Urbit

The Point described Urbit OS1 as a "bare-bones messaging server" and compared it to 1990s era Usenet.

Tlon, the company founded by Yarvin to build Urbit, named after the short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges, has received seed funding from various investors since its inception, most notably Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund, with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz invested $1.1 million.{{Cite book |last=Pein |first=Corey |title=Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley |publisher=Metropolitan Books |date=2018 |isbn=9781627794862 |location=New York |chapter=Poor Winners}} The Urbit community talks up its association with and funding from Thiel, who has also backed Urbit public events.{{Cite web |last=Sutton |first=Ruby |date=October 13, 2022 |title=My Weekend With the Martians |url= https://astra-mag.com/articles/my-weekend-with-the-martians/ |access-date=July 20, 2023 |work=Astra}}

The Point estimated Urbit's active user base as of September 2022 at "a few thousand".

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.{{cite web |url= https://media.urbit.org/whitepaper.pdf |title=Urbit: A Solid-State Interpreter |last1=Yarvin |first1=Curtis |last2=Philip |first2=Monk |last3=Dyudin |first3=Anton |last4=Pasco |first4=Raymond |date=May 26, 2016 |work=Tlon Corporation |access-date=June 13, 2019}}{{primary source inline|date=May 2020}}

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.

Yarvin called Urbit "functional programming from scratch" in 2010. The Register described Urbit as having "reinvented some very Lisp-like technology".{{Cite web |last=Proven |first=Liam |title=The weird world of non-C operating systems |url= https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/29/non_c_operating_systems/ |access-date=July 20, 2023 |work=The Register}} Reason described Urbit as "complicated for even the most seasoned of functional programmers".{{cite web |last=O'Sullivan |first=Andrea |date=June 21, 2016 |title=Can Urbit Reboot Computing? |url= https://reason.com/2016/06/21/can-urbit-transform-the-internet/ |access-date=May 6, 2020 |work=Reason}}

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".{{cite web |url= https://slate.com/technology/2015/06/curtis-yarvin-booted-from-strange-loop-its-a-big-big-problem.html |title=When All It Takes to Be Booted from a Tech Conference Is Being a "Distraction," We Have a Problem |last=Auerbach |first=David |author-link=David Auerbach |date=June 10, 2015 |work=Slate |access-date=June 14, 2019}}

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.{{cite web |url= https://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/why-it-matters-that-an-obscure-programming-conference-is-hosting-mencius-moldbug.html |title=Controversy Rages Over 'Pro-Slavery' Tech Speaker Curtis Yarvin |last=Townsend |first=Tess |date=March 31, 2016 |work=Inc.com |access-date=June 14, 2019}}

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".{{Cite web |last=Yarvin |first=Curtis |date=January 12, 2010 |title=Urbit namespace |url= https://github.com/cgyarvin/urbit/blob/6ac688960687aa9c89d4da6fff49a3125c10aca1/Spec/urbit/3-intro.txt |archive-url= https://archive.today/20210905001458/https://github.com/cgyarvin/urbit/blob/6ac688960687aa9c89d4da6fff49a3125c10aca1/Spec/urbit/3-intro.txt |archive-date=September 5, 2021 |access-date=July 20, 2023 |work=GitHub}}

In a 2019 blog post, Yarvin said Urbit "is not designed as a political structure".{{cite web |url= https://urbit.org/blog/a-founders-farewell/ |title=A Founder's Farewell |date=January 14, 2019 |work=Urbit.org |access-date=June 13, 2019}} Josh Lehman, Executive Director of the Urbit Foundation, denied in 2022 that Urbit was "digital feudalism".

Andrea O'Sullivan of libertarian magazine Reason described Urbit in 2016 as having a "libertarian vision".

Yarvin departed Tlon in 2019. Lehman said that the "hardest part" of his work at Tlon had been to distance Urbit from Yarvin. Yarvin returned to Urbit in 2024.{{Cite web |url= https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/j-d-vance-dimes-square-the-art-world-new-right-conservatism-1234716130/ |title=What Do J.D. Vance, Dimes Square, and the Art World Have in Common? More Than You Think |first=Helen |last=Holmes |date=August 29, 2024 |work=ARTnews}}

In April 2024, the Urbit Foundation board fired Lehman, and Yarvin returned to a leadership role at Urbit with no formal title.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

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• {{official website|https://urbit.org}}

Category:Blockchains

Category:Computing platforms

Category:Internet technology companies of the United States