Digital Pawn Shop for Domains
Valuing brands is the alchemy of advanced financial theory, but now one company is valuing domains—and you can take it to the bank.
Thirty-three-year-old Rick Latona and his partner, attorney Matt Collins, may be the first ever digital pawnbrokers. Latona, in fact, was a real-world pawnbroker who now owns 11,000 domains.
The guys loan up to $100,000 for domains, for which they become the registrant of record while clients keep their DNS records, so their site is unaffected. Even cooler, they have partnered with domain appraisers to automatically extend the full value of appraisals as pawn loans.
Considering the tightness of capital markets, this novel venture really does stand out in its boldness and ingenuity. Perhaps your next new domain will be from a pawn shop. Lets just hope its not UsefulArts.
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