A persistent question in the domain names industry, to which the Ruetir news magazine provides a few answers.

On the one hand, it explains, the dot-xyz TLD has become impressively popular. With 4.8 million websites using this extension, it is now “fourth among new and old generic domains; just behind the podium, still very prominent, made up of .com, .net and .org.” Some first-class businesses have chosen the .xyz for their online presence, and the TLD has especially attracted many crypto and blockchain ventures in the past years (including Block.xyz, the new venture of Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey).

On the other hand, all is not perfect in the kingdom of XYZ, an “alphabet-soup” TLD which by essence lacks any meaning. In all logic, it gathers any kind of businesses, in opposition to the trend (and the purpose) of meaningful gTLDs used to better organize the Web and develop content around thematic communities. Also, an initial aggressive marketing for the TLD “prompted the purposeful purchase of random .xyz domains to be used as support for scams,” and this contributed to its success too.

All in all, although an oddity in the new gTLD space, equally attractive to scammers and promising start-ups alike, .xyz is here to stay and can boast about its 10,000 new registrations per day, concludes the magazine.