.XYZ sent out an email the other day announcing that they were taking live domain name direct registrations from their registry site at Gen.xyz for .XYZ domains
While a lot of new gTLD registries look like they take registrations from their registry site, I believe that .XYZ joins only Uniregisty as a registry, to have live domain name registrations from the registry site.
.XYZ appears to be a domain name registrar reseller, rather than have their own Registrar credentials.
I would guess they are an Enom reseller.
A .XYZ registration on Gen.xyz is $10 a domain.
.College is the next string being launched by the same company that owns .XYZ and also has a live registration site (just for Sunrise) at go.college which is offering free first year registrations to accredited colleges and universities.
I would have thought with ICANN expanding their rules to allow companies to be both a registry and a registrar we would have seen more of this blending approach already.
Typically a registry will refer a customer to one of its ICANN accredited registrars if a domain is available.
Allowing customers to register domains in one seamless transaction from the registry site, seems a natural winner as most customers still have no idea of what the difference between a registry and a registrar is, nor do I think most really care.