Blockchain
Chorus One, a staking service provider for more than 40 blockchains and protocols, including Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos and Polkadot, joins a growing field of hosting service providers on the Urbit peer-to-peer network.
The new hosting platform, dubbed Red Horizon, marks the first foray into the Urbit network by a major blockchain or technology player that didn’t originally build within the tight-knit ecosystem, according to Chorus One’s Gary Lieberman.
Urbit is a peer-to-peer network that largely works by giving each user a “personal server” to store their own data; when users interact over the network, they each keep local records of those interactions. It was started in 2002 well before the launch of Bitcoin in 2009.
The network is not technically a blockchain, but shares many of the same ideals, such as cutting out middlemen and centralized “Web2” applications that dominate online activity and profit in part by monetizing users’ data.
The new hosting service could be “ideal for the general public, DAOs and any other community interested in leaving MegaCorps behind,” according to Chorus One’s launch press release. A DAO is a decentralized, autonomous organization – a type of group governed by computer code and token holders, as opposed to a company owned by shareholders and managed by executives.
A common criticism of Urbit – recognized even by top developers within the ecosystem – is that it is complicated to understand and difficult to use. The introduction of hosting providers has come partly from an effort to attract more users, essentially making it easy for people to get an ID on the network for a fee.
In May, Josh Lehman, executive director of the Urbit Foundation (known as ~wolref-podlex on Urbit) gave a presentation at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2023 conference, noting that the number of IDs or “ships” on the network had increased over the past year. had risen dramatically as more hosting services became available.
A page on Urbit’s website shows a list of three hosting providers currently operating, including Tlon, the for-profit company that sponsored the network’s development through 2021.
Providing a hosting service for Urbit seemed like a natural extension of Chorus One’s staking services for blockchain networks, Lieberman told CoinDesk in an interview.
“We expect Urbit itself to be a product that many people will want to use,” said Lieberman, who goes through ~tiller toll bus on Urbit. “Hosting was kind of an obvious place to go.”