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Lenders, Brokers Skeptical About Merchants Using Domain Names as Loan Collateral

An informal LinkedIn poll reported by deBanked finds few funders and brokers expect merchants to pledge domain names as loan collateral, even as blockchain platforms build the plumbing for it.

By Sean Mulligan

News · · Updated Oct 22, 2026 · 2 min read

Colorful globe of domain extensions such as com, org and edu resting on a keyboard key labeled domain name

Only 26% of respondents to an informal LinkedIn poll said merchants would put their business’s website domain name up as collateral, deBanked reported on September 12. Another 48% said merchants would not. The trade publication did not say how the remaining quarter of respondents answered. The poll posed the question with no context or clarification, and deBanked’s headline describes the respondents as lenders and brokers.

What the poll tells funders

The sample size and poll date were not published, so the result is a sentiment reading and nothing more. It leaves open how much merchants actually want the product.

deBanked also pointed out an overlap. Many secured loans that carry a lien on all of a business’s assets would already reach its domain names. For a funder that takes broad liens, a domain-specific product may add little beyond a faster way to hold and transfer the asset.

How the idea got here

The sequence deBanked laid out runs through the first half of 2024:

  • January. deBanked’s founder, Sean Murray, ran what the publication called the first loan against a domain name executed by smart contract on Ethereum. He tokenized a domain into an NFT, pledged it on an NFT lending marketplace and had the contract hold it in escrow, with release to the lender on default. It was a proof of concept, finished in under 20 minutes. The transaction was deBanked’s, not a market launch.
  • February. Namefi, which converts domains into NFTs by moving them to its registrar, and Teller, a peer-to-peer platform built on smart contracts, announced a partnership on February 28.
  • April. deBanked said Teller offers a collateralized loan product with terms of 1 to 30 days. Teller does not lend itself; peers fund the loans. deBanked predicted that lending against a domain would reach the market soon.
  • May. According to deBanked, a domain registrar partnered with a peer-to-peer lending site that uses blockchain technology.

Where the friction is

deBanked’s April analysis flagged two weak points. Early interest came from domain investors, whose collateral is valued on resale potential, and that value may be too small or too risky to interest a commercial funder. The more attractive asset is a domain that actively drives a business’s sales, because losing it would hurt the merchant and a funder could in theory monetize it. Liquidity is the second issue: peer-to-peer platforms have historically struggled to match capital to requests quickly.

deBanked cited 360 million registered domain names worldwide in Q3 2023 as the size of the potential pool.

What to watch

Whether any funder or broker reports actual merchant demand is the indicator that matters. Until then, domain collateral remains a technology demonstration backed by one informal poll that leans skeptical. The poll, the predictions and the proof-of-concept transaction described here are deBanked’s; this article reports them and does not claim them.

Sources

About the author

Sean Mulligan

Sean Mulligan reports on regulation, deals and lender performance across small-business funding for The Fund Scope, with a focus on what the numbers mean for funders and brokers.