A domain name systems registry by the name of fTLD has recently announced that they will be restricting and streamlining the list of entities that are eligible for acquiring and possessing a .bank domain extension.
According to the DNS registry, the extension is being used by fintech service providers in order to increase their legitimacy and market themselves as banks rather than microfinance platforms or various other investment firms.
From here on out, the fTLD will require companies to present an actual banking license from a relevant authority in order to apply for a .bank extension. This is going to throw in a major wrench in the gears of several virtual asset management firms‘ operations as the .bank extension was sometimes the centerpiece of their marketing campaign.
However, there is still a chance for crypto firms to appeal the decision as fTLD announced a public hearing forum which will last until August 24th. It will be used to gather information about the general sentiment of the community. So far, there are less than a dozen replies all of which seem to be supporting fTLD’s decision.
In retrospect, it hardly seems like a crippling issue for crypto companies as very few of them want to market themselves as banks. There are numerous examples where a .io extension does even better than a .bank extension.
