Member Info for Rykan

Bakky, was the current management team the one touting 120k in law?

In any case, i would say that 90%+ of current investors have had their expectations ratcheted down since the gtlds 'launched' years ago. I would doubt that any investor on this board seriously expects law to reach 120k. I would guess most would be happy with 20k.

I would also assume that most here expected this year .work to drop plenty. I also doubt many thought vip would be knocking on a million by pretty much end of 1H. My point here is I doubt many long term investors are disappointed with the gTLD numbers in 1H 19.

Yes I understand, like everyone else im disappointed with the share price, all that matters etc. etc.

I just checked myname.vip on the US godaddy website and it is priced at USD6.99 for 1st year and USD19.99 thereafter.

To me that seems fairly standard pricing.

So for me, the approaching 100k godaddy sales (may or may not be in the US) haven't been "given away". Although I haven't kept a detailed record I believe a lot/majority of these have been 1H 19.

It looks to me like vip is at all time highs 937k, looks like the previous one was just under 936k

Doesn't look like much of a renewal or sales problem...

From a personal perspective details on libra the Facebook currency/coin are pretty poor. Summarising they are trying to create a traceable government friendly stable coin pegged to a basket of currencies... In any case, Libra will no doubt inch by inch bring crypto use ever closer to everyday use reality. One could make a case, in today's world where no one would want their local ccy in 10 years... But I digress.. Fact is more crypto use broadly begets more crypto use across all coins. Not that I have any idea how libra plans to have security on their coin. I do know one thing for sure though it ain't going to be through your Facebook account... From what my wife tells me hers gets hacked quite often. If it is one of these 42 (whatever the number is) security strings... I doubt everyone is going to want that... So Facebook will come up with something else. However, my point here is the launch of that coin will create demand for other coins and the benefits they offer. The use of these security strings will go up... And the benefits of luxe will be more apparent to more customers... Anyways more jam tomorrow... Bitcoin starting to create some buzz again... 10,700... Buzz enough for me to write this.

What are the chances they raise guidance? I for one am very surprised that the total number of domains is up not down. I thought .work renewals or drops would take us lower. Clearly there are differences in the individual names as we are only up i am guessing somewhere near 4 or 5%. To me total names and average revenue per name is what matters. The full price renewals from .work which were, according to some commentators given away for a cent last year... Must have added immeasurably more to the bottom line, this year compared to last. As we know, they participated in private auctions, which to me would likely be excluded from guidance. They threw the kitchen sink at last year's results putting all (one would hope) of the previous management's rubbish contract commitments in there. I'm not an accountant so I'm not 100% sure how that works going forward. These premium sales, luxe announced and Christa Taylor emails, plus supposed synergies of the new team experience, systems etc. Was that in guidance? We all know we are operating above ongoing costs so operational leverage is kicking in. Any extra dollar goes straight to the bottom line. If one thought the company was going to make USD18m this year in sales with say usd12m in costs leaving usd6m. I'm not sure how the accounting works to get to the EPS numbers, again I'm not an accountant, but just as an example. They only need to sell usd18.6m for the EPS to be 10% higher, or usd6.6m in this example. Which is a simplified example only. I just read on another message board where the directors there raise guidance at 10% above eps. 10% to me seems reasonable. The company has made a bit of a song and dance about diversifying by region and I would assume, albeit not in its entirety, from its second half year weighting on revenues. Just to be clear, I realize they need to be higher than their guidance, not last years numbers to be beating. The point I'm making is they don't need to be that far ahead to be beating guidance for EPS by more than 10%. Personally I don't see why if it's come from one of premium sales, from auction revenue or from ongoing business, or a combo why it would not need to be announced as such. A beat is a beat and it's material. Just a thought, comments welcome...

Agreed.

Also, as we all know number of names is only one input and the revenue per name is the other input. Personally I have been particularly surprised that .work and therefore the total number of domains managed is not down significantly - solely due to the expected dropping of the first year "freebie" work domains that it appears are renewing ( to some degree). The quality of the revenue from work must be improving from shitty to just poor which I'd assume, given operational leverage... Is a boon.

If we can just manage to maintain the same number of names the revenue mix/recurring revenue will have improved.

I'm no expert on the I.P. or specialist in the technical workings of how luxe works and or what defensible moat MMX has built... But...

If you buy a "cooking" or "law" or "ninja" domain name do you buy it because of its association with those topics or for crypto exchange? Even if a .com could be associated with crypto exchange would microsoft.com barclays.com etc want that name associated with crypto transfer, even if it 100% never failed etc etc? The answer to me is clear they, the buyer would not.

Even if verisign wanted .com to be operational with crypto exchange and I wanted myname.com and it worked... happy for me... But say Barclays didn't use barclays.com they used barclays.co.uk or one of their other I'm guessing 20-50 TLDs... How would that be good for them, customers sending crypto to incorrect web addresses constantly? How would it be good for them if they didn't accept crypto at all and had no ability to collect it? What about for say the local plumber, builder? The answer is clear it'd be a shambles and .com's value would likely decline at the margin because of said shambles.

In the case of the seller, xyz had conversations with Ethereum either roughly at the same time or before MMX.... Where has their crypto exchange functionality gone? Xyz from memory, was not willing to sell "words" for this purpose only I think 7 character numbers... Which again points to the same reasonings above. The sellers are trying to sell website and related services they are not selling crypto exchange and why would they blur that message and confuse and possibly create a shambles with their customer base.

A gTLD specific for this purpose is better for this purpose... I doubt there is any IP. I would guess it takes longer to do than expected, given our timeline, but yes the next would be quicker, but again why would they? That's my 2 cents

Yeah, hi bonum, I have been watching that industry for years, it does still command some attention at times. ;-)

Just for reference, Donuts service is USD 12000 for 10 years ( in some articles quoting prices), or 1200 a year. Likely higher if it's for 1 year but as a ball park. With their 242 names it's about usd5/name/year. Obviously guess work what our blocking service could cost but i would guess 150-200/year for the 4 adult names and an additional 100 IF the other names are included (the article states they are not). The article references that these services are quite popular, so we will see in 2H.

Ok thanks.

Taproot, Where did SJL suggest that he would want to see management buy shares? If so to my recollection that is a change in stance.

Why are we supposed to be concerned about vip renewals now?

On ntldstats I can see the jump in March 17 and December 17 (or thereabouts, excuse on phone). Are we looking all the way back to May 16, or 3 years ago? Just a question. If it is this would be the 4th year of payment for those domains that are renewing.

The number and frequency of the 5000 lot buys suggest someone was accumulating.

Bakky Id rather have them at Mello than not. On vip, eyeballing the ntldstats chart, to me, guessing, over half vip has gone through a 2 year billing cycle. Yes pure guess work. But names that are through 1 and 2 year renewals have higher not lower renewal rates. Droppng off a cliff was last year's problem for vip... And it did not occur. Imho Yes number of names in a single gTLD might go down, but MMX is a portfolio operator now. Average revenue per name, renewal rate and number of names is all that matter.

This is basically at 5k now.

From the final results this had nothing to do with the bitcoin integration with luxe which I guessed at originally... thinking bitcoin holders might be buying names ahead of the integration, but it appears it is current Ethereum holders.

Just as a reminder. -

"We are also watching .luxe developments in China with much interest as limited testing programmes for activating existing Ethereum users by our partners are now being undertaken which has already resulted in some 2000 new activations in recent weeks. Separately, a direct outreach programme to introduce .luxe to SME's is also being piloted in the Beijing area. Importantly, the Company has additionally identified its development partner for the integration of .luxe into its third crypto blockchain, EOS, and expects this integration, along with the Bitcoin integration announced last month, to occur in H2. These roll-outs will be initially focused on the Asia market."

One would guess, that the payday for .gay and .music would of been at least USD2m in total.

Stating the obvious... but If you believe the company is going to make USD8m approx. this year from the "main" business, that number is now (at least or approx.) +usd2m to USD10m.

Personally, i’m not one for following the individual gTLD performance numbers, as I believe we are now a portfolio operator and total number of names, average revenue per name and renewal rates are what matters (to me).

However...

Luxe has added over 1400 names in March after adding 742 for the previous 3 months. The company issued the trading update on 5th of March which included the information on the “bitcoin integration into luxe” paragraph. So who knows maybe it is connected.

4300 names is still disappointing, But getting close to the 30k names that some here, myself included, would of been happy with after 1 year might have a chance of being a reality. As always only time will tell...

SB

I had neglected, the USD3m restricted.

I guess that just pushes my previous hoped for dividends to USD3m for 2018 with USD3m every half year going forward or USD6m for 2019.

I guess that puts the 2018 dividend closer to your original 0.1p to 0.15p / share.

ATB

Hi bakky I fully understand the pessimism. On revenues covering all outgoing costs, surely this year we have visibility on that. Most here reasonably expect profits this year comfortably exceeding overheads. Yes I know what you mean by renewals but I'd make the same suggestion there. In my opinion the bigger issue is, if the directors don't have confidence in the business' ability to cover costs with renewals and or deliver profits in 19, after executing their much maligned takeover and turnaround plan - and they don't announce a dividend of whatever size, why should private investors? Especially when they have usd9m in the bank? As I've stated I'd prefer they were aggressively confident.

Donury

SB is suggesting a dividend of GBP920k not GBP92m as per your figures. He has specified fractions of pence not pounds.

I am more hopeful than most here that a dividend will be announced. To me, that is good news as if it is announced it should provide some lift to sentiment.

Personally I would be disappointed with a paltry GBP920k dividend when the company has USD9m+ in the bank. To me the company would have to explain what it was going to do with that cash. It is my belief that no private investor wants the answer to that to be further takeovers.

SJL has a preference for dividends, has let that be known here and i'm sure has let the board know.

As before I am hopeful of USD3m special dividend or( or buyback policy) + USD3m FY dividend, in line with expected USD3m half yearly plus USD3m full year in 2019. Dividends to be progressive based of annual performance. The only reason I would do it like that is to make it obvious its USD6m/year progressive going forward.

Maybe I am overly optimistic, but I do not see what else I would prefer for them to do with cash.

Clearly I think dividend will be announced. What else could the board do to change sentiment?