Bluesky wants to give you your own domain on the open web

Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider teased long-term plans on Monday when he shared that the company has applied to make “.bsky” an internet domain suffix, like .com or .org. If approved, users will be able to turn their longer social handles into shorter, cleaner domain names.

For instance, instead of @sarahp.bsky.social, my handle could one day become just “sarahp.bsky.”

That could leave Bluesky room to innovate around user profiles, turning them from a simple page that houses someone’s bio and their posts into a more comprehensive personal home page that establishes someone’s online presence.

Bluesky’s application hasn’t been approved yet. Schneider said that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the nonprofit that oversees domain names for the internet, will publish the applications for the new domains on October 7, 2026, and Bluesky’s request will be among them. It’ll take 18 to 24 months for the process to be completed.

Reached for comment, Bluesky said it hasn’t finalized how .bsky domains would be requested, registered or distributed, but the company did say it had no plans to either sell or monetize the domains.

That’s a notable decision given that domain registration can be a profitable business that could serve as a potential revenue stream for a startup that has raised significant funds but isn’t (yet?) generating ad revenue.

However, Bluesky says selling domains goes against its belief in an open web.

“Domains are a big part of the open web, as they allow users to control their own online identity,” said Rose Wang, Bluesky’s COO, in a comment shared with TechCrunch. “Bluesky was built on the belief that you should own your presence online, not rent it from a platform that can take it away.”

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Sarah Perez

Consumer News Editor

October 13 – 15

San Francisco

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