The fate of .io domain is uncertain? 16% of Web3 companies are using .io

Author: Karen, Foresight News

The historic moment of the UK relinquishing sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory's Chagos Islands and transferring it to Mauritius marks the end of British colonialism in Africa, while also sparking widespread discussion about the future of the highly anticipated .io top-level domain.

What Happened?

Amid increasing geopolitical competition, on October 3, the UK and Mauritius issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached a historic political agreement regarding the exercise of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. According to the terms of the treaty, the UK will agree to Mauritius's sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, including the Diego Garcia Islands (home to a US-UK military base). Although the agreement is pending final treaty confirmation, both parties have committed to completing the relevant procedures as soon as possible.

However, as the UK transfers sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the future of the .io top-level domain has also become uncertain. This change could have profound implications for many websites that hold .io domain names. The .io ccTLD was originally allocated to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and is managed by a UK private company, Internet Computer Bureau (ICB), which is currently owned by the US company Identity Digital.

The ".io" top-level domain derives from the abbreviation IO in the English term British Indian Ocean Territory, representing the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the British Indian Ocean Territory in the Internet domain name system. The .io domain extension has existed since 1997, with the first registered .io domain being levi.io, registered by the clothing company Levi's in 1998. According to a 2014 report by The Independent, "The UK government receives a portion of the profits from the sale of internet domain names from the Indian Ocean Chagos Islands. Under the terms of the agreement with ICB, the UK government receives an undisclosed share of the £60 fee for each activated .io domain name. Paul Kane, the founder of ICB and an internet infrastructure expert, also confirmed that the UK government has received part of the fees paid for the use of the '.io' domain name."

Historically, ccTLDs Have Been Removed Five Times

The future of ".io" will largely be determined directly by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). However, it is important to note that ".io" is a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), where political considerations take precedence over technical and commercial factors.

As mentioned, ICANN is a non-profit organization based in California, established on September 30, 1998, to take over various internet-related tasks, including the management of domain names and IP address allocation. According to Domain Incite, since ICANN's establishment in 1998, ccTLDs have only been removed from the DNS root five times. With one exception, all removals were triggered by changes to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list of international standards.

1. ".yu" was originally the ccTLD for Yugoslavia in the internet domain name system. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1992 due to civil war, but after the remaining union of Serbia and Montenegro dissolved in 2006, ".yu" stopped accepting new registrations in March 2008, although it was not officially removed from the DNS root until 2010.

2. ".tp" was the ccTLD for the Portuguese Timor, officially activated in 1997 when the country was still under Indonesian occupation. After gaining independence in 2002 and renaming itself East Timor, the ISO assigned it a new code TL and removed TP from its list, but ".tp" was not completely removed from the DNS root until February 2015.

3. ".zr" was the ccTLD for Zaire, which later reverted to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and switched to .cd. ".zr" was officially discontinued in 2001 and was the first ccTLD to be removed by IANA.

4. ".an" was the ccTLD assigned to the Netherlands Antilles. After the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, Curaçao adopted the .cw domain, Sint Maarten adopted the .sx domain, and Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba received the .bq domain, leading to the removal of AN from the ISO list. The ".an" domain completely ceased to be used in 2015.

5. ".um" was the ccTLD for the United States Minor Outlying Islands but was not in use. In 2007, ICANN removed the .um domain from the main list of domain names.

However, it is worth noting that ".su" is an exception; the ccTLD ".su" was allocated to the former Soviet Union and was activated on September 19, 1990. Although the Soviet Union has since dissolved, the domain is still available for use.

What Lies Ahead for ".io"?

According to the ccTLD deactivation policy, the eligibility of a ccTLD is determined by the relevant country or region assigned under the ISO 3166-1 standard. When a country or region is removed from that standard, its eligibility expires, and it must cease use after an orderly transition period. By default, ccTLDs will be deleted after five years. The ccTLD administrator can apply for an extension, but must provide appropriate justification. Extensions can be granted for a maximum of 5 additional years, making the longest possible period before formal removal 10 years. Of course, ccTLD administrators can choose to deactivate the domain name earlier.

If it is determined that the eligibility of a ccTLD has changed, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) will notify the ccTLD administrator of its intention to issue a deactivation notice at the time of the decision to deactivate. The ccTLD administrator will have the opportunity to designate an alternative contact to handle notifications related to the deactivation.

As Domain Incite notes, for .io, the core concern for .io domain registrants is whether the newly named British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) can retain its IO allocation on the ISO list and whether the archipelago still possesses the unique territorial qualifications to obtain ccTLD status. If BIOT exists solely as part of Mauritius and is no longer recognized by the United Nations as an independent territory, the survival of .io domains will face significant challenges and may be removed. Conversely, if BIOT maintains its independent territory and retains eligibility for ccTLD, the situation will become more complex. Of course, there is also the possibility that ".io" could follow the path of ".su," but this probability is relatively low.

Which Crypto Companies Use .io?

In computer science, "IO" is often used as an abbreviation for "I/O" (Input/Output), making .io domains inherently suitable for technology-related services. Coupled with their simplicity, this top-level domain is highly favored by tech startups and software companies, with many projects in the Crypto space also utilizing it. Additionally, .io domains are the preferred choice for video game projects, as "io" represents browser-based multiplayer games in gaming terminology.

According to NetEase's "World of Technology," "Glitch and GitHub Pages both use .io domains for user-created websites and applications, and the Itch.io game store also utilizes this domain. The domain has generated nearly $40 million, suggesting that over a million .io domains have been registered." Notably, in 2021, the domain "Metaverse.io" was sold for 1.14 million yuan, making it the highest publicly recorded sale price for a .io domain.

Among the approximately 20,000 Web3 companies and projects listed in Foresight Wiki, nearly 16% use .io domains, including but not limited to Matter Labs, ZKsync, Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, Sei, Damus, CoinFund, Scallop, Mask Network, TrueFi, Raydium, DODO, and others. It is worth mentioning that Gate.io uses the name with the main domain as its brand name.