A bunch of emoji .y.at domains just sold for $30,000+ and I’m confused

Okay, so I’m not purposely trying to become the anti-emoji domain guy. Just to be clear, I love emojis, I use them in my text messages, in my WhatsApp messages, in my emails, emojis are my jam. But as a normal(ish) consumer/person I am yet to find myself visiting an emoji website.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that emoji domains couldn’t take off, but I’m honestly not even seeing a hint of it forming. To see if maybe it was just me I talked to a few difference family members all in the 13 – 19 year old range, and all of them said they had never visited or even heard of an emoji domain name.

In fact, funny enough, the one common theme I heard from everyone I spoke to was how often they find themselves on .IO, .CO and other non .COM domains. But I digress, so back to the topic of this post.

Destiny emoji domain auction

A bunch of emoji domains sold…but not just any emoji domains, emoji domains that end in the subdomain y, in the domain extension .at 😜  And the prices, as you’ll see above, are just bonkers. Someone paid $200,000 for the rocket ship emoji, followed by the moon, in .y.at.

I know what you’re thinking, Morgan has decided to extend April Fool’s by five days. Think again, you can check it all out here.

So what the actual f&$# is going on here? Well there’s a bit more to this story, here’s the scoop:

On Friday, April 2nd at 5:45 PM EDT, an event nearly as rare as a visit by Halley’s Comet will occur: Yat 💯 Destiny, the first ever Yat auction. At this extraordinary event, 18 of the most iconic and valuable Generation Zero Yats that will ever exist will be auctioned off to holders of magical Prism Keys.

Everyone in the Yat community and beyond is invited to join us for this historic event. But only those who hold Prism Keys at the time of the event will be able to bid on these very special Yats.

Prism Keys are made of the legendary Hippogriff’s feathers and fur and therefore are truly wondrous artifacts. When a holder chooses to unseal their Prism Key after the 5th April sunrise, it will morph into two very special Generation Zero Yats valued far beyond the price paid for the Prism Key itself.

Only 500 Prism Keys will ever exist for this very special event.(Source – Destiny.y.at)

So as you can see, there’s a bit more to this story, but it’s also all just a story. If you think Prism Keys made of the legendary Hippogriff’s feathers and fur are going to be worth a fortune in the future, have at it. For me, I think it’s a bunch of marketing fluff, sorry – but this is just too crazy for me, and I’m a big believer in crypto and am bullish on a lot more than just BTC and ETH.

If anyone from Destiny.y.at wants to share more, I’m definitely willing to hop on a Zoom, have a chat, and do a deeper dive. But at first glance, I think people who are spending $200k on a rocket and moon emoji on .y.at could have done a lot better putting that money into a one-word .COM they could sell for $500k+ but that’s just my two cents.

What do you think? Comment and let your voice be heard!

🙏  Special thanks to @NamesakeMark for tipping me off that this crazy auction happened!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton