[imiric]

I agree that the prices seem arbitrary and high, but since there's no central authority competition could drive the prices down. Eventually I think we'll get to a Let's Encrypt level of service and all of this will be free, as I don't see a technical reason anyone should pay more than the transaction costs.

The high cost does prevent abuse though, as squatting would be a bigger nuisance than it is with traditional DNS if registration were cheap/free.