Kris Marszalek, the founder and CEO of the prominent cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, has made headlines with his recent acquisition of ai.com for an astonishing $70 million, marking it as the highest publicly disclosed price ever paid for a website domain. This significant purchase highlights Marszalek’s strategic pivot towards the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence, an industry projected to reach close to $1.5 trillion in global expenditures by 2025, as reported by Gartner.
The momentum in the AI sector is set to escalate further this year, especially as major U.S. tech giants, namely Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, plan to collectively invest $650 billion in AI infrastructure within the same timeframe. The transaction for ai.com, which was finalized in April 2025, was unique as it was executed entirely using cryptocurrency, according to insights shared by Larry Fischer of GetYourDomain.com, the broker of the deal. This groundbreaking sale eclipsed the previous record of $30 million set by Block.one in 2019 for the purchase of Voice.com.
Marszalek’s transition into the AI arena follows his earlier investment of $12 million in acquiring Crypto.com in 2018. The newly acquired ai.com aims to roll out a consumer platform that features autonomous AI agents. These innovative agents differ from traditional chatbots, as they can perform a range of tasks on behalf of users, including trading stocks, managing calendars, and automating various workflows.
Marszalek envisions this platform as a “front door to AGI” via a decentralized network. He emphasized that we are witnessing a fundamental evolution in artificial intelligence, moving past basic chat functionalities toward a future where AI agents are capable of executing real tasks for humans. “Our vision is a decentralized network of billions of agents who self-improve and share these improvements with each other,” he stated.
The platform’s launch was accompanied by a high-profile advertisement during Super Bowl LX, which significantly increased traffic and caused the website to crash for several hours. In a post on X, Marszalek noted the “insane traffic levels” resulting from the 30-second commercial, admitting that although the team was prepared for a surge in interest, the volume they encountered was unprecedented.
