Maybe I’m ignorant but associating these things with physical land seems like a massive waste of everybody’s time.
Given how popular .io is they should just turn it into a generic top-level domain and be done with it.
Same for .ai before the government of Anguilla grabs everyone by the balls.

word has it theres too much money in letting it die, and even if they did it would take years to wind down.

no reason to freak… yet.