While in its early history it was primarily known for hosting a board known as /i/,[note 2][note 3][2] then used by the hacker collective
Anonymous[8][9] to stage "invasions" against individuals and web platforms such as
Habbo Hotel,[10] and
Hal Turner.[8]
The modern incarnation of the website was primarily known for hosting discussions about psychoactive drugs legal and illegal.[11] The site was also known for its
LGBT discussion boards, /cd/[note 4] and /sd/.[12][note 5]
As of 1 June 2022, 420chan's main URL, 420chan.org, went offline. On 20 April 2023, the domain was sold to
Fredrick Brennan for $4,200 in Ethereum, and a temporary landing page went up.
Footnotes
Notes
^The
.orgTLD specifies its creation dates in its
WHOIS data using
ISO 8601 dates. The creation date of 2005-04-21T03:39:16Z specifies that the domain was registered on 21 April 2005, in
UTC. However, because Cottle is from Toronto, which in April has time zone
UTC−05:00, the registration actually did happen in the final hours of 20 April 2005.
^As on 4chan, boards are identified by their
URLs, which are typically acronyms or shorthand for the full name of the board.
^Cottle, Aubrey.
"420chan FAQ". Archived from
the original on 7 February 2008. Retrieved 19 May 2020. I was talking to some friends and one of them came up with "420chan", a stupid combination of 4chan and drugs.