1. You are not getting .io names at a discount from nic.io? No insider deals/information?

2. The Only advantage you have at acquiring an expired domain names at nic.io is your propriatiatry program. A program that is just faster at buying these expiring domains--just faster than your competition?

3. You only know when a .io domain name is due to expire is by looking at the same WHOSIS info we look at?

4. I ask these questions because so many of these domain buying services are just to magical. We tend assume the worst.

They've bought up the closest server they can to the bid receiving server at the registrar and/or they send their purchase request before the domain becomes available -- accounting for the network latency -- so that their bid gets there at the exact millisecond that the domain drops.

My personal domain drops at 2018-0X-0YT00:00:00Z, then IIRC it takes 75 days for it to be cleared. So presumably if your request for that domain arrives at 1 microsecond after midnight on that date then you "win" it.

Surely there's no secret sauce beyond that?

We have no special advantage other than our knowledge and technology