, trading-signal and crypto-signal vendors, is a thin, churn-prone market that drives registration volume more than brand strength. The word also carries a strong association with an existing messaging brand of the same name, which is from general knowledge rather than the record; that association could lift or constrain open use depending on how it plays out, and it makes a pure consumer-brand positioning harder. Main market uncertainty: whether 'signal' reads naturally as a suffix after the dot (x.signal) or only as a prefix (signal.x); if it only works as a prefix, primary-identity use collapses toward speculation and the score sits at the low end of the band. Aftermarket outlook over the next five years is thin, with occasional keyword sales around trading, data and telecom terms (analogy to niche generic-word strings).