We’re pleased to announce that the first Applicant Auction has come to a successful finish! As of this morning, the winners are now the only remaining applicants for the six contested strings:

.club—.CLUB Domains
.college—XYZ.COM
.luxury—Luxury Partners
.photography—Donuts
.red—Afilias
.vote—Monolith Registry

The winning prices totalled $9.01 million, which we have distributed to the other applicants after confirming that their ICANN applications have been withdrawn.

The auction resolved contention among nine entities—Afilias, .CLUB Domains, Covered TLD, Donuts, Luxury Partners, Monolith Registry, Merchant Law Group, Top Level Design LLC, and XYZ.com—including a three-way contest for .club.

This is an important milestone for us at Innovative Auctions that we’re proud to share with the CircleID community. In completing the auction, we have confirmed that this auction model was a transparent, reliable way of settling contention between applicants. All of the winners are now on track to receive ICANN approval for ownership of the domains, and the other participants have received pay outs upon withdrawal of their applications.

As promised, everything was transparent and predictable. All participants agreed that the results were fair—in fact, all of the participants from this auction who have additional strings in contention have signed on to use the process to resolve their remaining contentions. We’re looking forward to helping these and other applicants resolve contention in the upcoming auctions.

Currently, we have the next auction scheduled for August 13, and we’re excited about the growing number of participants. If you’d like to participate, please reach out! We are also open to holding auctions on earlier dates, if applicants require them. Either way, drop us an email at [email protected], and we’d be happy to discuss.