Pubky Core

Federated Protocol

An open protocol for per-public-key backends ("homeservers") enabling censorship-resistant web applications with "credible exit" — the freedom to switch homeserver providers without losing data. Identity is an Ed25519 keypair; PKARR (Public Key Addressable Resource Records) publishes DNS-style records to the BitTorrent Mainline DHT for homeserver discovery, while the homeserver itself handles data storage/serving over standard HTTP/REST. Live ecosystem includes pubky.app (social), an Explorer, and demo apps (mapky.app, eventky.app). Structurally comparable to Solid's personal-data-pod-plus-portable-identity model, though homeserver discovery is DHT-based rather than WebFinger/WebID.

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Details

License MIT (confirmed directly against the pubky-homeserver, react-native-pubky, and pkarr repos — not stated on the pubky.org marketing site itself)
Dev Status 🟢 Active
Owner Synonym (maintainer); Tether Company backing noted via footer attribution on pubky.org
Governing Body Synonym (no independent standards body; single-maintainer protocol)
Country Unconfirmed (Synonym; Tether Company backing)
Start Year 2023
Stack Rust (homeserver, core SDK); JS/WASM (@synonymdev/pubky npm SDK); React Native (@synonymdev/react-native-pubky)
Funding Tether Company backing (noted via footer attribution); no disclosed funding round figures
Last Investigated Aug 22, 2026

Use Case Domains

Identity & Trust Platform Evolution & Sovereignty

Affordances

Sovereign identity Trust graph portability Data portability

Federated Protocol Attributes

Origins Personal data sovereignty / P2P identity — public-key-based identity with DHT-based discovery, avoiding both centralized platform lock-in and DNS-registrar dependency (unlike Solid's WebID)
Database Homeserver-hosted (per-user data store served over HTTP; PKARR/Mainline DHT used only for discovery pointers, not data storage)
Query Language HTTP/REST (homeserver API); no separate query language
Data Formats Arbitrary (homeserver stores arbitrary user data/files served over HTTP; no mandated schema)
Collaborative Live Editing N/A (protocol-level; application-dependent)
Rich Text Editing N/A (protocol-level; application-dependent)
Mobile Support Yes (@synonymdev/react-native-pubky SDK)
Web Support Yes (pubky.app, Explorer, mapky.app, eventky.app all web-based)
Native Apps Yes (Rust core + JS/WASM + React Native SDKs support native app integration)
Terms Self-hosting (run own homeserver) + hosted homeserver providers; identity (keypair) and homeserver are separable, matching the protocol's "credible exit" design
Funds Undisclosed
Based On PKARR (Public Key Addressable Resource Records) for homeserver discovery via BitTorrent Mainline DHT; standard HTTP/REST for data serving
Content Addressing No (homeserver data addressed by HTTP path; PKARR records addressed by the owning public key, not content hash)
E2EE Not stated as a protocol-level guarantee (application-dependent); transport is standard HTTPS
Signature Ed25519 keypair-based identity and authentication
Permissions Homeserver-defined (per-homeserver access control over hosted data)
Semantic Web Compatibility Not stated (arbitrary data storage, no mandated RDF/Linked-Data layer, unlike Solid)
Federation Model Homeserver-based (analogous to Solid Pods): any homeserver can serve any keypair-identified user; discovery is DHT-based rather than DNS/WebFinger; apps and homeservers are decoupled
Instance / Server Requirements Low to moderate (homeserver designed to be self-hostable; Docker Stack and CLI tooling provided)
Account Portability Full portability by design — "credible exit" is the protocol's own stated core value proposition: switch homeserver providers without losing data or identity
Discovery / Relay Architecture PKARR-based: Ed25519 keypair signs DNS-style records published as BEP44 mutable items on the BitTorrent Mainline DHT; HTTP-to-DHT relay gateways bridge browser/UDP-restricted clients
Server Authority Model User-controlled identity, homeserver-controlled data custody unless self-hosted — keypair identity is independent of any single homeserver's authority
Protocol Maturity / Standardization No formal standards-body process; single-maintainer (Synonym) reference implementation; live production components alongside actively-developed pieces
Data Sovereignty User-controlled (keypair-based identity independent of hosting provider; credible exit between homeservers)