PKARR

P2P Protocol

Public Key Addressable Resource Records — converts an Ed25519 keypair into a self-controlled "domain": DNS-style records (A/AAAA/TXT/CNAME) are signed and published as BEP44 mutable items on the BitTorrent Mainline DHT, resolvable anywhere without registrars or platforms. HTTP-to-DHT relay gateways bridge browser and UDP-restricted clients to the DHT. Built directly on the existing BitTorrent Mainline DHT (P2P Infra) rather than new infrastructure — leverages a 15+ year-old, ~10M+ node network. Serves as the discovery/naming layer under Pubky Protocol's homeserver architecture. [b]

Company
Links
Visit Website See this tool in the graph Suggest an edit

Details

License MIT (confirmed)
Dev Status 🟢 Active
Owner Pubky (Synonym)
Governing Body Pubky / Synonym (protocol maintainer); underlying Mainline DHT is community-governed via the BitTorrent.org BEP process
Country Unconfirmed (Synonym; Tether Company backing, same as sibling Pubky Protocol)
Start Year 2023
Stack Rust (pkarr core library, pkarr-relay HTTP gateway); JavaScript/WASM (@synonymdev/pkarr bindings)
Funding Unconfirmed (Synonym/Pubky-affiliated, no disclosed dedicated PKARR funding)
Last Investigated Aug 22, 2026

Topology view

This tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.

Topology view: PKARRThis tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.PKARRBitTorrent Mainline DHT (Based on)BitTorrentMainline DHTElohim Protocol (Basis for, Interoperates with)ElohimProtocolPubky Protocol (Basis for, Storage for)PubkyProtocol

Open in Graph Explorer

Use Case Domains

Identity & Trust Platform Evolution & Sovereignty

Affordances

Sovereign identity Data portability

P2P Protocol Attributes

Origins Distributed naming / identity — reusing BitTorrent's existing Mainline DHT as a "sovereign TLD" substrate instead of building new discovery infrastructure or depending on DNS registrars
Database N/A (records are ephemeral DHT entries, not persistent storage — BEP44 mutable items with hour-scale retention requiring periodic republishing)
Query Language N/A (DHT lookup by public key, not a query language)
Data Formats Signed DNS-style records (A, AAAA, TXT, CNAME) as BEP44 mutable DHT items, 1000-byte size limit
Collaborative Live Editing N/A
Rich Text Editing N/A
Mobile Support Yes (JS/WASM bindings support mobile web/hybrid contexts; used by Pubky Protocol's mobile SDK)
Web Support Yes (@synonymdev/pkarr JS/WASM bindings; pkdns.net web resolver demo)
Native Apps Yes (Rust core library embeddable in native apps)
Terms Free / open protocol; relay operators may charge, but self-relaying is possible
Funds Undisclosed
Based On BitTorrent Mainline DHT (P2P Infra — specifically BEP44, the arbitrary mutable-data storage extension, rather than new infrastructure); Ed25519 signing
P2P Architecture Kademlia DHT (inherited from Mainline DHT); PKARR does not run a separate overlay — it publishes into the existing BitTorrent DHT
Overlay Network Reuses the existing global BitTorrent Mainline DHT overlay rather than establishing its own
Content Addressing Partial — records addressed by the owning Ed25519 public key (key-addressed, not content-hash-addressed)
Local-First N/A (naming/discovery layer, not a data-storage system)
E2EE No (DHT records are signed for authenticity, not encrypted for confidentiality)
CRDTs Lib N/A
Byzantine Fault Tolerance Inherits Mainline DHT's probabilistic resilience — no formal BFT consensus
Signature Ed25519 (keypair signs each DNS-style record packet)
Permissions Key-holder-only write access — only the corresponding Ed25519 private key can publish/update a given record
Semantic Web Compatibility N/A (DNS-style records, not RDF/Linked Data)
Smart Contract N/A
Protocol Stack Position Discovery/naming layer beneath application protocols — Pubky Protocol's homeserver discovery mechanism sits directly on PKARR
Asset / Value Embedding N/A
Protocol Maturity / Standardization No formal standards-body process; single-maintainer (Pubky/Synonym) reference implementation, v8.0.0, actively released and maintained

Relationships

How this tool connects to other tools and organizations, from relationships reviewed by the OpenHaven data steward. They describe how projects connect, not how good they are.

Based on
Interoperates with
Basis for
Storage for