As part of our third anniversary to celebrate .xyz as the most popular new domain in the world, XYZ introduced the 1.111B® Class as a new platform for innovation and creativity that leverages the full power of the DNS. On 11/11, this new class of .xyz domains – all 6, 7, 8, and 9-digit numerics – was automatically rolled out to all 400+ retailers in our global network to join early supporters like GoDaddy, Uniregistry, and Name.com to offer these domains for a recommended retail price of 99¢ per year for unlimited creates, renewals, and transfers.

One sample use case for this innovative new class of domain names is the need for a simple and secure solution to bring cryptocurrencies to the masses. Despite the growth of Bitcoin and Ethereum, there is an element of complexity that is preventing mass market adoption. Domain names, on the other hand, are already ubiquitous to hundreds of millions of business and investors, with 24/7 customer support, 100% uptime, and safeguards like 2-factor authentication, transfer lock, and WHOIS privacy protection. This global familiarity with domains, combined with our reduced 99¢ annual carrying costs and transaction fees, is what makes the .xyz 1.111B® Class the perfect decentralized platform for coin management and trading. Which is why last week during DevCon3, Nick Johnson from Ethereum announced a partnership with XYZ to add ETH mapping capabilities to .xyz domains using DNSSEC.

Nick provided detailed instructions on how to map Ethereum to .xyz domains on his blog.

The importance of this new development cannot be overstated. .xyz domains paired with ETH are now effectively internationally-tradable assets. For example, an American can easily transfer funds from his/her GoDaddy account to someone in Japan using Onamae, in France using Gandi, or in VietNam using Matbao. The transaction is publicly recorded in the WHOIS history, although title can be kept private at the owner’s option. There are no foreign transaction fees or currency conversion rates, and regardless of value, the transfer fee is always just 99¢. High value assets can then be registry locked for an additional layer of security.

This new level of convenience allows non-technical users to begin trading and investing in Ethereum through hundreds of domain retailers worldwide. Best of all, there is no new account setup or infrastructure required – everything can be done from your current registrar using their existing framework. This makes Ethereum immediately accessible to hundreds of millions of existing domain customers!

But innovation doesn’t begin and end with cryptocurrencies. The purpose of the 1.111B® Class is to encourage nontraditional usage of domains, whether it be for Internet of Things (IoT) device connectivity, advanced networking, or vanity personal/product identification. We have seen this class of domains be used for autonomous research (205908.xyz), router networking (205777.xyz), and calendar countdowns (20380119.xyz). A browser-based calling solution is already in the works, and I fully expect sequential blocks to be paired with serial numbers to serve as device portals in the future. And all of this can be done while still using your .xyz domain as an email address and an Ethereum wallet!

11/11 marks the beginning of a new paradigm of innovation. The possibilities for the 1.111B® Class truly are endless, and I look forward to collaborating with more businesses and organizations to introduce new utility to the DNS. If you have not yet registered any 1.111B® Class .xyz domains, use our search tool to identify available patterns or blocks that can be hand registered for 99¢ per year each. To watch Ethereum’s full announcement at DevCon and to read the whitepaper, visit www.AYDACFU.xyz.