The Silicon Review ^Asia

The explosion of cryptocurrency in the recent years had motivated Matt Blaze, a professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania to register a domain name Crypto.com in the year 1993. The domain attracted many investors, but Blaze turned down all the offers and he repeatedly mentioned that the domain was “not for sale”. But he recently parted with it after Monaco; a crypto visa card company that bought the domain in an undisclosed deal. It is expected to be as much as $10 million deal, but Kris Marszalek, CEO of Monaco is silent about the specifics.

According to Marszalek, the deal was about finding the right home for the domain and that mattered more than money. “This is a very powerful identity that we are taking on. Its representative of the entire category so it comes with a huge responsibility on us to carry the torch,” he said.

As blockchain and cryptocurrency are trending technologies, the company’s goal is to accelerate the world’s adoption of these. The purchase of the domain is part of a rebrand for Monaco, and Crypto.com will become the parent company. Also, Monaco has launched its crypto card which is in the testing phase currently and soon, it will be launched in Singapore and Europe. At around $7 per MCO token, the commitment for a card isn’t cheap. The top of the range card ‘Obsidian Black’ requires a customer to hold around $350,000 in MCO tokens, as it provides the highest cashback and perks. But there are other types of cards to suit different budgets.