When I tell people I bought six TLDs for Queensland, the first reaction is usually a polite version of: “Why?”
The polite version. The actual version, sometimes, is: “Wait, you bought what for who?”
So let me explain. I bought .queensland, .qld, .brisbane, .surfersparadise, .gold-coast, and .brisbane2032. Six namespaces. All for the state of Queensland, Australia. Population: 5.46 million. World’s most beautiful coastline: arguable, but I’ll defend it.
I bought them because Queensland deserves its own permanent digital home, not a rented .com.au someone else administers. I bought them because the Brisbane 2032 Olympics is coming, and there should be a permanent onchain home for that legacy. I bought them because Queensland — its people, its businesses, its culture, its events — needs the kind of identity infrastructure nobody else is going to build for it.
Mostly, though, I bought them because I’m playing a different game than most onchain operators. They’re playing for the next pump. I’m playing for the next 30 years.
This is the difference. And once you understand it, you understand everything about queensland.foundation.
The flip game vs. the foundation game
The onchain world right now is mostly playing what I call the flip game. Buy a thing, ride it up, sell it before the other guy. Speculation as occupation. Categories as instruments. Communities as “audience.”
I’m not judging — flips have their place, and I know plenty of people who do it well. But the flip game has a ceiling. Once everyone knows you’re flipping, your edge disappears. Once the market matures, the spreads compress. Once the next narrative kicks in, the old one is dead. You can flip your way to a good year, but you can’t flip your way to a 30-year project.
A 30-year project is a different beast. It requires patience, capital efficiency, and the most dangerous trait of all: belief. Belief that the thing you’re building will still matter in 30 years, even when nobody’s talking about it in year three.
That’s what queensland.foundation is. A 30-year project, started in year one.
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
— Warren Buffett
I think about that quote almost every day at the desk. Most of what we use today — .com, .org, the DNS itself, the protocols underneath — was planted by people who didn’t get to see it become indispensable. They just built it because they thought it should exist. And it should. And here we are.
If you want to plant trees, you have to be willing to build for a horizon longer than your patience.
Why six TLDs and not one
The first question I get from operators when they see queensland.foundation is: “Why six? Why not just .queensland and call it a day?”
The answer is specificity matters. Each TLD serves a different audience, with a different intent, at a different price point.
.queensland— the canonical state TLD. For brands, government partnerships, statewide projects..qld— the local shorthand. Queenslanders abbreviate everything to QLD. Three letters, everyday-friendly, perfect for individuals..brisbane— the capital city, where the Olympics are happening, where most of the businesses live. Different audience entirely from someone in a regional area..surfersparadise— the beach city iconic enough to be its own brand. Tourism, surf culture, real estate. Not a generic name, a specific one..gold-coast— the broader Gold Coast region. Both.surfersparadiseand.gold-coastexist because they serve different audiences who’d never use the other..brisbane2032— the Olympics namespace. A 7-year project that ends with one of the biggest events Queensland has ever hosted. Permanent legacy, not a marketing campaign.
If I’d built only one TLD, I’d be forcing every Queenslander to share the same namespace, regardless of whether they’re a Brisbane lawyer, a regional farmer, or a beach shop owner. Six TLDs let every audience pick the one that fits.
This is the specificity-over-genericity principle I follow on every TLD project. The more specific your namespace is, the more it can mean to the people who claim under it.
The economics, made simple
People ask how it can possibly work at $5 for life. I’ll show you the math.
Queensland addressable population: 5.46 million people. Add hundreds of thousands of businesses, schools, orgs, clubs, plus visitors and diaspora. Total addressable: comfortably 6 million potential claimers across the state.
Conversion rate at maturity: If 1% of Queenslanders claim an address (very conservative — registration rates for state-branded TLDs in mature markets sit at 5-15%), that’s 60,000 registrations across six namespaces.
Average revenue per claim: Mix of $5 names and premium names. Realistic blended average: $25-50 per claim.
That’s a project that, at maturity, has generated $1.5M-$3M in revenue for the foundation, with no marketing budget, no team, and no annual fees ever charged to claimers.
Now run that math at 5% conversion (more realistic at maturity in 7-10 years). The numbers get serious.
But here’s the thing — the numbers aren’t the point. The point is that this is a project I can run for 30 years on a budget that allows me to keep prices at $5 forever, because the underlying TLDs don’t expire and don’t require anybody to renew anything to anyone.
This is what onchain primitives unlock. Permanent infrastructure with permanent low pricing. Try doing that on .com.au.
Why Queensland and not somewhere bigger
I know what you’re thinking. Why not .california (40M people)? Why not .texas (30M)? Why not something that doesn’t sound niche?
A few reasons:
1. Smaller is better for proof-of-concept. Queensland is large enough to matter (5.46M people is a real market) but small enough to be operable solo. If I were running .california from a one-person desk, I’d get crushed. Running .queensland is just being focused on a real, defined audience.
2. Cultural authenticity matters. A namespace built for a place needs to come from a perspective that actually understands the place — its slang, its rhythms, its people. People can smell the difference between a generic state namespace and one that’s been built with care. Queenslanders, in particular, are good at smelling it.
3. Brisbane 2032 is happening. Brisbane is hosting the 2032 Summer Olympics. That’s seven years of build-up, three years of intense activity, and decades of legacy. .brisbane2032 is a TLD with a built-in narrative arc, a built-in audience, a built-in time horizon. It’s also a TLD that, if I waited, somebody else would have grabbed. That’s why I bought it years before most people will even start thinking about it.
4. The competition is asleep. No serious operator has positioned for state-level Australian TLDs onchain yet. That’s an unfair-advantage window. Windows like that close fast once the first mover proves the model.
What running a TLD project actually looks like
People assume that running a TLD project is glamorous or technical or both. It’s mostly neither.
Most days look like this:
- Replying to claim inquiries (people who want a specific name, want to know if it’s available, want to negotiate)
- Updating documentation when policies evolve
- Building integrations with wallets and resolvers so claimed names actually work
- Writing announcements for new namespace launches
- Talking to journalists, podcasters, and community leaders about why this exists
- Watching for bad actors trying to claim names they shouldn’t (trademarks, government names, etc.)
- Operating the website, the storefront, the email flows
- Bookkeeping. Always bookkeeping.
It’s slow, methodical, customer-service-oriented work. The kind of work that’s bad for Twitter content but good for compounding. The kind of work that, in year five, has produced something that looks effortless but isn’t.
I love it. I wouldn’t trade it for a flashier portfolio.
What success looks like in 5 years
Here’s the metric I care about: in five years, when someone introduces themselves at a Queensland event, will they say their address out loud as tom.qld or sarah.brisbane or jamie.surfersparadise?
If yes, it worked.
That’s it. That’s the whole goal. Not market cap. Not floor price. Not “TVL.” Cultural adoption. The moment a Queenslander introduces themselves to another Queenslander using a queensland.foundation address without thinking about it, the project is real.
Everything between now and that moment is just operations.
What I’d tell other operators thinking about state/city TLDs
If you’re reading this and thinking “hmm, my city/state/region also deserves this,” you might be right. But here are the questions to ask first:
1. Do you understand the place? Not “have read about it.” Currently engaged with it, daily. If yes, you have an unfair advantage. If no, you don’t, and someone with deeper roots will eventually out-compete you.
2. Is the population large enough to matter but small enough to operate solo? Rough numbers: 1-15M people is the sweet spot. Below 1M and the math gets hard. Above 15M and you can’t operate it alone.
3. Are there 3-7 namespaces that make sense, or just one? State-level usually means multiple specific namespaces (state, abbreviation, capital, key cities). City-level is usually 1-2.
4. Is there an upcoming event that gives you a narrative arc? Olympics, World Cup, major anniversary, new infrastructure project. These are gifts. They give your project a built-in deadline and a built-in audience.
5. Are you willing to do this for 30 years? Honestly. If the answer is “I’d love to but I’d flip it in 18 months if a serious offer came in,” don’t do it. The project deserves an operator who’s actually committed.
The state of queensland.foundation today
As of writing, here’s where we are:
- 6 namespaces live and accepting claims
- From $5 entry point, no annual fees, ever
- Brisbane 2032 partnership conversations ongoing (early days, but promising)
- Local press coverage picking up in QLD-specific publications
- Daily claims trending up quarter over quarter
- Operating cost structure that allows us to keep prices low forever
The project is profitable, sustainable, and just getting started. Most of the work that matters hasn’t happened yet. The trees are planted. Now we wait for the shade.
How the local community is responding
I want to be honest about reception, because building a project like this is as much about cultural fit as it is about technology.
The early adopters have been exactly who I expected: tech-curious Queenslanders, crypto-native locals, and people who already had ENS names and saw the leap to a state-specific TLD as natural. This crowd claimed within the first 6 months. They’re loyal, they’re vocal, they’re the seed.
The skeptics have been a productive surprise. A lot of established Queensland businesses and orgs have asked good, hard questions: “What happens if Freename goes away?” “Who controls this?” “What’s stopping someone from squatting on our brand name?” Each of these conversations is worth having. The answers are: nothing happens to claimed addresses (they’re onchain), the operator does (transparently), and there’s a brand-protection process for trademark holders. Each conversation has converted some skeptics into believers, and importantly, it’s helped articulate why this matters in language that resonates.
The mainstream Queenslander has not heard of queensland.foundation yet. And that’s fine. That’s expected. Mainstream adoption is a 5-10 year process. I’m not pushing for it now. I’m building the infrastructure so when mainstream adoption hits, the rails are already laid.
The Brisbane 2032 angle
I want to talk specifically about .brisbane2032, because it’s the most narratively compelling of the six namespaces and the one I’m most excited about.
Brisbane is hosting the 2032 Summer Olympic Games. That announcement happened in 2021. Between now and the opening ceremony, there’s going to be:
- 7 years of construction, infrastructure projects, and venue development
- Tens of thousands of athletes, coaches, officials passing through
- 100,000+ volunteers
- Hundreds of local businesses building Olympic-adjacent products and services
- Tens of millions of tourists in 2032 alone
- A permanent legacy of stadiums, transit, and infrastructure
Every one of those entities is a potential .brisbane2032 namespace claimer. Athletes, teams, coaches, volunteers, businesses, projects, partnerships, official sponsors — every one of them benefits from having a permanent, category-specific address that signals their connection to the Games.
And here’s the thing: .brisbane2032 is a namespace with a built-in expiry narrative. It’s not really expiring (the TLD is permanent), but the cultural energy peaks in 2032 and decays after. Which means the window to claim premium names is the next 6 years, max. After that, the namespace transitions from “active build-up” to “legacy archive,” which is still valuable but different.
This is the kind of operational planning a registrar can’t do because they don’t think in 7-year arcs. An owner-operator can. That’s the structural advantage onchain TLDs give independent operators over corporate registrars.
If you’re a Queenslander reading this, claim your address. If you’re a brand, partner with us. If you’re a journalist, the doors are open. If you’re another operator looking for inspiration, the playbook is here — go build it for your own state.
We’re playing the long game. Come play with us.