The seller purchased the domain AI.com in 1993 for only $100, simply because "AI" happened to be an abbreviation of his name.
PANews reported on February 10th that, according to Malaymail, Malaysian tech entrepreneur Arsyan Ismail sold the top-level domain AI.com for a staggering $70 million (approximately RM300 million) in April 2025. The buyer was reportedly Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com. The domain had previously been listed for $100 million, making this the highest publicly disclosed domain transaction in history.
The seeds of this enormous fortune were sown 32 years ago. In 1993, 10-year-old Arsyan used his mother's credit card to register the domain name for a mere $100. He had no idea of the booming future of artificial intelligence; his reason for buying it was simply because "AI" happened to be an abbreviation of his name. This seemingly inexplicable $100 charge even puzzled his mother, who knew nothing about domain names.
As a tech veteran with over 30 years of experience, Arsyan was involved in early internet projects such as Friendster and was an early adopter of Bitcoin. Reflecting on this life-changing deal, his advice is: when negotiating with ultra-high-net-worth individuals, avoid excessive bargaining or trying to "lead" them, lest you lose the opportunity to close the deal for a small gain.
Related reading: Crypto.com spends $70 million to acquire AI.com; ERC-8004 helps build AI Agent infrastructure .
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