.round
Is .round a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .round in its own right, as of 8 October 2026. Identity Digital named .round as the backup string of four of its applications: .gen, .api, .flow and .core.
A playful word ending for funding, golf or games names; memorable hacks, but few serious projects would make it their main address.
startup founders and fund platforms wanting a fundraising-themed name (seed.round, next.round), plus golf, gaming and hospitality projects after a wordplay address
Nobody has applied for .round in its own right.
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a short, polysemous everyday word with no owning industry or community, where the registry's only path to revenue is open sale to anyone who can complete a phrase with it, not a vertical that would adopt it as primary identity.
Same bet of a plain common noun whose meaning is shape-plus-social and therefore belongs to no buyer in particular, so it has to win on word-play and phrase construction rather than on any registrant class needing it.
Same bet as a contest-stage word that doubles as a general adjective: broadly understood, usable as a suffix in a phrase, but with no profession, industry, or brand that would put its primary identity on it.
What a .round domain is
.round is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. Nobody has applied for .round in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .round domain extension real yet?
.round is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .round domain?
You can’t yet. A .round name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .round was .zone, delegated on 14 January 2014.
Is .round a real TLD?
Not yet. .round is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .round as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“HS2699T-T16924 · Heir Superiority, LLC · replacement string of .core HS2699T-T24843 · Heir Superiority, LLC · replacement string of .flow HS2699T-T32762 · Heir Superiority, LLC · replacement string of .gen HS2699T-T83167 · Heir Superiority, LLC · replacement string of .api”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow). The string is a common English word whose strongest meaning as a web address is the funding-round sense (seed.round, series-a.round, next.round), with secondary pulls from golf (a round), drinks, music and game rounds. These are suffix-style domain hacks rather than a category name, so a buyer must explain the choice, and the word does not describe what a site is in the way a category TLD does. Not the band above (30-49) because, by analogy with other single-word noun TLDs from the 2012 round that lacked a clear category (flagged as analogy), such strings tend to see shallow, hack-driven registration rather than volume or price-led demand, and the aftermarket for them is thin; nothing in the verified facts suggests a community or vertical rallying around it. Not the band below (1-9) because there is a realistic, if small, market: fundraising tools, investor networks, golf courses and gaming projects can build memorable names on it, and a general-purpose registry operator applying for it (Identity Digital, recorded as a standard, non-brand application and a replacement string of .core) implies ordinary open availability through mainstream channels. Main market uncertainty: whether the startup-fundraising reading becomes a recognised naming convention among founders and capital platforms within five years; if it does, demand would be sustained enough to justify the limited band rather than event-driven wordplay. Specific registration figures, prices and comparable TLD volumes are unknown here and are not asserted.