There are claims circulating in financial circles that a man (then a boy) bought AI.com in 1993 and sold the domain for what is now a whopping $70 million. Thirty years later, this domain name turned out to be a gold mine for Malaysian entrepreneur Alisan Ismail.
The viral claim states that Ismail brought in the AI.com domain using his mother’s credit card when he was 10 years old. The AI.com domain was specifically registered on May 4, 1993. This purchase was made just five days after the World Wide Web became officially public domain.
Is there any truth to AI.com’s $70 million story?
AI.com’s viral story dating back to 1993 seems to have a lot of holes. First of all, there was very little internet connectivity in Malaysia at that time. Second, online credit card transactions did not exist because there was no CVV security feature. Credit card security codes were only introduced in 1997.
Domain name ownership in Malaysia was unheard of, even among niche audiences. To make this story even clearer, dial-up commercial internet access was launched in Malaysia in 1995. So how could a 10-year-old in Malaysia buy AI.com using his mother’s credit card two years before the internet?
In fact, in 1993, purchasing a domain name was free as long as you managed your website. The 1993 paper trail is long, and someone who brought it in for free likely lost it simply because websites in the AI.com domain were never published and would have cost money to purchase later. That’s when a company called Advanced Instruments Corporation acquired AI.com in 1996. Then it changed hands and another company, Future Media Architects, bought the domain for a certain amount of money.
So what’s the real story behind the viral claims?
Malaysian entrepreneur Alisan Ismail is not the 10-year-old boy who pocketed $70 million in the AI.com sale. In fact, he purchased the website from its previous owner in 2021 for millions of dollars. Ismail then sold it to Crypto.com for $70 million.
The FT reported that Crypto.com paid a $70 million premium to purchase the AI.com domain. “The opportunity came to me last year to acquire this field. I thought that if you look at it in the long term, 10 to 20 years,[AI]is going to be one of the biggest technology waves in our lifetime. So this would be a good investment.” Chris Marszalek, co-founder of Crypto.com, told the FT.
Additionally, Arysan Ismail’s name was only made public after GetYourDomain director Larry Fischer brokered the deal and ultimately published the seller’s name on LinkedIn.
