ChainCatcher News: The British government announced that it would give up its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean and transfer it to the neighboring island nation of Mauritius. Once the treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. International organizations will update their records.

Previously, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) nominally assigned ".io" as a country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) to the British Indian Ocean Territory. The return of the Chagas Islands will cause the British Indian Ocean Territory to disappear, and the corresponding ISO-3166 two-letter country code IO and the ".io" domain name may also be cancelled.

Today, many users and businesses view “.io” as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) rather than a country-specific domain. As of 2023, approximately 1.2 million “.io” domains have been registered, a large portion of which are cryptocurrency-related companies.