Urbit Review:A Universal Personal Server
Original article by EVALUAPE
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A. Brief Introduction
Urbit wants to build a universal personal server, trying to solve the problem that the current users can not manage their own accounts, passwords and devices effectively. And therefore to create a new form of network.
B. Mode
First, we must roughly understand the working principle of urbit. Each urbit consists of the virtual computer nock, the programming language hoon+ and the operating system arvo. Rather than a traditional virtual computer with pre-set functions, the nock can free from historical input and continuously evolve. After creating an urbit, users can have its own 32-bit address. Urbit has a Galaxy system to manage these addresses. Each user has hundreds of millions of sub-addresses under their own planet address. These sub-addresses can be used to store user’s data, accounts and passwords in various other apps and web pages. Actually, an identity is an address, in which all personal data can be accommodated in a private server. When more and more people start to use urbit, real P2P interaction will occur between people, urbit and urbit, instead of interacting on an application’s cloud server. In terms of form, urbit is equivalent to a WeChat which integrates all applets, and the server is managed by users through their private keys. Thus, a web page is a static entry which can enter into other services. It is similar to block stack as well. So, the question is how to let traditional service providers or websites to interact with urbit to provide more services for users. Urbit proposes a competition system theory that when more and more people start to use urbit and personal data control become a consensus, those websites or applications will spontaneously provide api interfaces or connections to the urbit network in order to obtain users. And thus, urbit users will get more services, and the whole ecosystem will develop under the influence of positive feedback. In the end, everyone will tend to use urbit as a private server to access the Internet. This kind of like the competitive strategy of the Brave browser. Of course, urbit at current stage only has a test beta with basic functions like chatting, and there is still a long way to go before the actual value can be achieved. And urbit in its nature is not a typical blockchain project, but a disruptive innovation experiment using a distributed computing tool.
C. Token Economy
Urbit token can be regarded as a land or an address under the Galaxy system. Its future appreciation logic is similar to the land.
D. Technology
Urbit technology concept is to overthrow the traditional server deconstruction, and to create a new set of logical self-consistent system. So the team soul character Curtis spent 11 years to develop the system consists of the virtual computer nock, the programming language hoon+ and the operating system arvo, and he also proposed a p2p network -ames, with a total of 30,000 codes. Ames has already launched its test beta, and the chatting function on its official website is based on it. According to reports, the underlying system, nock and arvo, has been very stable, and only the upper layer functions need to be improved. The specific implementation logic needs more experts to testify. The Galaxy system address of the project is deployed in Ethereum for address confirmation. Currently, this is the only part where the project is combined with the blockchain. The purpose is to return the private key management of the address from the centralized team to users.
E. Technology
You can find its open source on Github with 2791 Commit, 136 fork. The dicussion is heated.
F. Team
Currently the project has a Tlon company established in 2014 for incubation.
Galen Wolfe-Pauly, CEO of Urbit, graduated from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art majoring in Architecture. He was development director of Huge, and worked as technical director in the fashion brand Baggu for 7 years.
Curtis Yarvin, CTO of Urbit, graduated from Johns Hopkins University, Brown University and Berkeley University. He is a computer scientist, political philosopher, and his pen name is Mencius Moldbug, the soul of the project. Yarvin started the urbit prototype design at his own garage in 2002 because he felt the current Internet have some issues. He was known for his direct connection with Trump’s consultant Bannon in 2017. In addition, he made some controversial political statements based on racism. He is a standard weird geek, but the history of other members does not have many highlights.
Consultants and Investors: There are two consultants, the founder and CSO of forecasting projects augur and gnosis. The investors include famous VC — a16z, Zhen fund and the co-founder of Skype. It is a strong consultant team.
G. Ecosystem
There are 5347 twitter followers . The project is in low-profile with few media coverage.
H. Conclusion
Urbit is not a typical blockchain project. They started the development journey long before the concept of blockchain and even the birth of Bitcoin. It is more like a new type of personal computer tool, just using the blockchain technology ETH to help it to store the private key of the “Galaxy” address. Regardless of the innovative value of both the concept and the implementation method, it is difficult to evaluate the geek heterogeneous project initiated by CTO’s wild imagination through a paradigm evaluation system. Its future will either really have subversive value or be another great unsuccessful experiment. But undoubtedly, after the enlightenment of Bitcoin, there are certainly a lot people willing to pay for this idea.
Hype Score: Medium
Risk Score: Medium-high
Investment rating: Medium-High
Total Score:7.6
All information in this article is provided for reference only and does not constitute investment advice.
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