Chorus One, a blockchain staking provider for over 40 protocols including Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and Polkadot, is expanding to the Urbit peer-to-peer network. This marks Chorus One's first venture onto the Urbit network, according to the company's Gary Lieberman. The new hosting platform, called Red Horizon, comes as Chorus One anticipates a significant uptick in Urbit usage.
Urbit is a peer-to-peer network, launched in 2002 before Bitcoin's emergence in 2009. While not technically a blockchain, Urbit shares many of its ideals, providing each user with a "personal server" for data storage. It aims to eliminate middlemen and centralized "Web2" applications that dominate online activity and profit by monetizing users' data.
Chorus One's Red Horizon could be an ideal choice for the general public, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and other communities seeking to break away from large corporations, as stated in their press release.
A common critique of Urbit is its complexity and difficulty in use. Hosting providers have been introduced as a solution, simplifying the process of obtaining an ID on the network for a fee. The Urbit Foundation Executive Director, Josh Lehman, noted in a CoinDesk's Consensus 2023 conference presentation that the number of IDs or "ships" on the network had surged in the past year due to increased availability of hosting services.
Lieberman believes offering a hosting service for Urbit was a logical extension of Chorus One's staking services for blockchain networks. He stated in an interview with CoinDesk, "We’re anticipating that Urbit itself is going to be a product that a lot of people are going to want to use."
