Former Gateway customers can now claim their domains for FREE at Namecheap using the AUTH CODE and COUPON CODE that has been sent to the email on your Gateway account.
Claiming the domain is FREE as long as you use the provided COUPON CODE at Namecheap. Claiming the domain at another registrar will require the usual renewal price.
Gateway domains have been extended and their expiration is now Dec. 31st, 2024. Claiming the domain at Namecheap will not renew the domain further.
Some TLDs (like .txt and .base) are no longer staked with NB Registry and so their subdomains cannot be claimed. The .sats and .wallet TLDs will be available for claiming at a later date.
To claim, go to the Transfer Page on Namecheap.com. Enter the Gateway domain you wish to claim, hit enter, and then supply the AUTH CODE from the claim email. There is also a Bulk Transfer interface where you can enter multiple domains and AUTH CODEs at once.
Add the domain(s) to your cart. On the VIEW CART page, enter the coupon code from the claim email in the PROMO CODE area on the Cart page. You should see "FREE TRANSFER" and $0.00 subtotal.
Checkout to complete the transfer order. Your domain will temporarily show "WITH ANOTHER REGISTRAR" in your account. Once the transfer process is complete, this message will clear on its own, and you will receive a confirmation email, usually in less than an hour.
BACKGROUND
When the Gateway.io registrar went out of business, we had the domains in our NB registry database, but without any contact information for the owners. There was no way to determine the correct owners of the domains in a fair way. Additionally, the NB registry did not yet support transferring domains from one registrar to another, so the process of moving the domains into Namecheap accounts would have required individual operation from both Namebase and Namecheap staff.
Fast forward to January 2024, and the missing Gateway customer info was finally provided to us! In the meantime we had also built out the AUTH-CODE transfer functionality for NB Registry, so all the pieces were in place to enable these claims.