Josh Lehman: Urbit – The Peer-to-Peer Network Re-Decentralizing the Internet

Urbit is an exciting new operating system and peer-to-peer network that’s simple by design, built to last forever, and 100% owned by its users. Under the hood it's a from-scratch software stack compact enough that individual developers can understand and control it completely. Urbit deconstructs the client-server model in favor of a federated network of personal servers with built-in, cryptographically-owned identity, each of which is capable of distributing and running their own applications that communicate over the Urbit network.

We were joined by the Executive Director of the Urbit Foundation, Josh Lehman, who explained in depth how the Urbit ecosystem was built and now runs, the advantages of the network from user and developer perspectives, the bridge with crypto, and how the roadmap for the kernel is looking going forward.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Josh's background and how he became involved with Urbit
• An overview of Urbit and the current state of the system
• What’s changed about Urbit over the last three years
• Urbit's address space consisting of galaxies, stars and planets
• What Urbit applications are and how they differ from iphone applications or a dApps
• The advantages of the Urbit user and developer experiences
• The connection between Urbit and crypto
• The projects currently being built on Urbit - Holium, Uqbar, Tirrel
• What the roadmap for the underlying Urbit kernel looks like
• How you can get involved

Episode links:

• Episode 205 - A Digital Republic Reinventing the Internet
• Urbit
• Urbit Grants
• Urbit on Twitter
• Josh on Twitter

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This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/450