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Urbit
Decentralized personal server platform From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Urbit is a decentralized personal server platform[4] based on functional programming[5] in a peer-to-peer network.[6]
The Urbit platform was created by political blogger Curtis Yarvin.[5] The first code release was in 2010.[7] The Urbit network was launched in 2013.[2] The first user version (called OS1) was launched in April 2020.
In 2022, the main software in an Urbit installation was a "bare-bones" text-based message board.[8]
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Functionality
The Point described Urbit OS1 as a "bare-bones messaging server" and compared it to 1990s era Usenet.[8]
Tlon, the company founded by Yarvin to build Urbit, named after the short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges,[8] has received seed funding from various investors since its inception, most notably Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund, with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) invested $1.1 million.[9] The Urbit community talks up its association with and funding from Thiel, who has also backed Urbit public events.[10][8]
The Point estimated Urbit's active user base as of September 2022 at "a few thousand".[8]
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Technical details
The Urbit software stack consists of a set of programming languages ("Hoon", a high-level functional programming language, and "Nock", its low-level compiled language); a single-function operating system built on those languages ("Arvo"); a runtime implementation of that operating system ("Vere"), public key infrastructure, built on the Ethereum blockchain ("Azimuth"), for each Urbit instance to participate in a decentralized network; and the decentralized network itself, an encrypted, peer-to-peer protocol.[11][12]
The 128-bit Urbit identity space consists of 256 "galaxies", 65,280 "stars" (255 for each galaxy), 4,294,901,760 "planets" (65,535 for each star), and comets under those.[10]
Yarvin called Urbit "functional programming from scratch" in 2010.[5] The Register described Urbit as having "reinvented some very Lisp-like technology".[13] Reason described Urbit as "complicated for even the most seasoned of functional programmers".[14]
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Politics and controversy
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In 2015, Yarvin's invitation to discuss Urbit at the Strange Loop programming conference was rescinded; the conference organizer said Yarvin's "mere inclusion and/or presence would overshadow the content of his talk".[15]
In 2016, after Yarvin was invited to the functional programming conference LambdaConf to discuss Urbit, five speakers and three sponsors withdrew their participation. Their stated reasons were Yarvin's claim that white people are genetically endowed with higher IQs than black people and his support of slavery.[16]
The source code and design sketches for the project alluded to some of Yarvin's views, including initially classifying users as "lords", "dukes", and "earls". Yarvin described this structure of Urbit in 2010 as "digital feudalism".[8][17]
In a 2019 blog post, Yarvin said Urbit "is not designed as a political structure".[18] Josh Lehman, Executive Director of the Urbit Foundation, denied in 2022 that Urbit was "digital feudalism".[10]
Andrea O'Sullivan of libertarian magazine Reason described Urbit in 2016 as having a "libertarian vision".[14]
Yarvin departed Tlon in 2019. Lehman said that the "hardest part" of his work at Tlon had been to distance Urbit from Yarvin.[10]
In April 2024, the Urbit Foundation board fired Lehman,[citation needed] and Yarvin returned to a leadership role at Urbit as an informal "wartime C.E.O.". This prompted several top employees to resign in protest.[19][20]
The Galactic Senate
All 256 Galaxies, the highest tier ranks in the identity space hierarchy, collectively form the Galactic Senate, the main governing body of the Urbit network. By definition, Galaxy holders vote on any proposals that affect the network. A proposal is cryptographically signed as an Ethereum transaction and the resulting contract upgrades are distributed as software updates, first from the parent Galaxies, to their child Stars and then to their child Planets.
A law can be passed with majority (voter support of over 50%) and if a quorum of 64 galaxies is reached.[21]
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2025 Urbit Leadership Crisis
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Background
The Urbit Foundation (UF) has faced financial, developmental and governmental mismanagement over the years. Under the leadership of Executive Director Josh Leman, this culminated in the foundation running out of money in 2024. The UF board of directors failed to oversee Leman's plan to turn finances around and the board fired Leman in response. To the suprise of the community, the board immediately appointed Yarvin (who later become Executive Director) after having been absent since 2018, in order to turn around the foundation's finances. Ryan Kneer, a UF board member, worked with Yarvin to see this plan through.
In early 2025, A16Z invested an additional $4 million into the Urbit Foundation.[22] As Executive Director, Yarvin faced complaints from the UF community, board, and developers for poor leadership and executive decisions, notably from board member Kneer.[23]
In June 2025, Kneer personally fired Yarvin to take control of the turnaround plan, but himself was fired 2-1 by the UF board, around one week later on June 25th, 2025.
In response, Kneer submitted a formal motion to the Galactic Senate on July 2nd to replace members of the UF board with five well-known developers and community members.
First Proposal
Citing Yarvin's ineffective leadership, the current UF board's misalignment and misunderstanding of the goals of the Urbit project, and the disregard for maintainer contributions, Ryan Kneer (~master-malwal) submitted a formal motion to dissolve the current board of directors and replace it with community members:
•︎ ~rovnys-ricfer
•︎ ~palfun-foslup
•︎ ~dinleb-rambep
•︎ ~sicdev-pilnup
•︎ ~master-malwyl
Kneer proposed to move core development to Neoscape, where the devs could continue to contribute towards the vision of privacy that the Urbit community unanimously supports, claiming that it would make "censorship technically impossible, not merely promised".[23]
Yarvin retorts in his own proposal: "If the core devs run the UF, they will run it into the ground (...) they cannot be in charge of killing what they eat for a simple reason-- they just aren't killers."[22] Yarvin suggests the core devs would be unable to satisfy market demand, stating to "leave the jungle to the jungle creatures" and though he is "40% jungle creature"[22] that he "knows how terrifying the real ones are." He continues, attributing the question of his leadership as a fundamental issue of political science, and subsequently clarifies that means "politics", not "office politics".[22]
Yarvin's proposal would be directly control the UF in absolute terms, while providing funding to a core guild with strings "as loose as possible" to the UF, and it is here where the developers can make technical decisions. Furthermore, this proposal would allocate resources into launching an $Urbit coin on a centralized exchange, and to fund experimental "spin-offs" that, after failing and eventually succeeding, would become their own companies.[24]
The voting period for Kneer's proposal ended on July 26th, 2025. Despite unanimous community and technical support for Kneer's proposition, either side failed to gain a majority, with an evenly split vote at 19/19.
This stall was due to bridgading by A16Z galaxy holdings and Yarvin's supporters.
Second Proposal
In wake of the failed first proposal, Urbit developer Tom Holford submitted a revised and less ambitious proposal for immediate transitional governance.[25]
Holford's proposal called for the immediate dissolution of the current UF board upon receiving majority support, followed by the formation of a three-member interim board with representatives from each camp (Yes, No, Neutral/Abstaining). During this transition period the acting Executive Director would be immediately restricted from strategic and operational authority, including: address space sales, hiring decisions, implementation of Neoscape and Moses strategic plans and any decisions beyond core development. The interim members are namely:
Yes: Jeremy Tunnell (~watseb-sogwyt) Alternate: Sam Frank (~todset-partug) or Joe Bryan (~master-morzod)
No: Eddy Lazzarin (~liglyn-widlec) Alternate: Michael Hartl (~ticryn-ritsyd)
Neutral: Neutral / Abstain: Bill Arzt (~malmur-halmex) Alternate: Lane Rettig (~hocfur-modlex)
With any post-interim board would consist of 5 members.
Yarvin posted a "deal" on the Urbit website to divest UF funds for his new entity, "Hidden Tiger". This was not authorized by any board members and has since been taken down. Eddy Lazzarin from A16Z proposed a deal to the council: The UF would give up 66% of its operating treasury for a 15% stake in Yarvin's new entity. While the UF community and developers continue to back Tom's proposal or similar proposals, A16Z holds blocking power and would therefore need to switch votes from "No" to "Yes".[24]
As of late July 2025, Urbit's governance remains unresolved, pending A16Z's decision to support Holford's proposal.
As of October 2025, the situation remains unchanged and Yarvin continues blog activity on the Urbit website.[26]
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Underlying issues
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Perspective
From its initial status as a non-profit organization, now turned private venture, Urbit's community development depends on a small number of open-source developers with the promise that individual contributions are rewarded. The UF board firing Kneer and reappointing Yarvin after 8 years without contributions ("Actually I haven’t written a line of code since I came back")[22] and Yarvin's contradictory inability to separate personal politics from effective corporate leadership has been a point of unanimous contention in the UF community, which Yarvin himself has acknowledged.[22]
The 2025 election crisis highlights fundamental disagreements between the Urbit community and its foundation over what their principal values are, where development focus should be most active, and how executive power should be granted. The community developers, associated with the cypherpunk movement, advocate for Urbit to continue developing the core personal-server functions that guarantee personal data ownership and user privacy. In contrast, the UF board favors operating as a traditional venture-capitalist startup, prioritizing product-market fit, user traction and political appeasement in order to fund development.
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Notes
- Urbit's runtime, Vere, is versioned and released differently
References
External links
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