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Happy New Year #GenXYZ! We hope you’re as excited for 2018 as we are. But in all the anticipation surrounding the start of a new calendar year, it’s important to take time to reflect on everything that was accomplished in the previous one. For all of us here at XYZ, that list of accomplishments is something we couldn’t be prouder of. But we didn’t do it alone, so we want to look back at all the awesome things Generation XYZ helped make happen in 2017.

Major new XYZ initiatives launched in 2017

2017 was a big year for growth here at XYZ. We acquired our 10th domain extension, .Storage, and re-launched it as an unrestricted namespace, which caught the attention of storage businesses and even coverage by industry resources like Sparefoot. Earlier in 2017, after teasing a big announcement for months through our AYDACFU campaign, we launched a new class of 1.111 billion .xyz domains, dubbed the 1.111B® Class. It encompasses all 6 through 9-digit numeric .xyz domains that have been reclassified for alternative uses, and we’ve already seen some very unique examples of active 1.111B® Class sites.

Speaking of alternative uses for .xyz domains, one of our favorite highlights in 2017 was the announcement of the exclusive partnership between Ethereum and XYZ, which allows users to pair their .xyz domains to their Ethereum wallets, making crypto trading and management a simple process through any registrar that offers .xyz. This partnership opens up Ethereum to a whole new audience and gives .xyz adopters an unprecedented new freedom in how to use their domain. Check out a video of Ethereum announcing the partnership at their DevCon3 event below.

Partnerships and events that helped make 2017 great

If you’ve been a regular reader of our monthly event recap blog series, you already know that we’ve visited dozens of countries and countless cities around the globe to spread the word about .xyz this year. We brought the #XYZsquad to San Diego for Comic-Con, then to Downtown Los Angeles for the world’s biggest gaming convention, E3, and they even danced their way onto Austin’s local news at SXSW. And that was just the beginning – they also made pit stops in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, among other places.

In addition to making .xyz’s presence known to the public at major events like these, we are also proud to be able to connect directly with the members of #GenXYZ with the help of our strategic partners. Product Forge regularly provides .xyz domains to the innovators who participate in their hackathons, CoderDojo teaches middle school and high school students how to code with their own .xyz domains, and Junior Achievement implemented a new website requirement to their 13-week entrepreneurship classes, which gives high school students .xyz domains – and all the other necessary tools and resources – to build their company’s first website.

.XYZ end users make a big splash in 2017

All of us at Team XYZ clearly have a lot to look back on and be proud of from 2017, but none of it would be possible without the support and passion of all of you in the #GenXYZ community. Your passion is what motivated us to eventually claim two Tech in Motion TIMMY Awards this year, one for Best Tech Workplace for Diversity and another for our CEO Daniel Negari for Best Tech Manager. So below we’re sharing just a few of the many big successes from our end users in 2017:

MIT’s Engine.xyz raises $200 million in funding for new startups

Starship.xyz featured on BuzzFeed News

Waive.Car receives funding on Shark Tank

Dodge creates concierge tracking service on Performance.Cars

We’re proud of everything that the #GenXYZ community and our team accomplished this past year, and we know that 2018 is only going to be better. We have some very exciting new initiatives rolling out this year, so be sure to stay up to date on all things XYZ by subscribing to our newsletter, reading our blog, and follow us @XYZ on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

XYZ is proud to share about the many incredible members that make up the XYZ community! We encourage you to do your own research before using the products and services of the websites we feature. The information about products and services contained in this blog post does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by XYZ.

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