Yes, you've just read that right. According to the .ASIA registry's latest figures, total proceeds for the Sunrise and Landrush auctions were more than US$7.2 million!

That incredible number has DotAsia understandably waxing lyrical about an auction process that according to them "proved to be a vast improvement of the dispute ridden pure first-come-first-served approach, and has provided a strong foundation for growth for the .Asia domain."

Take that .EU!

DotAsia is obviously taking a swipe at the launch of the European domain with its talk of dispute-ridden prior approaches. But is their auction model any better. For them, the answer is a resounding yes. For the end-user fronting the extraordinary amount of cash these auctions have generated, I'm not so sure.

The actual auctions numbers are staggering. The top 10 names sold at auction averaged US$55,000. The most expensive name was discover.asia at US$112,111, followed by sex.asia at US$ 83,334 and buy.asia at US$73,000.