D3 pitches domain tokenization to Korean market via DomainFi protocol
in plain words
A company called D3 wants to turn website addresses, like .com domains, into digital assets people can buy a small piece of, trade, or borrow money against, using blockchain technology. Its co-founder Michael Ho says even AI programs and robots will eventually need their own domain name A readable internet name made of labels separated by dots. Full definition of domain name. He wants to work with Korean domain companies and KISA, South Korea's internet agency, to bring this idea to Korea.
Michael Ho, co-founder and chief business officer of domain infrastructure company D3, told Maeil Business Newspaper that domains are evolving from simple internet addresses into tradable, fractionalized real-world assets (RWA) that can also serve as loan collateral. He said this shift, which D3 calls “DomainFi,” rests on domains’ universal compatibility across browsers, devices and the shared global domain name system (DNS Domain Name System The internet's directory that links domain names to computer addresses. Full definition of DNS).
D3’s core infrastructure is the Doma protocol, which the company says has processed over 150 million dollars in cumulative payments, recorded 20 million on-chain transactions, and attracted more than 55,000 active users. Doma links traditional domains such as .com, .net and .ai to blockchain networks, enabling fractional trading and decentralized finance uses.
Ho argued that although more than 400 million domains already exist worldwide, demand could grow far larger as AI agents and robots join the roughly 8 billion humans who need names and addresses to interact online. He compared domain valuation to real estate, where identical-looking properties can carry different values depending on buyer intent, and said the same logic applies to different domain extensions and uses. He said blockchain transparency, while initially unwelcome to intermediaries who profit from opaque deals, would eventually expand the market by reducing trust costs between buyers and sellers and enabling lending markets as price data accumulates.
D3 already offers fractional ownership of , citing software.ai as an example, and highlighted a Korean project with creator “Bulgaemi” that tokenized gochujang.com, which Ho said generated 50 million dollars in decentralized trading volume and reached roughly a 1 million dollar market capitalization. D3 values on-chain domains using 25 years of historical transaction data combined with frontier AI models.
Beyond registration Obtaining the right to use a domain name for a set period. Full definition of registration fees, D3 plans to offer loans collateralized by domains. Its “Frontier” program lets participants deposit funds into on-chain vaults to earn interest and gain early access, or “land rush” priority, to new top-level domains such as .agent, .wallet, .crypto and .intelligence, extensions it expects to see surging demand from the Web3 and AI era.
Ho described D3 as a “DNS-first” company that treats existing registrar A company that registers domain names for customers with the registry. Full definition of registrar like banks or custodians holding underlying ownership. He said South Korea’s .kr domain system, registrar Gabia, and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) could technically adopt D3’s tokenization standard since the global domain system relies on the shared EPP Extensible Provisioning Protocol The protocol registrars use to manage domain names at registries. Full definition of EPP protocol. He expressed hope for partnerships with more Korean registrars and institutions.