News

X To Sell Rare Usernames For Up To Seven Figures

The platform’s new handle marketplace lets paid users claim dormant usernames, with some priced in the millions.

Published

7 months ago

October 21, 2025

x to sell rare usernames for up to seven figures

X has opened a marketplace for inactive usernames, turning what was once a common but very “grey” trade into an official channel. Paying subscribers can now buy or request dormant handles — and the most coveted may cost more than a million dollars.

Two categories are on offer. “Priority” handles cover full names or phrases such as @PizzaEater or @GabrielJones. These are tied to Premium+ and Business subscriptions, which must stay active or the handle can be revoked. “Rare” handles — short or generic names like @one or @fly — will be sold through invitation-only sales or public drops. Some may be given away “based on merit,” a term X links to user engagement and past contributions.

Prices for rare handles start around $2,500 and can rise into seven figures, depending on demand and cultural value. Buyers must hold a paid tier to apply but can keep the handle without renewing once it’s assigned.

X calls the project “an evolving initiative” and says it wants to set “a new standard for social media handles,” comparing it to how Community Notes reshaped transparency on the platform.

Andrew Allemann, publisher of Domain Name Wire, said the plan mirrors the expired domain market. “People have been buying and selling handles off X for a long time, and X hasn’t been getting a cut of that,” he said. “This will get some of the better handles back into use”.

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Allemann was, however, keen to point out that even if someone purchases a username on a social media platform, they don’t own any of the content they publish. “If you create your website, you control it, and people can always come to it. On social media, the single billionaire owner of it could decide they don’t like you, and it’s pretty much within their rights to kick you off”.

This latest move by X follows a string of contested reassignments — including the @X, @Music and @America handles — and shows how the company is treating usernames less as personal identifiers and more as tradable assets within its paid ecosystem.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.