Art Malkov on Liquid Domains: From DEPIN.ai to PreProgrammed.com

Art Malkov represents a rare breed in Web3: someone who has been consistently early to major trends while building real infrastructure rather than chasing speculation. His resume includes serving as CMO at Polymarket, contributing as a founding member at IoTeX during the earliest days of DePIN, and advising Web3 startups through Techstars and Columbia University's accelerator program.

When Art acquired DePIN.ai, he approached it differently than most domain owners would. Rather than holding the domain privately or selling it through traditional over-the-counter channels, Art launched DePIN.ai on Doma. This transformed the domain into a programmable, liquid asset with real onchain utility.

Since launching on Doma, DePIN.ai has demonstrated significant traction. The domain now has 279 token holders who collectively own $DEPIN.AI tokens. Builders and operators have already claimed 248 subdomains, indicating genuine utility rather than pure speculation. The domain bonded and graduated at a $50,000 threshold, with the current fully diluted valuation sitting at approximately $33,647.

However, these numbers only reveal part of the story. The real insight comes from understanding why Art made this choice and what changed after tokenization.

Art's reasoning for choosing DePIN.ai centers on its position at the intersection of two massive trends. DePIN, meaning decentralized physical infrastructure, already represents a multi-billion-dollar sector. AI is obviously much larger and continues accelerating. DePIN.ai serves as the semantic bridge between machines, wallets, and intelligence.

From Art's experience at IoTeX, one principle became clear: machines need identity. Domains remain the cleanest abstraction layer for this purpose. He expects this space to lead during upcoming market cycles and eventually become a multi-trillion-dollar industry.

When asked why domains work better than wallets or IP addresses for machine identity, Art explained that machines no longer operate in isolation. They operate in networks. Wallets provide terrible interfaces for this purpose. IP addresses are even worse since they lack human readability, intuition, and safety at scale.

The internet already solved this problem once through DNS. If machines, agents, and AI are going to communicate autonomously, they need identities that humans can understand, manage, and audit. Domains already provide this for the internet. DePIN.ai simply extends that logic to the machine economy.

Art emphasized that domains have always functioned as strong long-term assets. Holding quality names has worked for decades, and that fundamental truth remains unchanged. However, traditional ownership has always been binary: you either hold and wait, or you sell outright.

Tokenization introduces a third option. By launching DePIN.ai on Doma, Art maintained the long-term upside of the domain while simultaneously introducing liquidity, participation, and real utility. Tokenization does not replace holding. Instead, it expands what holding can look like.

This approach enabled several new possibilities. First, it provided optional liquidity without requiring Art to give up the entire asset. Second, it allowed shared ownership and broader participation from the community. Third, it created real usage through subdomains and onchain integrations. Fourth, it generated ongoing upside through transaction activity. Finally, it transformed the domain into a living, onchain asset rather than just a parked name.

The core value of the domain remains oriented toward the long term. Tokenization simply unlocks more ways to activate that value today.

When asked what surprised him most after launching on Doma, Art pointed first to the speed. He has witnessed fast markets before. But what truly surprised him was who showed up. Demand came from builders and operators thinking in terms of actual usage: gpu.depin.ai, cloud.depin.ai, and robot.depin.ai among others.

When users immediately ask how to claim a subdomain, you know you are not dealing with vapor. That represents real traction, not narrative.

For those who find this interesting but question why it matters now, Art offered a direct response. Timing is the whole point. Machines are coming online faster than people realize. Devices, agents, and robots will all need identity, coordination, and trust before they scale, not after.

This mistake was made with Web2, where infrastructure was patched only once it had already become brittle. When AI and physical infrastructure converge at scale, the naming, routing, and ownership layers that domains provide will become foundational. Learning from the past means getting ahead of the curve.

Following the success of DePIN.ai, Art will launch his next domain PreProgrammed.com on Doma. This one-word .com domain was recently featured on Silicon.nyc, where Young Woo Shin noted that for the first time ever, people can own fractional shares of this premium domain through tokenized ownership on Doma. No $500,000 in cash required. No competing with billionaires. Just transparent, blockchain-based fractional ownership of what he called one of the most philosophically relevant domains in tech history.

Like DePIN.ai, PreProgrammed.com represents a highly relevant keyword spanning multiple sectors including AI, robotics, neuroscience, automation, gaming, IoT, and human consciousness.

The launch is scheduled for January 30th, 2026 at 16:00 UTC. Those interested can sign up to participate through the Doma platform.

This article was originally written by Doma Foundation and published on the [Doma Blog](https://blog.doma.xyz/art-malkov-on-liquid-domains-from-depin-ai-to-preprogrammed-com/). All credit to the original authors. Republished on web3guides.com with attribution to support the Doma community.